By William M. Turner
Hydrologist
On June 12 the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered that Upper Colorado River Basin water that is delivered into the Rio Grande Basin by the San Juan-Chama Project must be used to sustain the silvery minnow. The decision triggered outrage because municipalities in the Rio Grande Basin have been paying for that water for 40 years. Now, they may not get it.
Though of concern, the real question our leaders should be facing is whether we should be depending on the San Juan-Chama water at all— or is there a more dependable, long-term supply already in the basin.
The truth is there is no water shortage in the Rio Grande. Studies conducted by the State Engineer, the Interstate Stream Commission, Bureau of Reclamation, Army Corp of Engineers and water scientists show that open reservoir water loss in New Mexico due to evaporation is up to 591,000 acre feet a year. This is more than six times the amount actually contracted for by Rio Grande municipalities.
The Jicarilla Apache tribe successfully sued Albuquerque 25 years ago to prevent it from storing its San Juan-Chama water in Elephant Butte Reservoir. Under the Albuquerque plan, Albuquerque would have stored the water in Elephant Butte, trading it when needed with the Elephant Butte Irrigation District for EBID water taken out of the river at Albuquerque.
At trial, I showed that by the time Albuquerque recovered its San Juan-Chama water, a minimum of 93 percent of it would be lost to evaporation from the surface of Elephant Butte Reservoir. That means more than 1 million acre feet of water would have been lost if the Jicarillas had not successfully defeated the Albuquerque plan.
The decision in the Jicarilla case should have been a wake-up call to our leaders that it was time to change the paradigm for water management in the West. It was not. Recent studies indicate that evaporation loss from Cochiti, Elephant Butte and Caballo reservoirs is about 392,000 acre feet a year when the reservoirs are at full capacity.
Let's put that into perspective. Currently, annual municipal and industrial water usage for the entire state of New Mexico is only 195,000 acre feet. Silvery minnow usage is estimated at about 20,000 acre feet a year.
Our valuable water resources are continually squandered and yet, our officials turn a blind eye to the solutions that could easily meet the water needs of both the silvery minnow and the entire state.
The water shortage myth persists because the evaporated water loss is ignored in our planning. In fact, the amount of wasted water exceeds by about four times the total amount of water that the San Juan-Chama is supposed to deliver into the Rio Grande.
Though the State Engineer has long held that all Rio Grande water is appropriated water, it is not true. The evaporated water is unappropriated water because it has never been used beneficially.
A reasonable new water management paradigm will use Cochiti, Elephant Butte and Caballo reservoirs as sedimentation and temporary storage basins.
Ground water storage and retrieval projects should be carried out either by private enterprise or in public/private partnerships within the boundaries of the Rio Grande surface water catchment basin. Water can be stored in the Santa Fe Group aquifer from Taos to Las Cruces and within the Hueco and Mesilla bolsons of southern New Mexico and Mexico.
Three years ago the state Legislature realized the importance of ground water storage and retrieval projects in conjunctive water management, and enacted legislation to allow owners of such projects to maintain ownership of the water salvaged.
Salvaged water should be used for environmental restoration, endangered species preservation, agriculture stabilization and future municipal and industrial beneficial uses within the Upper and Lower Rio Grande and possibly Mexico.
Because the water wasted by evaporation has never been used, existing Indian and non-Indian water rights— whether adjudicated or not— would not be disturbed or impaired.
William M. Turner has been a consulting hydrologist in New Mexico and worldwide for nearly 40 years. He is the trustee of the WaterBank Trust, a nonprofit organization that seeks to find news ways of dealing with water and environmental issues.
opinion 
E-mail Story
Print Friendly
