Spring has begun and that means irrigation season is getting underway in the Middle Rio Grande Valley.

Hundreds of miles of ditches throughout Valencia County and northern Socorro County have been charged and are almost ready to begin delivery of water to farmers throughout the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District’s Belen Division.

“We are doing a staggered start again this year and in the process of charging the Belen division, which is 47 percent of what the district maintains,” said Jason Casuga, MRGCD CEO and chief engineer.

The Belen division operates and maintains about 505 miles of ditch, which provides irrigation for about 30,100 acres, according to the MRGCD website.

The district is anticipating water delivery to begin in the division by Saturday, March 25, Casuga said, and he encourages irrigators to call their irrigation systems operators to get on the schedule.

As the spring runoff begins dumping water into the irrigation system, Casuga wants people to remember the water will be cold and swift.

“I want to remind people the ditches are for irrigation and right now that water is going to be cold,” he said. “As it warms up, it’s tempting to go in, but it is dangerous. We want people to enjoy the right of ways as the valley greens up but be safe.”

So far snow pack and soil moisture conditions are much better now than this time last year, which will result in higher and longer flows through the spring in the middle Rio Grande, but Casuga cautioned there are still challenges ahead for the 2023 season.

To make the most of the water available, and protect native species that call the middle valley home, the MRGCD is launching its third year of implementing operations plans that reduce water consumption in the middle valley and increase deliveries to Elephant Butte.

The district always looks at demand when scheduling deliveries, Casuga said, so while the river is connected to the irrigation system, it will adhere to 80 percent of that demand.

“This is the right step we need to take to help New Mexico with compact debt,” he said. “It’s a lot of money (being paid) by (district) rate payers to fix El Vado. We want to make sure it’s fixed. The mission of the district and other agencies is easier to achieve if we can store water.”

Currently, the district can’t store irrigation water behind El Vado Dam on the northern end of the irrigation system for two reasons. One is a “debt” to the state of Texas of about 100,000 acre-feet of water required by the state’s Rio Grande Compact.

On a more practical front, El Vado Dam, which is owned by the federal government, is undergoing extensive rehabilitation and is physically unable to hold water. As the project progresses, it’s anticipated the district will have partial storage capacity — providing compact debts have been satisfied — by 2024, with the rehab projected to be completed by 2026.

“From a stream forecast standpoint, which informs what the (Rio Grande) is going to look like in the spring, it’s night and day from this time last year,” the CEO said. “Most of the basins generating native water are at 100 percent or higher. The soil moisture in the watershed as a whole has improved, so it won’t ‘drink’ as much during the run off before it hits the streams.

“All things right now point to a good runoff we can maybe live off of until June.”

Another highlight for this irrigation season is an expected full allocation to the district of San Juan Chama project water of 20,900 acre-feet. Last year, the district received 67 percent of that allocation.

Most of the district’s irrigation water comes from runoff from the snow pack at high elevations, and is referred to as native water. The San Juan Chama water comes to the state through a pipeline project that pulls water from a different basin in Colorado.

“While there are improvements from last year, this does not mean the Rio Grande Basin is no longer experiencing drought. After spring runoff, it is very likely there could be river channel drying through Albuquerque just like we saw last year,” said Anne Marken, MRGCD water operations manager in a recent press release.

In 2022, for the first time since the 1980s, the Rio Grande ran dry in Albuquerque. That year also saw the district announce in late May that water would run out in just a few weeks. Farmers managed to eek out a growing season last year thanks to rainfall and that small delivery of San Juan Chama water.

“The biggest water supply challenge for this year is the MRGCD’s inability to store native Rio Grande water for later use,” Marken said in the same release.

While snow pack in most basins that supply the middle valley is currently at or above 100 percent of average conditions, by the end of spring runoff, “we will largely find ourselves in the same situation we were in last year, as we get to the hot parts of summer, which is praying for rain,” said Casuga.

If monsoon rains do not produce significant runoff, irrigators should, unfortunately, expect limitations to irrigation deliveries in the summer and fall, he concluded.

What’s your Reaction?
+1
2
+1
0
+1
0
+1
1
+1
0
+1
0

Julia M. Dendinger began working at the VCNB in 2006. She covers Valencia County government, Belen Consolidated Schools and the village of Bosque Farms. She is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists Rio Grande chapter’s board of directors.