ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – For the second time in 40 years, the stretch of the Rio Grande in Albuquerque has gone dry, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District confirmed.
If you take a look at the river, you’ll mostly see a dry, cracked riverbed with spots of waterpools here and there. The MRGCD said the river officials went dry on July 13, and there are two main reasons why: record-low snowpack, which means less snowmelt runoff, and not being able to store any native Rio Grande water
“The way our system typically works is in the spring, when there’s excess river flows from the snowmelt runoff, we would, when we could, we would store that extra water in our upstream reservoirs and then release it this time of year to kind of fill that gap between what the basin is naturally producing and what is needed for Middle Valley farmers and their crops,” explained Anne Marken, river operations manager for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. “But right now, because we don’t have the ability to store any native Rio Grande water because of Rio Grande Compact restrictions, we are what we call a run-of-the-river system, which means that the only water available to us is what the basin is naturally producing.”…