Dear Guardian,
Ideas are turning into reality on the Rio Grande.
Earlier this month we finalized a landmark agreement with the Albuquerque water utility and federal water managers to create an “Environmental Pool” of 30,000 acre-feet of storage space in Abiquiu Reservoir whose purpose is to sustain flows in the Rio Grande.
The purpose of the pool, once filled, is to provide water to meet key ecological goals including sustaining endangered species. The environmental pool is now 15% of the total storage in Abiquiu Reservoir. Prior to this agreement, no other environmental storage existed in the five major reservoirs in northern New Mexico.
This idea of environmental storage was included as a part of a 2005 settlement of Guardians’ Endangered Species Act litigation to protect the Rio Grande and has culminated with this precedent-setting agreement.
Where dams block the natural flow of our rivers, environmental storage is an essential tool to ensure a more natural flow regime in our western rivers. We will continue the fight to make such environmental storage the norm in all reservoirs throughout the West.
While we celebrate this success, there is still much work to be done. It is not a small task to acquire 30,000 acre-feet of water in a fully allocated basin—as is the case in the Rio Grande.
The clear challenge we face for the Rio is garnering support for transfers of water from agricultural to environmental purposes—an agricultural water-leasing program would do just that.
We plan to take advantage of the momentum created by this victory to pursue a leasing program. The goal of securing the Rio Grande’s right to its own water is on the horizon and we’re grateful for your support.
