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.
Water Matters!
Water Update (01/28/26)
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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 River management in 2026.
For more on the snowpack, check out the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s west-wide maps to see how the winter is progressing in the watersheds you care about.
Other links for this week’s edition:
· Interstate Stream Commission meeting information
· Reclamation’s Post-2026 Colorado River Management Environmental Impact Statement process
