$60M in federal drought money approved for Lower Rio Grande
May 10—The federal government is dispensing $60 million to improve water conservation and efficiency in the Lower Rio Grande Basin between Elephant Butte and El Paso, a stretch that has proven troublesome with water loss and legal battles.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Friday announced the funding, which will be part of $500 million funneled through the Inflation Reduction Act to drought-stressed areas outside the Colorado River Basin.
"The Biden-Harris administration is committed to making communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change, including the Rio Grande basin and the people, wildlife and economies that rely on it," Haaland said in a statement.
The Lower Rio Grande funding will be used to improve infrastructure to bolster water deliveries, reduce water loss and enhance wildlife habitat and ecosystems.
That includes increasing storage at sediment dams and creating more retention areas to catch stormwater. The captured water will recharge the aquifer, help meet irrigation demands and create riparian habitat for threatened and endangered species.
The money will also bolster programs that pay New Mexico farmers not to plant so water can be conserved.
Replenishing the lower basin's aquifer has become pressing. The prolonged drought, which began in the late 1990s, has led to the aquifer being severely depleted as irrigators pumped more groundwater when river water was in short supply.
Improving infrastructure on this stretch is also among the key pieces of a proposed settlement between New Mexico, Texas and Colorado in a long-standing dispute over water deliveries to the Lone Star State.
Texas has accused New Mexico irrigators of pumping groundwater south of Elephant Butte, cutting into the river water flowing to El Paso.
The decadeslong legal tussle has cost New Mexico and Texas an estimated $31 million combined and is emblematic of battles springing up across the West as water supplies diminish under a growing population and warming climate. The U.S. Supreme Court began reviewing a proposed agreement in March and is expected to make a decision this summer.
Under the terms, 57% of the native or natural water flowing downstream would go to New Mexico and 43% would go to Texas. A gauge measuring river volume, now at Elephant Butte, would be moved to the Texas border to ensure water flowing from the reservoir is not diverted.
"This federal funding and the upgrades it will enable will play a critical role" in the settlement, Maggie Fitzgerald, the state engineer's spokeswoman, wrote in an email. "Regardless of how the U.S. Supreme Court decides, we know work is needed and have already gotten a jump on those efforts."
The federal money will combine with $65 million the state Legislature approved in 2023 to strengthen Lower Rio Grande water supplies and make them more sustainable, Fitzgerald added.
Last year, water experts told the Legislative Finance Committee the warmer, drier climate is causing a double whammy — less precipitation to replenish the river and higher evaporation depleting the water.
Meanwhile, municipal water consumption has swelled by 250% in the past 50 years while agricultural use has leveled off in the past century. With the state's population certain to grow as the climate warms, water must be managed more efficiently in the coming decades, including in the southern basin, they said.
"The Rio Grande, like many rivers in the West, has struggled with the impacts of severe drought for decades," U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said in a statement. "This funding ... gives Reclamation and our partners the ability to explore options for stormwater capture and other activities to ease the impacts of climate change."
