{"id":576603,"date":"2018-05-08T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=576603"},"modified":"2018-05-09T08:21:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T14:21:36","slug":"a-dry-rio-grande-in-springtime-isnt-normal-but-it-will-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/05\/a-dry-rio-grande-in-springtime-isnt-normal-but-it-will-be\/","title":{"rendered":"A dry Rio Grande in springtime isn\u2019t normal. But it will be."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_576608\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-576608\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_1264-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Rio Grande\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_1264-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_1264-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_1264-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_1264.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Laura Paskus \/ New Mexico Political Report<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dead fish in the Rio Grande near San Antonio.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>COMMENTARY:<\/strong> I smell the mounds of dead fish before seeing them.<\/p>\n<p>By now, the fish are desiccated. Most lie in low spots along the riverbanks where they crammed together, taking refuge as the last of the puddles and rivulets dried. The temperature is in the high 80s as we trudge up the sandy channel of the Rio Grande upstream of the town of San Antonio. I wonder what it must have smelled like two or three weeks ago, when the river first dried here.<\/p>\n<p>In early April, when the Middle Rio Grande should have been rushing with snowmelt, New Mexico\u2019s largest river dried. It started through Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, spreading to more than 20 miles by now. The Albuquerque stretch may dry come June or July, which would mean some 120 miles dry altogether this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Already, if you live in Albuquerque, you may have peered over the bridges and seen sandbars and slow water this spring. Even in places like Velarde or Espa\u00f1ola, historically low flows are trickling through your town, the result of not enough snow in the mountains this winter.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/834338\/a-dry-rio-grande-in-springtime-isnt-normal-but-it-will-be-en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Mexico Political Report<\/a>,\u00a0a nonprofit news organization\u00a0focused on promoting a greater public understanding of politics and policy in the state of New Mexico.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>To see this happening in spring is shocking. But we shouldn\u2019t be surprised. We knew this could happen. Just like we knew the climate was changing.<\/p>\n<p>We know, for example, that warming makes an arid climate even drier.<\/p>\n<p>On average, our snowpack is decreasing, moving north and melting earlier. That leads to less water in the rivers when we need it \u2014 spring and early summer before monsoons arrive.<\/p>\n<p>And even when there is snow, warmer temperatures transform more of it to water vapor before it can liquefy its way into the watershed. Warming dries out soils and sends more dust into the air. That\u2019s bad news, both for breathing creatures and snowpack, as topsoil-coated snowpack melts faster.<\/p>\n<p>Warming means less water in rivers and reservoirs, and also less water underground.<\/p>\n<p>Groundwater isn\u2019t being recharged through snowmelt and streamflows, and we\u2019re pumping more to compensate for the lack of surface water. New Mexicans survived the drought of the 1950s by pumping groundwater when the rivers slowed and the rains failed to fall. Since then, we\u2019ve kept pumping, depleting aquifers and groundwater supplies.<\/p>\n<p>Warmer, drier conditions also mean bigger, hotter wildfires and a longer wildfire season.<\/p>\n<p>And after the fires, some of our forests can\u2019t regenerate. Where they once thrived, ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests can\u2019t survive because it\u2019s too warm \u2014 not to mention dry. In some places, even hardy junipers are drying out and dying off.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Before the Dome Fire and then Las Conchas, which burned here in the Jemez Mountains seven years ago, this was a dense conifer forest. Today, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/320046\/the-heart-of-darkness-a-walk-through-the-scorched-landscapes-where-our-forest-used-to-be-and-a-glimpse-of-our-future-fires-en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">climate is too warm<\/a>\u00a0for those trees to return.<\/p>\n<p>In some places across this 30,000-acre burn scar, aspens and locust trees are sprouting where firs used to grow. In other places, the ground remains bare. When rains fall here, floods drive torrents of mud, ash and debris downstream.<\/p>\n<p>Climate change means our forests change; our rivers and our grasslands change. It means our cities and small towns, farms and orchards change.<\/p>\n<p>And we\u2019ve known this for a long time.