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This is what counts for good news on the New Mexico drought front these days – a weekly Drought Monitor in which conditions stayed the same:
Drought Monitor
“Stayed the same” means some pretty stark problems remain, though, as Gabrielle Burkhart reported last night for KRQE:
A water war is about to boil over in southeastern New Mexico.
One side is demanding water from the other side, and both say their futures depend on what little water there is.
At the heart of this problem is a lack of rainfall.
For the last couple years, water has been a rare sight in the Pecos Valley.
“We are experiencing the driest 24 months in 117 years; this is a historic drought,” explained Superintendent Aron Balok, of PVACD, the Pecos Valley Artesian Conservancy District in Roswell.
In addition to the Pecos, similar problems are looming on the Lower Rio Grande, with less serious but clearly notable problems on the middle Rio Grande (the bit from Cochiti to Elephant Butte) and in the headwaters of the San Juan, which delivers water to Albuquerque and Santa Fe via the San Juan-Chama Project.
But hey, at least in this week’s drought map things didn’t get any worse!
Reprint story -- Email the reporter at jfleck@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-823-3916
