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 (06/24/26)
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Hunting for signs of hope in a hot, dry June
With a high pressure system parked over the Four Corners, Albuquerque has been hot and dry, and in this week’s episode Rin Tara and John Fleck don’t shy away from the bad water news weighing on New Mexico:
- Total flow on the Rio Grande at Otowi so far this year is the lowest it has been since 1904
- 81 miles of the Rio Grande’s main channel between Otowi and San Marcial is dry
- The federal government has stopped paying to monitor the Rio Grande for Los Alamos National Laboratory contamination at Santa Fe’s Buckman diversion
But they also see hopeful signs:
- Forecasters say odds favor a wet summer monsoon season, the July-September period that brings afternoon thunderstorms to Albuquerque
- While the Rio Grande’s main channel is dry through large stretches of Albuquerque, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy district was able to capture some of the flow from recent rains to deliver water to irrigators in and around Albuquerque
- Delivering water to Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District outfalls to keep a bit of water flowing in the Rio Grande’s main channel
Other links and news of note:
