Candidate Ross Perot coined the colorful phrase "giant sucking sound" during the 1992 presidential campaign to express his fears for what the then-proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would do to American jobs.

Now the phrase refers to something a little closer at hand -- the lowering of water levels in the southern Otero County Salt Basin because of Texas agriculture, according to the Alamogordo Daily News.

And there's not much New Mexico can do about it, hydrologist Steve Finch told members of the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce Water Committee on Monday, the Daily News said.

The Salt Basin extends from southern New Mexico near Timberon, down into Texas, with most of the basin located within Texas, and ground water from the Salt Basin eventually flows into the Pecos River system, the paper reported.

Recharging the Salt Basin comes from snow pack and storm water, and the estimated recharge on the New Mexico side comes to about 34,500 acre-feet a year, and an estimated 20,000 acre-feet on the Texas side, Finch told the chamber. 

Since water was discovered in 1947 in the Dell City, Texas, area, just south of the New Mexico border, agriculture has expanded and some 20,000 to 30,000 acres are irrigated in the Dell City area, pumping out about 100,000 acre-feet a year for agricultural purposes, Finch told his audience.

New Mexico water use in 1995 out of the Salt Basin was 11,242 acre-feet a year, part of total appropriated water rights of 192,683 acre-feet a year, with another 200,000 acre-feet pending in applications on the New Mexico side, Finch reported.

Just 30 miles north of Dell City, inside the New Mexico state line, the average ground water drawdown between 1940 and 2000 was about one foot a year, said Finch.

"What that tells me is the bathtub is starting to lower," Finch said.

Finch outlined three options to increase New Mexico's use of the Salt Basin water, but said because of lack of access, financing and population density, those options are very limited, the Daily News reported. 

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