![]() ![]() “There are disagreements, but among the seven basin states and Mexico there has been a sincere commitment to negotiate and collaborate to ensure resilience,” Porter said. Among the Colorado Compact parties, the sustainability of resources has been one of those common ground issues. Porter said that getting stakeholders on the same page in water policy can be complicated, but that finding common ground is possible. This March, the Supreme Court heard and decided a case involving a dispute between New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. When resources are strapped, like in the case of prolonged drought, disputes often crop up. For major rivers like the Rio Grande and the Colorado, rights are managed through agreements between states called compacts. Today, rights to water from rivers and reservoirs are managed between states and localities. “They developed this doctrine called prior appropriation,* which means the person who got there first and diverted water had the senior rights,” Porter said. According to Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University,* it all dates back to when settlers arrived in the arid region and started to parse out water rights. ![]() Questions of who gets to use water, how often, and when are complicated in the American Southwest. “Overall, that adds up to a picture of just less reliable surface water supply,” Garfin said. Some models suggest that portions of the region will see increased precipitation and some rivers, most notably the Colorado, could see increased flow.īut a 2017 study by Brad Udall of the Colorado River Research Group found that increased temperature alone could cause a minimum of a 20 percent decrease in runoff in the Colorado River basin by mid-century. Garfin expects these temperature-associated trends to continue into the future, but he noted that precipitation predictions are less certain. This is an early January 2018 photo of Silverton, Colorado, at 9318 feet elevation Trail running and mountain biking over the winter holidays, instead of skiing. It has felt like a mild summer day, much of this winter. While we’ve heard news of epic cold and storms in other regions of the country. Oh what a strange winter it has NOT been in the San Juan Mountains, CO. “That can help the snowpack in the northern part of the southwest region, but it deprives the southern part of the region,” he said. That makes snowmelt less efficient in reaching rivers because some of it is absorbed by soil and air.Īnother factor, Garfin said, is that winter storm tracks have shifted to the north in recent decades. Additionally, he noted that warmer temperatures have caused reduced soil moisture and increased evaporation in the region. Garfin said that warmer winter temperatures in the region have led to a greater percentage of precipitation falling as rain rather than snow. Warmer temperatures affect snowpack in high altitudes that feed into Southwestern rivers, like the Rio Grande. “There’s been a real strong upward trend, especially in the last 40 or 50 years,” he said. She said temperatures hit 86☏ in early May, a month earlier than usual in Santa Fe.Īccording to Gregg Garfin, a professor at the University of Arizona and an author of the Southwestern chapter of the 2014 National Climate Assessment, temperature increase is the driving force behind the changing climate in the Southwest. In addition to drought, Swartz is also concerned about rising temperatures. Some of it we just don’t have any control over.” “Some of this is in other people’s hands,” she said. Swartz worries that she’s hit the limit of what she can do as an individual. But this year, for the first time, they didn’t recharge. She even equipped her house with three 5,000-gallon rainwater collection tanks in 2015. Swartz, who’s lived in Santa Fe for 11 years, is accustomed to drought and thought she was prepared. Severe drought this winter means no snowpack and no spring melt / runoff. This creek would normally have a nice amount of water, especially from spring melt, but it was bone dry in much of the bed and only a few patches of standing water, like this one, scattered about. Went on a hike the other day near Glorieta. “I just don’t remember the river drying up this early and this quickly,” Swartz said. In the riverbed, only mounds of fish carcasses remained. By mid-April, a ten-mile stretch two hours south of Swartz’s home had dried up. Winter never came, and in its absence, there was no snowmelt to feed the Rio Grande River in New Mexico. Santa Fe resident Susan Swartz knew early in 2018 that the drought in her community would be punishing this year. ![]()
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