The Quiet Water Arrives

In the night, the dogs wake us. Just outside our bedroom window there are men in the pecan orchard with flashlights. The quietly flowing irrigation water is here; water moving silently without the noisy groundwater well pumps we have gotten used to in these drought years.

This year's irrigation allocation started its journey a week and a half ago when released from the Elephant Butte Dam upstream. It has made its way down the state through the dry bed of the Rio Grande, branching off into canals and ditches to the gates that let it into fields and orchards.

The water comes to the farmers when the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (known around here as EBID--the initials; or spoken as a word--Ebid) schedules it, thus the voices at three in the morning. They are checking to see that the water has gotten to the farthest reaches of this orchard before moving to the next.

The soft Spanish voices call out to each other that the orchard is full. They carefully step across the slick flooded clay and drive off quietly in their pickup truck to close one orchard's gate and open another.

 The thirsty spadefoot toads begin their joyous songs.

 

At dawn, the toads are quiet; if you turn up your volume you can mostly hear doves and roosters waking with the day.

Water is a Really Big Deal Here

This is the way the Rio Grande has looked all winter: Dry and empty. People walk their dogs and fly kites in the riverbed. That sign warns people not to swim because of the strong current. No problemo.

The Rio is a managed river, no longer allowed to run free. Snowmelt and runoff is stored upstream from here in reservoirs; water treaties between Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico determine who gets how much when the water is released. Our governing body here in southern New Mexico is the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID), which allots water to farmers and determines when the water will be sent down the river bed to them. This year southern New Mexican farms will get only 8 acre inches, up from 3 acre inches last year, but way below the usual 3 acre feet in good years.

Looking upstream

We went to see the newly flowing water, all silty and sludgy, as it made its way down the other day. This is a water event comparable to something like ice-out on Lake Winnipesaukee back in New Hampshire.

Big problem, though: None of this water is meant for the farmers here or in Texas, right now. EBID had originally scheduled the release for everyone's water all at one time in mid-May, but there was some kind of communications problem and the farmers in Mexico still expected to receive their water at the usual time, right about now.

There's a lot of foamy brown stuff as the water first sweeps through the dry river bed

Because the Mexican farmers weren't given enough notice to make other plans to pump from groundwater until the May release, they demanded (within their rights by treaty) to have their water sent now. The water in these photos will pass through New Mexico and Texas on its way to Mexico and there will be plenty lost to evaporation and through sinking into the dry riverbed. 

The view downstream

By the time they start getting their water in mid-May, the farmers here in New Mexico will have lost yet another precious acre inch of this year's scarce water allotment because of this earlier release to Mexico, and will have to pump that much more from their wells, pulling water from the underground reserves in the aquifer. Pumping is expensive, the aquifer is shrinking, and deeper pumping costs even more.

Pumping a new well in the orchard

Local farmers are having to drill new, deeper wells to get to the water they need for irrigation. Here is the drilling rig out behind our place in the pecan orchard; it's been working for days, drilling deeper and deeper for precious water.

For more information on this subject:

Release to Mexico in the Rio Grande Project, April 3, 2012

Official Website of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District

Water Supply Outlook, March 2012

New Mexico Ground Water Fact Sheet

What's Not to Love, for Skywatch

Here in southern New Mexico, land of 

little rain 

big sky 

and sizzling green chile

We love our water

We love our blue skies

And we love our chile fields

When we see all three together

We stop and take pictures 

*****

See beloved skies all over the world at Skywatch Friday. 

Biking Along the Canal

Whether you call it the acequia or the ditch or the canal, it is the lifeline that brings water to the fields of the Mesilla Valley and makes the place an oasis in the midst of the Chihuahuan Desert. I tend to call it whatever I have last heard it named; I spoke the other day with a native of the area who has lived here for 85 years--he was charming and he called it the canal, and so I call it that now.

Early, early on Saturday morning, just as the sun was coming up over the Organ Mountains, Beez and I climbed into our saddles and took off for a lovely ride up the canal. The skies were an unusual overcast gray that made the light, together with the low angle of the rising sun, just perfect for photography.

We passed chile fields, alfalfa and onion fields, and maybe even some cotton fields, although we don't know how to recognize young cotton plants just yet. The mother ducks herded their babies along the water banks, the air was cool and smelled like water and soil, and everyone we met along the footpath called out, "Beautiful morning, isn't it?"

