New Mexico water project comes up short

For the first time its four-decade history, the San Juan-Chama Project has fallen short on the amount of water it has delivered from the mountains of southwest Colorado to central New Mexico. Water managers say the effect on Rio Grande Valley water operations was small, but the implications are significant. They say it demonstrates that a supply once seen as dependable backup to a faltering Rio Grande might not be as reliable as once thought. “It’s one of those things that was always a theoretical possibility, but nobody thought it would come to pass,” David Gensler, water manager for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, told the Albuquerque Journal. This year’s shortage amounted to 10,000 acre-feet. One acre-foot is about enough to serve two average households for a year. The first-ever shortfall comes after three consecutive years of bad snowpack. Federal officials had warned last year that shortages might be possible and that climate change would mean less reliable supplies from the project as temperatures throughout the region warm.  AP