Unsettled Waters: A blog on water rights in the American West

Another interesting story today in the New Mexican , regarding some newly-discovered (but long-known) springs in the upper watershed of the Rio Grande, near the state line with Colorado, close to Ute Mountain. Now, for observers and watch-dogs, please pay attention that no one counts this as "new water" in the Rio Grande to divert willy-nilly. This flow is already accounted for in the Otowi gauge numbers...it's not an immaculate spring that is contributing shadow cfs flow to the river. Got it? Good.

With a quick excursion this afternoon, I went to the famous Bridge at Otowi, which is right next to the now more important Otowi Gauge. This measurement device, for Rio Grande flow, is the spatial "chokepoint" for the Rio Grande Compact between New Mexico and Texas (see photo). A certain percentage of the flow at Otowi, has to then move on (in theory, undisturbed) to the Texas border. (Photo 1: Otowi gauge, just south of the Rt 502 bridge, along the Rio Grande). That this small measurement device, a technology for "commensuration" as Espeland would put it (see today's earlier post), would represent inter-state politics at its best and worst, is just a small reflection of the scaled politics of water. For contrast, during this same drive, I went to R. En Medio and Chupadero, two small villages just northeast of Tesuque, that share a splitter box on the Rio En Medio (see August post). Here, everything is scaled to the local dynamics of the water, the community...