Our Land
By: Laura Paskus As high winds whipped dust, Siberian elm seeds and recycling bins around Albuquerque Thursday afternoon, dozens of people filed into the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Albuquerque office to hear the agency’s 2018 forecast for the Rio Grande. … Continue reading Public should be ready for the Rio Grande’s bad year
April 13, 2018 – You might be surprised to see how low the Rio Grande is through Albuquerque right now. The river has already dried for more than ten miles south of Socorro, and it’s running low in northern New … Continue reading Our Land: It’s not just one dry year: What the Rio Grande’s low flows tell us about the future
by Laura Paskus In springtime, rivers are supposed to swell with snowmelt, filling their channels and triggering fish to spawn. This year, however, the Middle Rio Grande has already dried south of Socorro. Record-low snowpack in the mountains upstream means … Continue reading Rio Grande Already Drying Out Near Socorro
By: Laura Paskus The tony neighborhoods tucked into the juniper-dotted grasslands on the east side of the Sandia Mountains represent yet another battleground in New Mexico’s water wars, one in which the state’s top water official has abandoned one side … Continue reading East Mountain water application spurs protests from residents, silence from State Engineer
March 8, 2018 – This month on Our Land, we visit with tree ring scientist Tom Swetnam, a professor emeritus at the University of Arizona. Swetnam has studied forest ecology and fire regimes in the southwestern United States, including in … Continue reading Our Land: Preparing Homes For Fire Season
February 9, 2018 – This month on “Our Land: New Mexico’s Environmental Past, Present and Future,” we head to Sandia Peak—and learn what’s missing up there right now. With Kerry Jones, a warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service, we … Continue reading Our Land: Record Low Snowpack In New Mexico
January 12, 2018 – This month on “Our Land: New Mexico’s Environmental Past, Present and Future,” we visit Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro. Many people visit the refuge during the winter months to get an up-close look … Continue reading Our Land: Bosque del Apache
US Supreme Court to decide how states share the drying Rio Grande, and New Mexico could lose big By Laura Paskus As severe drought returns to New Mexico, farmers and skiers alike fret over the state’s lack of snow. Meanwhile, … Continue reading In Deep Water
New Mexico hits the high court on the Rio Grande By Laura Paskus WASHINGTON, DC—On a frigid Monday morning in the nation’s capital, as most of the press corps turned its attention toward a water dispute between Florida and Georgia, … Continue reading Justices question lawyers from New Mexico, Colorado and Texas about feds’ role in water dispute
December 8, 2017 – More than 20 years ago, Dan Shaw co-founded the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program, or BEMP, with the late-Cliff Crawford, a biology professor at the University of New Mexico. Today, thousands of New Mexico students from the … Continue reading Students & Scientists Benefit From The Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program