A battle is being waged in court this week over the amount of water in the Rio Grande. Because of this year's drought, the water supplies keeping the river flowing may run out as early as next week. A week or so from now, there might only be a sandy riverbed running through Albuquerque.
The battle, however, is not merely over whether or not the river should be kept flowing, but when emergency reservoirs should be used. In northern New Mexico there is a 158,000 acre-foot reservoir designed to provide water to the state's cities and farmers. Environmentalists are arguing that this water should be released now, to help save the endangered silvery minnow.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has sided with the city of Albuquerque in contending that the water would be better saved for future uses. Albuquerque, Santa Fe and other New Mexico towns have obligations to provide water for the San Juan-Chama Project, and the entire state has requirements for delivery of water into Elephant Butte Reservoir for use by Texas.
Letting the river go dry is no one's favorite option. The drought we face is a challenge to the state's already thin water resources. Contracts between New Mexico and Texas, between cities within New Mexico, and the needs of residents, farmers and industry all compete for the relative trickle of water in the Rio Grande.
Now, adding to the chaos, environmentalists have taken the water issues to federal court, seeking to force the state to release hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water solely for the benefit of the silvery minnow.
They claim that the endangered species is close to extinction, and that without this water there is little hope it will survive the drought-stricken year. A biology report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, however, claims that the interests of the silvery minnow would better be served by withholding the water. Then, next spring, when that water is released, it can help the minnows spawn in the river.
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The stability of the silvery minnow is not well known by anyone. Whether the species can survive at all in the long term is a hotly debated question. If the state's drought continues, there may be no way to save them.
Emptying reservoirs now could be disastrous if the drought continues, since those supplies will be needed more for human purposes in the spring than at present. Yet these environmentalists say that ensuring the survival of the silvery minnow outweighs all of these concerns.
To some extent, we have no control over whether the minnow goes extinct or not. If they die out this year, but in future years the river returns to its normal flow, the minnow can be respawned with human help and by surviving minnows in the state's lakes. But even then, if the minnow is just not hardy enough to thrive in the low-water conditions of New Mexico, it may well die out on its own.
The priority of our governments, local, state, and federal, should be to manage the dwindling supply of water as conservatively as possible, so that it lasts long enough to see us through the drought. Hopefully, these experiences have taught the Bureau of Reclamation never to underestimate the severity of a drought in this state.
While preserving the state's biodiversity is and should be a consideration in the use of our water, it should take a back seat to the more urgent needs posed by human and farmland needs.
The next decade promises to be a more or less constant battle over water rights, with a grim outlook for New Mexico. We should hold on to the water we have as long as we can. Who knows what challenges and no-win scenarios our water crisis will bring to us next year?
by Craig A. Butler
Daily Lobo Columnist