The Other Side of the Bridge

Emma looking embarrassed in those bows from the groomer (don't worry, she took them

out right after the photo was taken)

Another day, another morning mile. This time I took along my pup, Miss Emma. Em was born with bad knees but the vet says that short walks are fun for her and not too painful. Let me tell you, there was plenty of spring in her step this morning when she saw the leash.

Keeping those poor knees in mind, we only went as far as the bridge over the ditch. Along the way we saw plenty of other morning milers--young folks walking dogs before work, older retired couples, and a rosy-cheeked lady on a bike.

This is the view from the bridge looking north, the opposite direction from yesterday's video. It gives you some idea of the birdsong and tranquility of the mornings here, even though you can still hear the ditch pump working away behind me. You will see the trails alongside the full ditch, some recently hayed fields, the Robledo Mountains in the distance, and one of my favorite adobe houses in the neighborhood, surrounded by blooming roses. Oh, and the chile sign, of course--I had to put that in there right at the end for those of you who are far away and longing for our hot green chiles. I actually used the zoom feature on my little Flip camera so that you could read the sign, but I wobbled too much and had to take out that part of the footage.

The Morning Mile

I love that phrase, "the morning mile." I first came across it on Andy Baird's website, Travels with Andy, when he mentioned that he always takes a walk in the morning--his "morning mile." For some reason, that stuck with me and, on all the mornings when I was talking myself out of getting outside for some exercise, I would imagine that I could hear Andy, saying in a matter of fact manner that he was heading out for his morning mile. So why didn't I do the same?

Of course, once I got started, I found that I wanted to go the distance, and even a little more. So, now my morning mile is actually a morning mile-and-a-half, and it passes through some lovely country, with views of fields, gardens, mountains, and horse pastures--places where something is always going on.

When we first moved here, I showed you a photo that I had taken of the then-empty big ditch that runs through this agricultural area, and said that I hoped to be able to show it to you when it was full. I didn't realize that during the growing season the big ditch is always full and farmers on either side of it open gates to flood their fields and orchards whenever it is their turn.

So, here you are. The empty ditch in winter (click on the photo for a larger image):

And the full ditch in spring (adjust your volume):

Waterfront Property in the Desert?

My first clue this morning that something unusual was going on was this reflection in the door... Wait, what's that blue stuff?

Stepping out onto the patio for my morning dose of mountain views, I saw that we were surrounded by a lovely lake.

I have been looking forward to seeing the orchards around our property being irrigated. If you have ever traveled through this part of the country you will know that the pecan orchards (and some lawns, if the owners have irrigation rights) are simply flooded in order to water them.

The birds and the occasional duck are very happy. If you turn up your volume to view this video you may hear robins, doves, and perhaps even a red-winged blackbird.

Faraway people who may picture the Chihuahuan Desert as a dry and dusty place have no idea how lucky we feel to live in this beautiful oasis, the Mesilla Valley.

Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park

We went for a walk at the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park a couple of weeks ago. It is New Mexico's 34th state park and has just observed its first anniversary. Living in the Chihuahuan Desert as we do, it's a real treat for us to be able to wander through such a watery environment.

The bosque (pronunciation is here), or riverside forest, is just minutes from the center of Las Cruces, but you might think you are miles and miles away, enjoying the peace, looking up at the mountains, and seeing signs of the bird and mammal residents all around you. I will be posting some more photos of those signs over the next couple of days.

Gateway to the visitor's center, opening out onto a lovely patio and gardens

A trail through one of the many different natural habitats. That's Picacho Peak in the distance, a sight we see at home from a different angle

An explanation of the irrigation and drain system

Part of the Picacho Drain (see the sign in the photo above this one), home to many water and land species

Acequias

Click to enlarge

The acequias of New Mexico are communal irrigation canals; a way to share water for agriculture in a dry land. Their history stretches back over 400 years to when Spanish laws were applied to the irrigation systems that had been hand dug by the native Americans for perhaps hundreds of years before that. The system is a way to give equal shares of water to users in both wet and dry years.

Acequia associations, led by the mayordomo (the ditch boss, or overseer), were often considered "the first governmental entities of their communities."

In New Mexico, by state statute, acequias as registered bodies must have three commissioners and a mayordomo. Irrigation and conservation districts typically have their own version of mayordomos, usually referred to as "ditch riders" by members of the districts. From Ask.com, definition of acequia.

The main canal, called the mother ditch, is dug starting at the river, and flows gently downhill from there, with a series of smaller ditches, or laterals, bringing water to specific fields. If you click on the illustration above, from The Mother Ditch, by Oliver LaFarge (1954), you will see how a series of gates and some judicious moves with hand-held hoes direct the flowing water right to the individual plants and trees.

As we walk around our new neighborhood, we see ditches, large and small, all around the pecan orchards and chile fields. I've seen the truck from the irrigation district coming around in the middle of the night; I can make out the man in his headlights, turning the wheels that raise the gates to let the water into the waiting canal. I hope to figure out the schedule so that I can take some photos of our local ditches when they are full.

Resources:

Answers.com: Definition and historical background for "acequia"

An Irrigation Ditch Runs Through It, by Peter Fish for Sunset Magazine, 1997. This article discusses Stanley Crawford, who moved to northern New Mexico and eventually became the mayordomo of his acequia association, writing about his experiences in farming and community in his classic book, Mayordomo, winner of the 1988 Western States Book Award fro Creative Nonfiction.

The Mother Ditch, by Oliver LaFarge (1954). Originally written as a children's book, LaFarge's work is rich in detail about the working of the acequia system in both good and bad water years. I am lucky enough to have an old copy that was being discarded from a library years ago.

New Mexico Acequia Association (Official Website and Blog). Did you know that there is even a radio program "exploring the richness of the acequia culture?"

Will Impending State Regulations Undermine Local Acequia Management? Article by Katey Byrd, written for Periodistacostilla.org.

Ogallala Aquifer

This is it—Today is Blog Action Day. Bloggers around the web are uniting to put a single issue on everybody’s mind—the environment. According to the Blog Action Day web site: Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future. Close to 16,000 blogs with over 12 million readers are participating. This would be a great day for you to contribute to an environmental charity. Start here. http://blogactionday.org/charities .
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I am certainly no water expert, but I hadn’t lived in the southwest for long before I decided I wanted to learn more about the subject. Newspaper articles often referred to the Ogallala Aquifer, so I wanted to find out what it was and why it was important. Here is what I’ve learned.

The Ogallala Aquifer is a vast deposit of water lying under eight states in the High Plains of the U.S.: South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. It is variously estimated to cover between 174,000 and 225,000 square miles, and lies between 50 and 300 feet below the surface. It was formed about 10 million years ago of gravelly soil that holds groundwater down below the water table. Experts believe that the aquifer contains roughly the amount of water contained by Lake Huron. Drawdown, or water use, of the aquifer occurs when agricultural, industrial, and residential users withdraw water for surface use. About 94% of the water is used for irrigation in areas that formerly were a part of the Dust Bowl back in the 1930s. Recharge, water going back into the aquifer, comes from rainwater and snowmelt, a slow process in this dry climate area. Since the 1970s it has been apparent that drawdown is greater than recharge, leading to an ongoing depletion of the aquifer.

Adding a whole new aspect to any water discussion is our search for alternative fuels. The biofuel ethanol seems like a great answer to our dependence on oil-producing nations. However, in order to produce one gallon of ethanol, three to six gallons of water are used. Even more water is used in growing the corn necessary to make the ethanol.

The states concerned wrestle with issues of water policy, conservation, sustainability, and ethics. Should the water be used now, or should policy dictate sustainability? Do we continue with current irrigation practices to grow the corn and wheat that our economy demands, or should we conserve for the future? Do we continue expansion of biofuel production at the cost of permanently damaging water resources?

For more information, research, and discussions about the Ogallala Aquifer, see the following links.

Conserving the Ogallala Aquifer. http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2003-1/2003-1-04.htm

Ogallala Aquifer and Ethanol - The Potential for Another Dust Bowl: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/09/21/ogallala-aquifer-and-ethanol-the-potential-for-another-dust-bo/

Ogallala Aquifer Depletion: http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/issues/society/ogallala/ogallala.html

Producing Ethanol Could Strain Resources: http://environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagID=1550

Water Encyclopedia: http://waterencyclopedia.com/Oc-Po/Ogallala-Aquifer.html

Water-Level Changes in the High Plains Aquifer, 1980-1999: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2001/fs-029-01/