Elephant Butte Irrigation District to start irrigation season June 1

Groundwater wells fill an irrigation ditch for pecan orchards outside of Rincon, New Mexico. Regional farmers face higher salt levels, which can shrink the size of pecan nuts, kill trees and destroy soil health. Pecans are a key crop in El Paso County, which is being impacted by dual threats of less available water below and above ground, and degraded quality. (Photo by Diana Cervantes for Source NM)

The southern New Mexico irrigation season will start in June in Sierra and Doña Ana counties, the Elephant Butte Irrigation District board of directors voted unanimously on Wednesday.

The district will start diverting water for irrigation on June 1 and the season is expected to last about 80 days.

The allotment of 12 inches was approved in a second vote.

“This is the most important decision that we make in any given year, given the direct impact to our members,” board president Greg Daviet said.

Dr. Phil King, the engineering advisor for the district, presented forecasts for snowpacks and incoming moisture, and said that while recent snowpack snapshots showed higher numbers, the headwaters for the Rio Grande is below its seasonal median.

“It’s a nice looking hydrograph, but it isn’t very much water,” King said about the snowpacks in the San Juan, Sangre de Cristo and Jemez Mountains.

Snowmelt, which was strong last year, will not bail out downstream drought.

“Basically, what I’m saying is don’t expect a lot of relief from snowmelt runoff,” King told the board.

Daviet said his experience watching snowpack concurred with King’s analysis.

Despite February snows, New Mexico drought to continue

“When we’re in the 80% to 85% range of snowpack, my experience has been that means almost zero runoff is making its way to San Marcial,” he said, referencing a gage upstream of Elephant Butte.

Information sessions for farmers will be scheduled at the upcoming April board meeting.The board is expected to set those for May, when water orders open.

On Saturday, federal officials with the Bureau of Reclamation released water from Caballo Dam for Mexico and Texas irrigators. Both Mexico and Texas’ season starts this week.

Board members remarked that it was an unusual situation for water to be running in the river at this date. Joe Paul Lack, who represents the area surrounding Hatch, said farmers were asking questions since it was “something we haven’t seen before.”

“Everybody just sees the water going by, understand that’s just different,” Lack said.

Discussion at the meeting Wednesday revolved around the question of staggering the start and end date for portions of the district, depending on supply and crop needs.

Lack said water for chiles and crops was necessary in June and July, since the river water soaking into the shallow alluvium (pool of groundwater right around the river) prevented salt damage from using groundwater when the young crops are most vulnerable.

“It’s not a matter of wants, we need that water sooner,” Lack said.

Elephant Butte Irrigation board secretary James­ Sloan, representing the Mesilla Valley in Cruces, said his biggest concern was surviving the end of the summer, which he said was devastating in the wake of the non-soon last year.

“Last year, August was brutal, so I’d like to get through the month of August,” he said.

Sloan recommended that the whole system start irrigating on June 15. Lack amended that to start irrigating Hatch, Array and Rincón farmers on June 1, with southern NM starting June 15.

Board member Prescott “P.K.” Colquitt asked the irrigation district manager Gary Esslinger to weigh in, since “you’re either going to upset A or B,” when making the decision.

Esslinger said he follows the board’s wishes, but said that the impact of the serious drought and requests from farmers causes a difficult choice, noting the split of allowing northern farmers an earlier delivery has been a good compromise.

A third board member, Rafeael Rovirosa, asked to amend the motion again, asking that the whole district start its irrigation season on June 1. This passed the board with a unanimous vote.

That puts the projected end of the irrigation season around Aug. 20, but Daviet said the board would have to wait until the end of the season, before making that official, with the variability of  monsoons.

“Usually about 30 days before the shutdown days, we set last order dates,” he said. “Because we don’t know what the end of the season will look like today.”

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