Albuquerque Was ‘Drought-Proof’—Until Its Dam Started Leaking

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Mark Garcia tin spot that there’s nary shortage of h2o successful the Rio Grande this year. The stream flows past his workplace successful cardinal New Mexico, astir 50 miles southbound of Albuquerque. The unreserved of springtime h2o is simply a invited alteration aft years of drought, but helium knows the bully times won’t last.

As the summertime continues, the stream volition diminish, leaving Garcia with a strict ration. He’ll beryllium allowed irrigation h2o for his 300 acres conscionable erstwhile each 30 days, which is obscurity adjacent capable to prolong his harvest of oats and alfalfa.

For decades, Garcia and different farmers connected the Rio Grande person relied connected h2o released from a dam called El Vado, which collects billions of gallons of stream h2o to store and yet merchandise to assistance farmers during times erstwhile the stream runs dry. More importantly for astir New Mexico residents, the dam strategy besides allows the metropolis of Albuquerque to import stream h2o from agelong distances for household use.

But El Vado has been retired of committee for the past 3 summers, its operation bulging and disfigured aft decades successful cognition — and the authorities doesn’t person a program to hole it.

“We request immoderate benignant of storage,” said Garcia. “If we don’t get a large monsoon this summer, if you don’t person a well, you won’t beryllium capable to water.”

The nonaccomplishment of the dam has shaken up the h2o proviso for the full portion surrounding Albuquerque, forcing the metropolis and galore of the farmers adjacent to trust connected finite groundwater and threatening an endangered food taxon on the river. It’s a astonishing twist of destiny for a portion that successful caller years emerged arsenic a model for sustainable water management successful the West.

“Having El Vado retired of the representation has been truly tough,” said Paul Tashjian, the manager of freshwater conservation astatine the Southwest determination bureau of the nonprofit National Audubon Society. “We’ve been truly eking by each twelvemonth the past fewer years.”

Surface h2o imports from the El Vado strategy person mostly allowed nationalist officials successful Albuquerque to bounds groundwater shortages. This echoes the strategies of different ample Western cities specified arsenic Phoenix and Los Angeles, which person enabled colonisation maturation by tapping divers sources of h2o for metropolitan regions and the farms that beryllium extracurricular of them. The Biden medication is seeking to replicate this strategy successful water-stressed agrarian areas crossed the region, doling retired more than $8 cardinal successful grants to enactment pipelines and reservoirs.

But the past decennary has shown that this strategy isn’t foolproof — astatine slightest not portion clime alteration fuels an ongoing megadrought crossed the West. Los Angeles has mislaid h2o from some the Colorado River and from a bid of reservoirs successful Northern California, and Phoenix has seen declines not lone from the Colorado but besides from the groundwater aquifers that substance the state’s fabric and alfalfa farming. Now, arsenic Albuquerque’s decrepit El Vado dam goes retired of commission, the metropolis is trying to equilibrium aggregate fragile resources.

El Vado is an unusual dam: It’s 1 of lone 4 successful the United States that uses a alloy faceplate to clasp backmost water, alternatively than a wide of stone oregon concrete. The dam has been collecting irrigation h2o for Rio Grande farmers for adjacent to a century, but decades of studies person shown that h2o is seeping done the faceplate and undermining the dam’s foundations. When engineers tried to usage grout to capable successful the cracks down the faceplate, they accidentally caused the faceplate to bulge retired of shape, threatening the stableness of the full structure. The Bureau of Reclamation, the national bureau that manages the dam, paused operation and is present backmost astatine the drafting board.

Without the quality to cod irrigation h2o for the farmers, the Bureau has had nary prime but to fto the Rio Grande’s earthy travel determination downstream to Albuquerque. There’s plentifulness of h2o successful the spring, erstwhile snowfall melts disconnected the mountains and rainfall rushes toward the ocean. But erstwhile the rains peter retired by the commencement of the summer, the river’s travel reduces to a trickle.

“We tally truly accelerated and blessed successful the spring, and past you’re disconnected beauteous precipitously,” said Casey Ish, the conservation programme supervisor astatine the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the irrigation territory that supplies h2o to farmers similar Garcia. “It conscionable creates a batch of accent connected the strategy precocious successful the summer.” The uncertainty astir h2o rationing causes galore farmers to forego planting crops they aren’t definite they’ll beryllium capable to spot to maturity, Ish added.

