Water Matters!

Lots of news this on this week’s Water Matters. Kelsey Fendler rows the Pacific (paywalled)Mark Olalde, Alex Hager, and Sharon Chischilly on the Northeastern Arizona water settlementAlgal blooms at Clayton Lake, but also dinosaur tracks! Santa Clara raises its water ratesHigh tech fire detection in Albuquerque’s bosqueRoswell water quality reportHeather Sackett on Colorado West Slope lawmakers breaking from their state’s tough stance on Colorado River negotiationsNew Mexico ...

Guest: Aidan Manning This week Rin Tara and John Fleck are joined by Aidan Manning from New Mexico Wild’s Rivers and Waters Program to talk about El Niño and what it means for New Mexico’s weather and climate. Dr. Manning explains how a shift in temperatures in the equatorial Pacific can have big impacts on the patterns of wet and dry weather, tipping the odds Since Rin, John, and Aidan recorded this conversation, the forecasts have been updated. Odds of a moderate or stronger El ...

Guest: Anne Marken Anne Marken gets up every morning and looks at snowpack data and river flow numbers. As the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District’s River Operations and Telemetry Manager, it’s Marken’s job to marshal the Rio Grande’s precious water through New Mexico’s Middle Valley, juggling a dizzying array of competing needs, interests and values. In this week’s Water Matters, Anne talks with Rin Tara and John Fleck about what that means in this most difficult of water years, with decl...

In this week’s Water Matters, Rin Tara and John Fleck talk about the delightfully named “jiggle,” a series of pulses released from Isleta Diversion Dam downstream from Albuquerque. It’s a technique valuable in dry years to encourage the spawning of the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. And this is a very dry year – the lowest flow ever recorded for late April, for example (when Rin and John recorded this), at the US Geological Survey’s historic Embudo Gage. Links: · &n...

When Irving Berlin penned “White Christmas” more than six decades ago, he did not have Albuquerque in mind. According to the National Weather Service, the chances of actually seeing falling flakes here on Christmas are about one in thirty. But that does not stop Rin Tara and John Fleck from hoping, scanning the long range weather forecasts as they write those last holiday cards and record their last podcast of 2025.

This week, Rin and John talk about flows on the Rio Grande, planning for a new federal river management project south of Socorro, groundwater contamination questions, and the future of federal clean water regulation. Rio Grande With the irrigation season over and the Rio Grande’s riparian vegetation shutting down for the winter, river flows are up through Albuquerque. But the biggest reason for the high flows is the annual Rio Grande Compact accounting exercise, as water stored in Abiquiu res...

Rin Tara and John Fleck discuss water conditions in New Mexico for the week of November 10.

Guest: Don Bustos, Santa Cruz Farms Irrigated from the Acequia del Llano running across the upper end of his four acres outside Española, New Mexico, Don Bustos' Santa Cruz Farms feels as if it has been there as long as the land itself. A rambling walk through the farm follows ditches carrying the water past patches of asparagus and the last of the blackberries, down one side past some new herbs Bustos is experimenting with - a path the water has traveled for the 400 years this land has been ...