Middle Rio Grande Valley water irrigation season beginning, but with drought, how much water, and for how long?

The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District began diverting water into its irrigation ditches this week, but uncertainty hovered in the background over how much water valley farmers will get, and for how long.

Farmers between Cochiti and Elephant Butte who use Rio Grande water to irrigate their corn and alfalfa face three problems this year:

• Two years of drought have left the Conservancy District’s reserves, stored in reservoirs in the Chama River Basin, largely depleted.
• Snowpack this year is lousy, with runoff forecast to be just half of normal.
• Soil moisture and shallow aquifers in the basin’s watersheds are also lousy, meaning that the first slug of what water does run will go to paying off that drought deficit.

March 1 is the typical start date for the District, but the agency is beginning a little early this year, with the first water turned into the ditches yesterday at the Isleta diversion dam, according to David Gensler, the agency’s water manager.

Diversions at Cochiti are likely to begin Friday, with the Angostura dam’s diversions starting Monday, Gensler said. For now, as my colleague Roberto Rosales’ photo shows, the ditches in the Albuquerque reach remain dry, but that should begin changing over the next week as the water begins to flow.

If you’re interested in tracking the movement of water for yourself, the MRGCD maintains a great real time water management web page.

I’ll have more in tomorrow’s newspaper about the prospects for the coming irrigation season.