Rio Not So Grande

Tweet

As has been well reported the southwest has been in an awful drought. Our monsoon season began just weeks ago giving us our first rain since September 2010. But the Rio Grande, which runs through town, is a thin pitiful mudslide. Truth or Consequences, NM is down river from a large damn, a WPA project that kept men working from 1911 to 1916. It holds back a 28,900 sq mile (2 million acre feet capacity) man made water reserve named Elephant Butte Lake that is visited by over 100,000 people on a good weekend. Right now that lake is under 4% it's capacity, some say it's at less than 1%. As a result they've shut the valve so to speak, they've turned off the river. What you see in this pic is what leaks through in spite of the damn being closed. I'd be surprised if any water was making it to Tx or Mexico. 

I'm happy to report that T or C has the clever habit of building it's own temporary damn for just these occasions. At the end of town a big heap of rocks will soon block the rivers flow and slow it's release beyond T or C. The river will appear full. Some say our hot mineral baths are affected by the river's height, they say it changes the water temps. The biggest bummer felt day to day is around playing in the river. Captain Bob, a river sports guy who provides inflatable toys (for a small fee) for floating down the river, is having a bum year. Before he arrived a couple of years ago there was virtually no way to play in the river. Thanks to him people are enjoying the river every day as they float down in tubes, inflatable kayaks, rafts and the like. We recently joined him for a full moon night tube. It was great!