ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – For another year, parts of the Rio Grande in Albuquerque could go dry.
Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) water managers made the announcement Wednesday, saying that some areas in the river may dry up in the coming days or weeks. “Water supply to the Middle Rio Grande has decreased precipitously over the past couple of weeks, and without significant inflow from rain events, river conditions are expected to continue to decline,” the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District wrote in a news release.
Officials stopped releasing storage water on Sept. 6 after running out. Water managers initially released the storage water into the river at the end of July. “There wasn’t enough water in the river naturally to meet the needs of Middle Valley farmers and their crops. And so the district started to release water from storage to kind of fill that gap. And we’ve been releasing water from storage for the month of August,” said Anne Marken, water operations manager at MRGCD.
The water released in the river was stored in the Heron and Abiquiu Reservoirs, according to Marken. Some of it was brought in from the San Juan River Basin as part of the San Juan-Chama Project.
MRGCD said the available water supply will be limited for the remainder of the irrigation season if a rain event does not occur.
Water managers are asking people to stay out of the dry riverbed as activity could permanently damage the riverbed’s habitat. “This is habitat for some endangered species. And it’s just good when you have endangered species on site to be mindful of their habitat,” Marken explained.
The waterless river has become a common sight in Albuquerque since 2022 when the river went dry for the first time in 40 years. To learn more, read KRQE’s previous coverage here.