Water Matters!
The Utton Transboundary Resources Center’s Water Matters! podcast looks at water and natural resources issues in New Mexico and beyond. Housed at the University of New Mexico School of Law, the Utton Transboundary Resources Center is a state-funded research and public service project that believes in the pursuit of well informed, collaborative solutions to our natural resource challenges. The Utton Transboundary Resources Center’s Sairis Perez-Gomez designed the podcast logo and wrote and performed our theme music and Student Research Assistant Francesca Glaspell produced this episode.
Rin Tara is a staff attorney specializing in water policy and governance at the Utton Transboundary Resources Center. They are primarily interested in questions of water management in the face of climate change. They have done work in riparian restoration, river connectivity, tribal water sovereignty, climate change adaptation, and water rights. They have authored several papers on topics related to the future of western water management.
John Fleck is Writer in Residence at the Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico School of Law; and Professor of Practice in Water Policy and Governance in the University of New Mexico Department of Economics. The former director of the University of New Mexico’s Water Resources Program, he is the author of four books on water in the west, including the forthcoming history of Albuquerque’s relationship with the Rio Grande – Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of a Modern American City.
Episodes
25 episodes
Water Update (05/06/26)
In this week’s Water Matters, Rin Tara and John Fleck talk about the delightfully named “jiggle,” a series of pulses released from Isleta Diversion Dam downstream from Albuquerque. It’s a technique valuable in dry years to encourage the spawnin...
Water Update (04/22/26)
There is no way to sugar coat the bad water news pill as 2026 enters what should be the rising limb of the runoff season, as Rin Tara and John Fleck report in this week's water update.Consider: Flow at Embudo, on the Rio...
12: Tucker Davidson on Birds and Hope
Guest: Tucker DavidsonIt seemed unfair – asking Tucker Davidson to name his favorite bird. A senior water associate at Audubon Southwest, Davidson is a hopeless bird nerd – pulling out his binoculars as he drives Rio Grande levee roads a...
Water Update (04/08/26)
Water Update: a shrinking Colorado River forecastA declining runoff forecast for the Colorado River Basin means a tough year for wat...
11: The Proposed Settlement of Texas v. New Mexico on the Rio Grande
Guest: Phil KingWith a final agreement in sight that would settle Texas's 13-year-old lawsuit against New Mexico over water use on the Rio Grande, Rin Tara and John Fleck and joined by Phil King, retired New Mexico State University profe...
Water Update (03/11/26)
With irrigation water flowing through the irrigation ditches of New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley, Rin Tara and John Fleck look at the latest snowpack numbers, river flows, and the remarkable temperatures Albuquerque has seen over the fall ...
Water Update (02/25/26)
The latest round of storms helped the snowpack in New Mexico’s headwaters rivers a little, but we’re so far behind that we still should expect to see a dry Rio Grande through central New Mexico this summer.In this week’s Water Update, th...
10: Mapping Aquifers with the NMBGMR
Guest: Stacy Timmons, Associate Director for Hydrology Programs at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources When the New Mexico legislature approved the Water Data Act in 2019, the state turned to Stacy Timmons to turn...
Water Update (02/11/26)
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 Nat...
Water Update (01/28/26)
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 Reclamat...
9: Water Ambassadors Legislative Priorities
Guest: Dr. Ladona ClaytonAs 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 t...
Water Update (12/24/25)
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 ...
8: Shortage Sharing
Guest: Stephanie Russo BacaThe 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...
Water Update (12/10/25)
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...
7: Is Water for Fighting Over?
Guest: John FleckA decade ago, the Utton Center's Writer in Residence John Fleck published his book
Water Update (11/12/25)
Rin Tara and John Fleck discuss water conditions in New Mexico for the week of November 10.
Water Update (10/29/25)
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.
6: Adaptive Agriculture in Northern New Mexico
Guest: Don Bustos, Santa Cruz FarmsIrrigated 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...
5: Acequias in New Mexico
Guest: Enrique Romero, head of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo division of the New Mexico Department of JusticeAcequias are a traditional irrigation practice with roots across the world. The inhabitants of New Mexico have used ditch irri...
4: Life on the Landscape, Documenting Change
Guest: Craig AllenFormed 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 ecolo...
3: Monsoon Season
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 o...
2: The Agro-Ecosystem of the Middle Rio Grande
Guest: Paul Tashjian, Director of Freshwater Conservation for Audubon SouthwestThe Middle Rio Grande is home to not only a myriad of species, but also to the