<\/p>\n<p>In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s science advisers told him humans were \u201cunwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment\u201d by burning within a few generations fossil fuels that had accumulated over hundreds of millions of years. The carbon dioxide humans were injecting into the atmosphere would cause changes, they wrote, that would harm human beings.<\/p>\n<p>In 1988, the\u00a0<i>New York Times<\/i>\u00a0reported on its front page that the Earth was warming. NASA scientist James Hansen testified before Congress, urging action to cut carbon emissions.<\/p>\n<p>We knew what was happening.<\/p>\n<p>In 2005, New Mexico released a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/2455802-potential-effects-climate-change-nm.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a>\u00a0on the potential effects of climate change on the state. The 51-page summary report laid out a range of problems and potential solutions, related to everything from water and infrastructure to public health, wildfire and environmental justice.<\/p>\n<p>New Mexicans then elected a governor who ended all state programs under her authority related to climate change.<\/p>\n<p>Ten years later, scientists, economists and hydrologists worked together to understand New Mexico\u2019s drought vulnerabilities. They handed off a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/2461621-droughtworkinggroupreport-final.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a>\u00a0to the Legislature that revealed problems with groundwater supplies in the Lower Rio Grande.<\/p>\n<p>Our state Legislature didn\u2019t renew their funding.<\/p>\n<p>For decades, there have been scientific papers, government reports, planning documents, economic studies and international agreements.<\/p>\n<p>We knew what was going to happen.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, here we are.<\/p>\n<p>No matter what you might hear from certain voices, this drying in the Middle Rio Grande is not normal for springtime.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not to say that the river here has never dried in the spring, since records have been kept or before.<\/p>\n<p>But just because something has happened before doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s normal.<\/p>\n<p>As it continues happening \u2014 as a river that supports millions of people in three states and two countries continues to dry \u2014 we all need to pay attention.<\/p>\n<p>We also need to understand what biological, chemical and hydrological impacts are occurring, says Clifford Dahm, professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico\u2019s Department of Biology and an expert on intermittent and ephemeral rivers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe aquatic creatures that live in the river, as it\u2019s drying and staying dry longer, are going to change,\u201d he said. \u201cThere will be a shift towards completely different communities of fish, algae, invertebrates and trees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Right now, we don\u2019t know how quickly those shifts will occur, which species will survive, die or recover. But when the water table drops to more than 10 feet below the surface, we do know cottonwood trees struggle and then die, Dahm said.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, we know that in the Rio Grande Basin, warming will lead to a four to 14 percent reduction in flow by the 2030s and an eight to 29 percent reduction by the 2080s.<\/p>\n<p>On the Colorado River \u2014 which New Mexico also relies upon \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1002\/2016WR019638\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">scientists have predicted<\/a>\u00a0a 20 to 30 percent decrease in flows by 2050. And a 35 to 55 percent decrease by the end of the century.<\/p>\n<p>Even on the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/3143980-Microsoft-Word-GilaR-Projections-Final-10Dec.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">warming will decrease<\/a>\u00a0flows by about 5 to 10 percent due to decreasing snowmelt runoff.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, humans aren\u2019t suffering in New Mexico because the river has dried for 20 miles.<\/p>\n<p>Even though the river\u2019s water is currently diverted to irrigation canals, some farmers might decide to fallow their fields, knowing that water will run out, too. But there are buffers, including federal assistance. And cities will figure things out. We\u2019ll draw down water in upstream reservoirs and fire up our groundwater pumps.<\/p>\n<p>But what happens if the monsoons don\u2019t come? What if next year\u2019s snowpack is just as bad? What happens when the water stored in reservoirs runs out?<\/p>\n<p>Like the dry riverbed, we know these things will happen, if not next year, then the year after.<\/p>\n<p>Some people talk about moving away from New Mexico or the southwestern United States if things get too bad, too dry.<\/p>\n<p>But not everyone can move when warming and drying are so serious that we have a true emergency on our hands. Not everyone has the resources to leave.<\/p>\n<p>And for some people, this river, these mountains, the mesas and uplands have always been their homelands. Their ancestors are here and they have no other lands. They will never leave.