Ad
Featured
Dry most of the year, the lower Rio Grande flows for irrigation season
Published
Modified
LAS CRUCES — The lower Rio Grande is flowing through Doña Ana County once more, following the annual release of river waters captured at the Caballo Lake reservoir, south of Truth or Consequences.
Since the release last Friday, the water has pushed south, pulling debris and sediment from riverbeds that sit dry for a majority of the year as climate change intensifies and long-term drought makes for shorter, drier irrigation seasons .
In Las Cruces, people have gathered daily in vacant areas and a city park at the riverside to enjoy the rushing water that will nourish diversions for regional agriculture as it makes it way to Texas and Mexico.
On Tuesday afternoon, on a passage near city limits, a lone kayaker drifted as idly as a reed on the river’s surface.
The Elephant Butte Irrigation District set the 2025 irrigation season’s allotment from the river at 6 inches per acre at its May 14 meeting, and released water from the Caballo reservoir on May 30. The district anticipated deliveries of water to farms to begin this week once systems are flushed and primed.
In the first days since the release, suds and spongy masses were prominent on the surface — a normal phenomenon, said Gary Esslinger, EBID’s manager-adviser.
“The foam, as I understand, is made up of nutrients, some traces of vertebrae, bacteria and organic material left in the sand and co-mingled in a unique blend of suds that seem to get stimulated each irrigation season when the initial release is made from Caballo and the water from the reservoir is introduced to the dry riverbed,” Esslinger said.
Following EBID’s schedule, the river will flow for approximately 90 days before being choked off once more.
