Rio Grande, running black, I’m not kidding…UPDATE
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 26-07-2011
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Last Saturday morning the paper reported that the city was not using the river water for the drinking supplies until it cleared up. They went on to say the rain around the burn areas near Los Alamos was feeding black water into the Rio Grande. On the way to Saturday night church, as we were crossing the bridge over the Rio Grande I checked it out. Black as black boot polish. How strange it looked. Down around Albuquerque it most always runs sandy brown. In the northern part of the state it is clear or a pleasant green in color. Black is not a pretty color for a river. Rusty is not either but better than black… We are happy for all the rain we have been getting but we want our rusty colored water back pretty soon. It’s always something………UPDATE>>>>On July 30 it is reported that the ash will not hurt the drinking water so we are using it again. However, traveling over the river yesterday it seems our rusty color is almost back, some black around the edges of the river…that is good….
I remember that, back in the Sixties, the slogan was “Black is Beautiful”. I don’t suppose that is true around Albuquerque, particularly in reference to the water of the Rio Grande. It is neat, though, to learn that the water in the Rio Grande in Albuquerque actually flows. I remember so many times walking and biking across the Rio Grande and seeing only solid, perhaps muddy “Enchantment” with a few pools of stagnant water here and there. This was when I was a very lonely Air Force trooper far away from home who was looking for the vast waters of the Black Warrior, or at least the muddy Tombigbee, or even the cold, clear water of tiny Coal Fire creek. Here, I only found the muddy “enchantment” of the Rio Grande. It took me a while to understand what was happening, then I became enchanted myself and became a transplanted New Mexico booster like so many other transplanted Texans and Okies before (and perhaps) after me.
We are pumping ground water into the Pecos River to help satisfy our demands to Texas for their water….Let me say that again…Pumping water from our underground aquifer into the Pecos River so Texas can have their share of river water. I don’t understand the water laws of our nation but that just not seem right. Texas sued us and won years ago so that may be a part of it….crazy
Water rights law, particularly in the desert southwest and most particularly in Texas, is poised on a keen edge. Water is the commodity that brings out the guns more often than any other. In many places, killings occur in land disputes, whiskey making, and pot growing; but, in the southwest, water is the most valuable commodity. I suppose New Mexico’s real problem is the occurrence of headwaters of the Pecos and the Rio Grande (and other rivers) within its borders. According to the law, the state which has control of the headwaters has the obligation to fairly distribute the water. Since it is a state with headwaters high above surrounding, thirsty, more populated states, it has a higher obligation, under the law, to fairly share the water with its lower neighbors. I am not a lawyer, and I may miss the point completly, but water rights law is a very interesting field of the law simply because it deals with such a basic necessary commodity.