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 (08/12/2026)
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A Dry Year Gets Drier
This week Rin Tara and John Fleck do their best to find hope, but in a year this dry it takes more work. Note that at the time of posting this episode, the Frijoles Fire has grown to 7,794 acres.
- Via John and Utah State’s Jack Schmidt, Lake Mead and Lake Powell continue their decline toward the lowest levels since the reservoirs were first built in the 1930s (Mead) and 1960s (Powell).
- The latest forecast for the coming Super El Niño: lots of winter precipitation for California and Arizona, meh for the Upper Colorado and Upper Rio Grande basins
- The greening of the bosque downstream of Albuquerque’s wastewater treatment plant, via the Aug. 8, 2026 overflight of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellite
