At least fifteen native fish species and their aquatic habitat once found in the southern portion of the Rio Grande are now gone because the river dries up every year. In parts of the Southwest some authorities are so fearful of deficits in water supplies they've entertained Durango, Colorado-based Western Weather Consultants' pitch to acquire a “weather control and precipitation enhancement license" from the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission but after criticism for not consulting with pueblos the application was withdrawn in 2022. Despite objections from the environmental community the commission's Weather Control Committee approved a Texas company's bid for weather modification in mostly Republican Chaves, Colfax, Curry, DeBaca, Eddy, Guadalupe, Harding, Lea, Lincoln, Otero, Quay, Roosevelt and Union Counties.
A compact limits Colorado to 100,00 acre feet and New Mexico to 200,000 acre feet each year. A lawsuit that could settle a river allocation dispute between New Mexico and Texas is being heard by the Supreme Court of the United States but a deal has been announced and if approved could end the squabble. An acre foot is almost 326,000 gallons or about enough liquid to cover an American football field with a foot of water.
New Mexico owes Texas about 90,000 acre feet as part of the compact but Texas strung razor wire on its border with the Land of Enchantment further poisoning the prospects for cooperation.
Through a $500 million investment, New Mexico will purchase treated brackish and treated produced water to build the strategic water supply. New Mexico sits atop substantial aquifers of brackish salt water, which cannot be used for human or agricultural consumption without treatment. Brackish water supplies are separate from freshwater resources underground. Estimates indicate there may be between two and four billion acre-feet of brackish water underneath New Mexico. A 25 million gallon per day brackish water treatment plant could produce up to 27,900 acre-feet of potable water a year. [Gov. Lujan Grisham to establish first-of-its-kind Strategic Water Supply – $500 million investment will leverage advanced market commitments]ip image: snow geese winter at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge on the Rio Grande near San Antonio, New Mexico.
The Rio Grande Compact Commission voted unanimously Friday during its annual meeting in Santa Fe to direct its legal and engineering advisers to look into developing protocols for formal discussions with six pueblos that border the river in New Mexico. https://t.co/P0JzjwJosg
— KRWG Public Media (@krwg) April 24, 2023
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