<\/p>\n<p>Ignoring the signs and the studies for all these years has been a choice. A choice that leaves behind those most vulnerable, a choice that continues to perpetuate centuries of injustice.<\/p>\n<p>If ever there were a moment to abandon hand-wringing, apathy or divisiveness, it is now.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s challenge the standard line in New Mexico: that water issues are so complicated that we can\u2019t do anything differently, try anything new.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s stop thinking within our own boundaries and perceiving enemies all around us. Whether you\u2019re a New Mexican who doesn\u2019t like Texas, a developer who doesn\u2019t like government regulations or an environmentalist who doesn\u2019t like alfalfa farmers (or a farmer who doesn\u2019t like environmentalists) \u2014 we are all New Mexicans. We are all residents of a region. Our neighbors, whether they are in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Texas or Mexico, are all worried about the same things. And we\u2019re all hoping for a better future.<\/p>\n<p>Most importantly, let\u2019s stop waiting.<\/p>\n<p>Waiting for a new governor, waiting for a new president, waiting for the next election. Waiting for monsoons, or a better snowpack. Waiting for things to be less complicated.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, our water issues are complicated. Water is allocated in special ways. It\u2019s legally complex where and how water can be stored, and who is allowed to use it.<\/p>\n<p>But that doesn\u2019t mean we just leave things as they are. Or that we leave all the decisions to just a few people.<\/p>\n<p>Just because something is complicated or overwhelming \u2014 like climate change \u2014 doesn\u2019t mean we shrug and say, \u201cMaybe next year the snowpack will be better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last week in Santa Fe, climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck spoke about \u201chot drought\u201d \u2014 dry periods that are warmer than past conditions \u2014 and megadrought. Looking back at the tree ring records, the longest drought \u2014 or megadrought \u2014 on the Colorado River and the Rio Grande headwaters was 50 years long, around 200 A.D.<\/p>\n<p>Warming increases the chances of a megadrought, Overpeck said: of a 25-year long megadrought by 17 percent, of a 50-year long megadrought by eight percent. \u201cIf you\u2019re really planning for the future,\u201d he said, \u201cthis is what you have to plan for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Future warming is a \u201csure bet,\u201d he said: \u201cThere isn\u2019t a bet you could make that\u2019s more guaranteed to come true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Depending on which emissions scenario modelers use, warming in the southwestern U.S. will mean a temperature rise of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius rise by mid-century. Surface water risks are exacerbated, he added, by unsustainable groundwater use.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we continue business as usual\u201d \u2014 referring to greenhouse gas emissions \u2014 \u201cflows will be knocked by 50 percent by the end of the century,\u201d he said of the Colorado River. \u201cThat\u2019s the cost of global warming for the Southwest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not all bad news, he said. The Southwest, including New Mexico, can become known for developing water strategies to deal with scarcity. \u201cThat\u2019s the future economy of the Southwest, not sticking our head in the drier and drier sand as the news gets worse,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cThere will be wet years \u2014 and we when get a good year, don\u2019t just allocate that water to a new user, put it underground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>States like Arizona, Nevada and California already store water underground, instead of in reservoirs, which lose more and more water to evaporation as the region warms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe other really good news,\u201d Overpeck said, \u201cis we know what the problem is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Almost a week after hearing Overpeck\u2019s talk, I go back to the dry riverbed of the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n<p>This time, I\u2019ve brought along a friend who moved here from Germany. Walking through the cottonwoods and Russian olives, when we spot the dry channel, he asks, \u201c<i>That<\/i>\u00a0is the Rio Grande?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That, I say, is the Rio Grande. And we hop down into the channel, sand filling our shoes.<\/p>\n<p><em>Laura Paskus writes for <a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New Mexico Political Report<\/a>.\u00a0Agree with her opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/commentary-submissions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We knew what was going to happen. And yet, here we are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":576608,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[284,147,277],"class_list":["post-576603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}