Water levels at Elephant Butte expected to reach ‘alarming’ low levels

ELEPHANT BUTTE, New Mexico -- The initial release from Caballo Lake is set for Monday, after it was initially meant to be released Friday. It will combine El Paso, Mexico and EBIDs orders. 

Gary Esslinger, Treasure Manager of Elephant Butte Irrigation, told ABC-7 they have a 4 inch allotment this year. He estimates we’ll see about 2,500 cubic feet per second released Monday. 

Elephant Butte Lake filters into Caballo, by the end of the summer, Esslinger told ABC-7 Elephant Butte could be as low as 10,000 acre feet which he said is “alarming.”

“It’s probably one of the lowest in history that the lake will reach,” Esslinger said. “We still have the monsoon season, so there’s a little bit of hope that we get a little inflow from our monsoon events this summer.”

If we don’t see monsoons over the summer, Esslingers says “We’re going to be in a terrible fix.”

Right now Esslinger estimates that Elephant Butte is under 10% of its 2,200,000 acre feet capacity. By the end of the summer if we don’t see enough rain from the monsoon Esslinger says it will probably be closer to 2%. So where does that leave businesses that depend on water in Elephant Butte and the tourism that comes along with it, to survive?

According to Esslinger, the bureau has set a minimum of 10,000 acre feet that they can not go below, in an attempt to save the fish, but Esslinger doesn’t know if it will be enough. 

“When you have such a restricted and low pool of water and high temperatures, the fish can survive for a while but then the oxygen goes away,” Esslinger said. 

While many businesses in the area are concerned about the lack of water that will be left in Elephant Butte for recreational purposes, Esslinger wants to remind people that the lake wasn’t built for that reason.

“It wasn’t built for recreation, it wasn’t built for tourism, it was built for a single purpose - agriculture,” Esslinger said.