Elephant Butte, Caballo lakes boosted by monsoon rains

Water levels at Elephant Butte Lake and Caballo Reservoir have climbed in recent weeks, thanks to regional monsoon rainfall. While the increases aren't on the scale of what happened in 2013, when precipitation resulted in steep water-level spikes, they're also nothing to overlook, local water officials said. Water levels in both lakes typically reach their lowest point of the year around the end of the summer irrigation seasons in Doña Ana County, El Paso County and Mexico — three areas that all rely upon the reservoirs to water their crops. In all, the volume of water in Elephant Butte Lake rose 32 percent since its end-of-irrigation-seasons low point on Aug. 2, according to numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water releases from both reservoirs. An extra 41,600 acre-feet of new water flowed into the lake, boosting the total as of late last week to about 172,500 acre-feet, or about 8.5 percent full...more