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 (06/10/26)
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A Drying Rio Grande
This week Rin Tara and John Fleck provide an update on the increasingly dry conditions on New Mexico’s central river system, where flows on the Rio Grande at Albuquerque dropped to zero June 3 and are likely to stay that way until the valley receives monsoon rains. By one measure, flow into the Middle Rio Grande Valley is the lowest ever recorded, with streamflow records going back to 1895.
But if you want to see water, they provide hope in an odd place – Albuquerque’s wastewater treatment plant outfall, a reminder that “wastewater” is not actually being wasted when we return it to the river.
Also:
· Texas v. New Mexico lawsuit settlement
· Pollinator Day at the Albuquerque Open Space Visitors Center
