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Old 05-06-2013, 06:28 PM
 
8,317 posts, read 29,412,391 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by debbie at bouontiful View Post
When I was up there a few years back it didn't seem so dry. Did they get enough snow this year?That is sad. What are the drought predictions for Northern New Mexico. We spend a lot of time in Chama and will be there in September.
One word: horrible. Pray for an early start to the Southwest Monsoon. That will do almost nothing to help streamflows, but may reduce what will otherwise be stratospheric fire danger. Last year, a relatively good Southwest Monsoon got going by early July--enough to green things back up some. Without that, the fires this year could be widespread and severe.
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Old 05-07-2013, 05:56 AM
 
Location: OKLAHOMA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzlover View Post
One word: horrible. Pray for an early start to the Southwest Monsoon. That will do almost nothing to help streamflows, but may reduce what will otherwise be stratospheric fire danger. Last year, a relatively good Southwest Monsoon got going by early July--enough to green things back up some. Without that, the fires this year could be widespread and severe.
I do remember following those fires last year. Mostly up by Pagosa. I sure hope the areas gets a deceny rainfall this year. I had thought snowfalls were higher than normal and had hoped that would help the areas. I am getting worried about buying with no water. We would have a greenhouse and hoop houses on our property and water is definitely needed there. I am so lucky with an artisan well on my property here. I use a great amount of water and it is free to me.
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Old 05-07-2013, 10:55 AM
 
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Debbie, the water wizards at EBID say the snowpack this year was far below average, and coming on top of two critical drought years the amount of meltwater that actually reaches the rivers will be very low, probably the lowest in recent history.
If you're thinking about buying property, and particularly if you're going to do something that requires a steady and abundant supply of water, you should consider your options very carefully. Water is always problematic in New Mexico, and never more than now. Water tables are certain to fall, so even wells may be in danger of going dry. On top of that, a lot of ground water in New Mexico is not good water....full of minerals of all kinds, particularly salt.

Here's what I got last month from Elephant Butte Irrigation District, extremely bad news :

"A conservative estimate for runoff for April through July is 22,000 acre-feet. To give an idea of the severity of this drought, the average is 440,000 acre-feet, so this working forecast is five percent of average. With this assumption, the usable water for release to EBID, EP1, and Mexico during the 2013 season will be only 167,779 acre-feet, with a river diversion of 146,000 acre-feet among the three entities. Getting more conservative, assuming no additional inflow from right now, the available release is 145,000 acre-feet. In either case, this will be by far the lowest release in the nearly 100 years of Project history, the previous low being 206,000 acre-feet in 1964.
Based on the water currently in Project storage, and deducting San Juan-Chama and Compact Credit water and anticipated evaporation, we will have an available allotment of 3.2 to 3.6 inches for the season. This will be lower than the 4 inches of 1964 and 2011, and worse yet, it comes on the back of the critically short years of 2011, and 2012. "
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Old 05-07-2013, 03:58 PM
 
2,634 posts, read 3,683,177 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rwjoyak View Post
Do you have a reference for this statement; never heard anyone say that.

See http://www.abcwua.org/pdfs/WC_10YR_Plan.pdf for info from the local water utility, both on how successful they have been over the past two decades in lowering per capita water use and regarding possible future water conservation efforts.
No, I'm sorry -- I can't even remember where I read it. But these links should suffice -- the first and third ones are from today -- the second one is dated 5/2/2013:

US Drought Monitor

» New Mexico’s drought worst in the country | ABQ Journal

» Drought confounds river model | ABQ Journal

SEI-US - Publications

I don't read anything anywhere that says our drought is going to get better any time soon.

We simply don't want to believe that a fairly big city, like ABQ, could just dry up, especially in the relatively near future.
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Old 05-07-2013, 06:34 PM
 
Location: Seattle area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fran66 View Post
SEI-US - Publications

I don't read anything anywhere that says our drought is going to get better any time soon.
From that link: "To avoid serious water crises, they recommend, the Southwestern states should promptly implement substantial conservation and efficiency measures as well as price increases for both urban and agricultural users. They also advise phasing out low-value crops, some of which are worth less than the water used to grow them."

In other words, it's a pricing issue, not a drought that need leave taps dry. The average American is extremely wasteful including with water. There's a ton of room for improvement.
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Old 05-08-2013, 07:37 AM
 
Location: high plains
802 posts, read 980,507 times
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New Mexicans are better than average Americans when it comes to water waste.
Albuquerque went below 150 gal/day per person in 2011, while Santa Fe was close to 100 gal/day.

» Water Goals Met Early | ABQ Journal

"Many Colorado residents use over 200 gallons of water per capita per day. In contrast, residents in Arizona use 160 gallons per capita per day (20 percent less than most Colorado residents)."

Water Conservation In and Around the Home

" The average American uses 176 gallons of water per day compared to 5 gallons of water the average African family uses each day. (www.water.org)"

http://www.waterinfo.org/resources/water-facts
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Old 05-08-2013, 10:42 AM
 
Location: Seattle area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by highplainsrus View Post
New Mexicans are better than average Americans when it comes to water waste.
Albuquerque went below 150 gal/day per person in 2011, while Santa Fe was close to 100 gal/day.
That's great, and shows so much room for improvement! A drop to less than 50 gal/day would mean only that yards and most park land would have desert vegetation instead of grass, and for Burquenos, no more extra long showers apparently. Most parks are hardly used nowadays anyway.
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Old 05-08-2013, 10:48 AM
 
Location: Abu Al-Qurq
3,689 posts, read 9,156,945 times
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The entire notion of "use" is really misleading.

Water either gets returned to the system as sewage, seepage, deep injection, crop mass, natural biomass, industrial products, or evaporation. In nearly every case, water is conserved (except certain biological and industrial processes where it becomes plant sugars or chemicals, most of which end up reversing to water anyway). Until you rank individual uses of water, you can hardly set farmers against suburbanites against power plants against fracking.

Those African families use a lot of rain to take care of their food needs that is not included in their total. We are not so lucky in most of the U.S. to have rains that give us food in the same manner. We also waste less food thanks to refrigeration.
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Old 05-08-2013, 10:49 AM
 
Location: New Mexico U.S.A.
26,527 posts, read 51,608,992 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jalhop View Post
Most parks are hardly used nowadays anyway.
Or they use grey water.
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Old 05-08-2013, 03:15 PM
 
Location: Seattle area
492 posts, read 1,039,089 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Poncho_NM View Post
Or they use grey water.
Good to know. I checked my water bill. In the last two months the two of us here used 25 gal/day each. We both like long showers, so it's hard to imagine using even 1/3 of what the average Albuquerque citizen uses.

Last edited by Jalhop; 05-08-2013 at 03:25 PM..
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