Forecast predicts dismal runoff for NM

Las Cruces Sun-News - Gary Esslinger's chosen profession, delivering irrigation water to southern New Mexico farmers, looks like some sort of cruel joke these days. The latest punch line came this week in the form the federal government's April Rio Grande runoff forecast, which calls for just 29 percent of normal spring and summer runoff into Elephant Butte Reservoir. That's the reservoir that supplies water to farmers in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, in the Hatch and Mesilla valleys of southern New Mexico. Esslinger, the district's general manager, faces the unhappy task of going back to his farmers next week and telling them to expect even less than the meager allotment they had been counting on. "The business that I'm in, of supplying surface water, is kinda like going out of business," Esslinger said Thursday. This week's preliminary forecast, after a hot, dry March, showed a drop from expectations just a month ago that New Mexico State University hydrologist Phil King called "pretty catastrophic." "Things in one month basically just went away," said Rolf Schmidt-Petersen, Rio Grande basin manager for the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission. Low elevation snow is largely gone, and much of what has already melted has soaked into soil left bone dry from last year's drought, rather than flowing into New Mexico's rivers, King said Thursday. The latest weekly federal Drought Monitor showed an expansion of dry conditions, with the entire state ranging from "abnormally dry" in the northwest to "exceptional drought" in the southeast. The federal forecast calls for 151,000 acre feet of water flowing into Elephant Butte between now and the end of July, which is the main snowmelt runoff season. That is 29 percent of the 1971-2000 average, which federal managers define as their long term "normal" for water management planning purposes. Read More News New Mexico

Forecast predicts dismal runoff for NM