Water Fights
How drought is changing the American West
But some of those who have spent a lifetime working the land are determined to hold on to every last drop. Along New Mexico's drought-plagued Rio Grande, for example, farmers threatened with federally enforced irrigation cuts to help save an endangered minnow have refused a government offer to pay them not to plant this season. "We don't want their money; we just want them to leave us alone and let us farm," says Corky Herkenhoff, who owns a 600-acre alfalfa farm near San Acacia.
The drought, however, may have hurt the farmers' case. With low river flows killing thousands of minnows, "the drought has dramatically raised public awareness about the plight of the river," says John Horning, executive director of the Forest Guardians, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit that has waged a legal campaign to help save the rare minnow. Horning points to a recent University of New Mexico study showing that 80 percent of state residents support measures to ensure the river's flow. "In the past, people didn't have to choose between an alfalfa field and a healthy river," says Horning, but now that they're forced to, "they're increasingly choosing the river."
With another meager mountain runoff this spring, Ken Maxey, a federal Bureau of Reclamation manager in Albuquerque, says he had little choice but to warn Rio Grande-area farmers that if they don't stop diverting river water he might have to force them to do so. "That's when the war is going to start around here," warns Herkenhoff. "We may not sit on the head gates with a shotgun, but we'll get out and raise some hell."
In fact, it may be all over but the shouting. Although the Old West holds prior claims to the region's water, the New West increasingly has the political and financial clout to determine how and where the water gets used. And as the continuing drought raises the stakes for everyone, more fields are likely to go fallow so that the Rio Grande's minnows can survive and people like Ed Wirth can keep their backyards green.
Crisis conditions
Places where water wars may erupt or intensify in the next two decades as the demands of people, farms, and wildlife outstrip existing supplies.
[Map is not available.]
[labels]
Unmet rural Moderate Substantial Highly likely
water needs conflict conflict conflict
potential potential potential
Wash. X x
Ore. X x
Calif. x X x x
Idaho x
Nev. x
Ariz. X x x
Mont. x
Wyo. x
Utah x x
N.M. x x x x
Colo. X x x
N.D. x x
S.D. x
Neb. X x
Kan. X x
Okla. X x
Texas x x x x
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior
Rob Cady--USN&WR
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