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'Unplanned water release' from Cochiti Dam washing down the Rio Grande
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An “unplanned water release” from Cochiti Dam on Tuesday was expected to cause the Rio Grande to rise by several feet in Albuquerque by 8 p.m., federal agencies announced.
No flooding is expected, but the public is advised to avoid the riverbanks for 48 hours, the agencies warn.
“It’s not a break, and it’s not a leak,” said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Chief of Operations Jeff Knack. “It was a pulse, so to speak.”
The release was the result of a “procedural error during routine maintenance,” according to an Army Corps news release. The incident is “under review,” Knack said, and there is no more information at this time.
Between 10 a.m. and 10:50 a.m., the release said, approximately 24 million cubic feet of water was released from Cochiti Lake — about the water quantity of 271 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Still, the water traveling down the Rio Grande is less than a typical spring runoff, Knack said.
The river level was measured at 3.2 feet in Albuquerque at about 5 p.m. In San Felipe, the river was expected to rise to 7½ feet by 6 p.m.
Overlooking the Rio Grande in Bernalillo, Sandoval County Emergency Manager Dan Heerding watched the river rise from the pedestrian bridge. The river rose about two and a half feet in a half hour, he said. People appearing to be homeless milled about under the bridge, unperturbed by the rising water and Heerding’s warning.
“We do have a large transient population,” Heerding said. “We just wanna make sure people are safe.”
