ONLY ON ABC-7: Farmers struggling with late water release from Elephant Butte Lake

The Elephant Butte Irrigation District ( EBID ) is set to release water from Elephant Butte Lake on Friday, more than two months later than last year. Last Fall, the reservoir fell to only three percent capacity, the lowest in many years, so the EBID had no choice but to wait to release water.

“That’s primarily why we’ve had to start so late this year is that you get a little water in the lake so that we could at least allocate, at this point, ten inches to our farmers,” Gary Esslinger , Treasurer-Manager of the EBID , said.

Farmers along the Rio Grande in Southern New Mexico and West Texas have had to rely on well water so far this growing season, but that water is of a lower quality and is scarce in some spots, especially in the Hatch Valley.

” They also have saltier water up there cause the aquifer is much more shallower . So when you put a combination of low volume and a lot of salt on a drip system where you’re growing onions, or chile, or cotton, then it’s going to have an effect on the yield, ” Esslinger said.

Farmers in the Mesilla Valley are also struggling, especially if they don’t have access to well water.

“It has decreased the yield on my crops, especially since I had an unfortunate situation where my well motor went out and no other source of water,” Enrique Maldonado, a third generation farmer in the Mesilla Valley, said.

Even after he replaces his well motor, the outlook on his water table is bleak.

“We have had a decrease on our water table from in this area especially, from 7 feet it has gone down to 26 feet ,” Maldonado said.

There is hope for the future though, right now the watershed (water that will flow into the Rio Grande) is 242 percent of average according Esslinger , and feet of snow have yet to melt in the southern Rockies. A combination of the later release of water from Elephant Butte Dam and a great snow year for the Rockies has resulted in the highest lake levels seen since early 2018 at 24.5% as of May 30, 2019. Elephant Butte hasn’t reached full capacity since March 26, 1996.

If you wish to keep track of Elephant Butte’s lake capacity, you can do so here .