Rio Grande Runs Dry In Albuquerque - Reduced To A Trickle

Rio Grande runs dry in Albuquerque for the first time in 40 years

Meryl Kornfield

A stretch of the Rio Grande near Albuquerque that supplies farmers with water and a habitat for an array of aquatic life is drying — an unsettling sighting of climate change’s effects in a populous U.S. city.

As the summer’s hotter and drier weather has fueled drought and firethroughout the West, federal and local agencies are salvaging what they can along a 100-mile section of the river: rationing the water for 66,000 acres of agricultural land and rescuing silvery minnows stranded in the remaining puddles of water. If the area doesn’t get consistent rain soon, the drought not matched in four decades could worsen.

These maps illustrate the seriousness of the western drought

They are also warning residents to prepare for the sight of a bed of mud and sand where one of the nation’s longest rivers should flow. While southern stretches of the river regularly dry out, this reach has not experienced a drought like this since 1983, said Jason Casuga, CEO of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District.

“Most folks in Albuquerque who have lived here have grown up always seeing the river have water,” he told The Washington Post. “So it would be a real big surprise to wake up and go outside and look at the river and realize, hey there’s no water.”

Reduced to a trickle, the iconic Rio Grande is about to dry out in Albuquerque

Strange Sounds

Triple digit temperatures and a fickle monsoon season have combined with decades of persistent drought to put one of North America’s longest rivers in its most precarious situation yet.

Islands of sand and gravel and patches of cracked mud are taking over where the Rio Grande once flowed. It’s a scene not unlike other hot, dry spots around the western U.S. where rivers and reservoirs have been shrinking due to climate change and continued demand.

Local and federal water managers on Thursday warned that more stretches of the beleaguered Rio Grande will be drying up in the coming days in the Albuquerque area, leaving endangered silvery minnows stranded in whatever puddles remain.

The threat of having the river dry this far north has been present the last few summers due to ongoing drought, officials with the Bureau of Reclamation and one of the largest irrigation districts on the river said.

But, this could be the year that residents in New Mexico’s most populated region get to witness the effects of the cataclysmic drought on a grander scale.

It’s not uncommon to have parts of the Rio Grande go dry in its more southern reaches, but not in Albuquerque.

“This is almost the sole source of water in the central part of New Mexico and we’re not trying to save it just for the fish,” said Andy Dean, a federal biologist. “It’s our job as the Fish and Wildlife Service to prevent the extinction of this animal, but this water is also for everybody in the valley. We’re trying to save it for everybody and if the fish is that piece that helps us do that, then that’s what we have to use.”

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