The beleaguered dam besides plays a captious relation successful providing h2o to the fast-growing Albuquerque metropolitan area, which is location to astir a cardinal people. As the metropolis grew implicit the past 100 years, it drained section groundwater, lowering aquifer levels by dozens of feet until the metropolis got a estimation arsenic “one of the biggest water-wasters successful the West.” Cities crossed the portion were mining their groundwater successful the aforesaid way, but Albuquerque managed to crook its atrocious habits around. In 2008, it built a $160 cardinal h2o attraction works that allowed it to cleanable h2o from the distant Colorado River, giving officials a caller h2o root to trim their groundwater reliance.

The nonaccomplishment of El Vado is jeopardizing this achievement. In bid for Colorado River h2o to scope the Albuquerque attraction plant, it needs to question done the aforesaid acceptable of canals and pipelines that present Rio Grande h2o to the metropolis and farmers, “riding” with the Rio Grande h2o done the pipes. Without a dependable travel of Rio Grande h2o retired of El Vado, the Colorado River h2o can’t marque it to the city. This means that successful the summertime months, erstwhile the Rio Grande dries out, Albuquerque present has to crook backmost to groundwater to proviso its thirsty residential subdivisions.

This renewed reliance connected groundwater has halted the betterment of section aquifers. The h2o level successful these aquifers was rising from 2008 done 2020, but it slumped retired astir 2020 and hasn’t budged since.

“We person had to unopen down our aboveground h2o works the past 3 summers due to the fact that of debased flows successful Albuquerque,” said Diane Agnew, a elder authoritative astatine the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, which manages the region’s water. Agnew stresses that aquifer levels are lone flattening out, not falling. Still, losing El Vado retention for the agelong tally would beryllium detrimental to the city’s wide h2o resilience.

“We person much than capable proviso to conscionable demand, but it does alteration our equation,” she added.

The Bureau of Reclamation is looking for a mode to hole the dam and reconstruct Rio Grande h2o to Albuquerque, but close present its engineers are stumped. In a caller gathering with section farmers, a elder Reclamation authoritative offered a frank appraisal of the dam’s future.

“We were not capable to find method solutions to the challenges that we were seeing,” said Jennifer Faler, the Bureau’s Albuquerque country manager, successful remarks astatine the meeting.

The next-best enactment is to find determination other to store h2o for farmers. There are different reservoirs on the Rio Grande, including 1 ample dam owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, but repurposing them for irrigation h2o volition impact a lengthy bureaucratic process.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation told Grist that the bureau “is moving diligently with our partners to make a program and finalize agreements to assistance alleviate the mislaid retention capacity” and that it “may person the quality to safely store immoderate water” for farms and cities adjacent year.

In the meantime, farmers similar Garcia are getting impatient. When a elder Bureau authoritative broke the atrocious quality astatine an irrigation territory gathering past month, much than a twelve farmers who turn crops successful the territory stood up to explicit their vexation with the delays successful the repair process, calling Reclamation’s announcement “frustrating” and “a shock.”

“If we don’t person immoderate h2o for the agelong term, I person to fto my employees go, and I conjecture commencement looking for ramen noodles someplace,” Garcia told Grist.

Even though determination are lone a fistful of different alloy faceplate dams similar El Vado successful the United States, much communities crossed the West are apt to acquisition akin infrastructure issues that impact their h2o supply, according to John Fleck, a prof of h2o argumentation astatine the University of New Mexico.

“We’ve optimized full quality and earthy communities astir the mode this aging infrastructure allows america to manipulate the travel of rivers, and we’re apt to spot much and much examples wherever infrastructure we’ve travel to beryllium connected nary longer functions the mode we planned oregon intended,” helium said.

As the West gets drier and its dams and canals proceed to age, much communities whitethorn find themselves forced to onslaught a equilibrium betwixt groundwater, which is casual to entree but finite, and aboveground water, which is renewable but challenging to obtain. The nonaccomplishment of El Vado shows that neither 1 of these resources tin beryllium relied upon solely and consistently — and successful an epoch of higher temperatures and aging infrastructure, adjacent having some whitethorn not beryllium enough.

This nonfiction primitively appeared successful Grist astatine https://grist.org/drought/albuquerque-water-el-vado-dam/. Grist is simply a nonprofit, autarkic media enactment dedicated to telling stories of clime solutions and a conscionable future. Learn much astatine Grist.org