Water Matters!

The snowpack and runoff forecasts for New Mexico’s rivers have begun conjuring up stories about the epically dry 2002. On this week’s episode, Rin Tara and John Fleck talk about the forecast, and the comparison. On the Rio Grande, the Natural Resources Conservation Service is forecasting just 35 percent of median runoff at Otowi , in north-central New Mexico, with very little water at all making i...

With Albuquerque’s first big snow storm of 2026 in the rearview mirror, Rin Tara and John Fleck look at how the mountains holding the critical snowpack for New Mexico’s Rivers fared. They also share the latest on the US Bureau of Reclamation’s challenges in keeping Lake Powell’s water levels high enough to protect Glen Canyon Dam’s outlet works, and the implications that will have for Colorado Riv...

Guest: Dr. Ladona Clayton As the New Mexico legislature begins a budget-focused 30-day session, the New Mexico Water Ambassadors have laid out their top legislative goals, critical steps needed to move the state toward a more sustainable water future. Dr. Ladona Clayton, Executive Director of the Ogallala Land and Water Conservancy, joins Rin Tara and John Fleck on this edition of Water Matters! t...

The snowpack in the headwaters basins of northern New Mexico and Colorado points to another low-runoff year on New Mexico’s major rivers. The January federal forecast projects flows of less than half the most recent 30-year average on the Rio Grande at Otowi, the key measurement point for central New Mexico, and just 17 percent at San Marcial, just above Elephant Butte Reservoir. With three months...

When Irving Berlin penned “White Christmas” more than six decades ago, he did not have Albuquerque in mind. According to the National Weather Service, the chances of actually seeing falling flakes here on Christmas are about one in thirty. But that does not stop Rin Tara and John Fleck from hoping, scanning the long range weather forecasts as they write those last holiday cards and record their la...

Guest: Stephanie Russo Baca The old Western cliché that whiskey’s for drinking while water is for fighting over has always been problematic. Frequently attributed to Mark Twain, it seems that Twain never said it. And research by the Utton Center’s Stephanie Russo Baca shows that sharing water – ensuring that no one goes dry when the water runs low – is a viable approach to New Mexico water managem...

This week, Rin and John talk about flows on the Rio Grande, planning for a new federal river management project south of Socorro, groundwater contamination questions, and the future of federal clean water regulation. Rio Grande With the irrigation season over and the Rio Grande’s riparian vegetation shutting down for the winter, river flows are up through Albuquerque. But the biggest reason for th...

Guest: John Fleck A decade ago, the Utton Center's Writer in Residence John Fleck published his book Water is For Fighting Over and Other Myths About Water in the West , an exploration of water governance in the Colorado River Basin. Amid an often pessimistic literature, led by iconic titles that Fleck read as a young journalist - Mark Reisner's Cadillac Desert and Philip Fradkin's...

Rin Tara and John Fleck discuss water conditions in New Mexico for the week of November 10.

Rin Tara and John Fleck discuss water conditions in New Mexico for the week of October 27. A full interview episode will be available later this month.

Guest: Don Bustos, Santa Cruz Farms Irrigated from the Acequia del Llano running across the upper end of his four acres outside Española, New Mexico, Don Bustos' Santa Cruz Farms feels as if it has been there as long as the land itself. A rambling walk through the farm follows ditches carrying the water past patches of asparagus and the last of the blackberries, down one side past some new he...

Guest: Enrique Romero, head of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo division of the New Mexico Department of Justice Acequias are a traditional irrigation practice with roots across the world. The inhabitants of New Mexico have used ditch irrigation since time immemorial, though the acequias used today took their present form about 400 years ago. Enrique Romero, head of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo...

Guest: Craig Allen Formed in a series of volcanic eruptions between 1 and 2 million years ago, the Jemez Mountains dominate the cultural and environmental history of central New Mexico.  For more than four decades, forest ecologist Craig Allen has studied them, engaging in what has come to be known as “place-based ecology,” with deep roots in what the Nuevo Mexicanos would call “querencia” – a dee...

New Mexico’s summer monsoon is upon us. The rainy season began the last week of June, bringing moist air north from the Gulf of California – pumping up flows in drying rivers, wetting forested landscapes and in the process reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfires, and perhaps most importantly bringing the visceral joy that of rain.  Streaming up through the mountains of central Mexico, the mo...

Guest: Paul Tashjian, Director of Freshwater Conservation for Audubon Southwest The Middle Rio Grande is home to not only a myriad of species, but also to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD). At first blush, environmental water uses, and agricultural water uses may appear to be in conflict, but the truth is more complicated.  This month Water Matters hosts Paul Tashjian, Director of...

Established by treaty in 1868, the modern boundaries of the Navajo Nation span 27,000 square miles across the deserts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. While its water rights were guaranteed on paper in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1908 Winters decision , getting actual “wet water” to meet the needs of the nation’s 175,000 residents remains a challenge.  This month the Utton Center’s Water Matters spe...

Guest:  Diane Agnew of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority With one of the worst winter snowpacks on record, New Mexico’s water supply forecasts for 2025 look grim. Can we avoid the apocalypse? The Utton Transboundary Resources Center’s Rin Tara and John Fleck talk to Diane Agnew of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority about adapting to the realities of a...