El Paso cotton farmer Danny Loya says he is
hoping for a good growing season this year, something that depends mostly on
how much water is available to irrigate his 500 acres in the Lower Valley.
"I'm a little more optimistic than last year, but only time will tell,"
he said. "There was a lot of snow up north, but the dam has a lot of
capacity, we really don't know how much water we will get until March.
Farming is all I do for a living, and I've been doing this for 16 years."
At least for now, early allocation figures and projections for the Rio
Grande Project indicate that El Paso, Juárez and Doña Ana County farmers may
get more water than last year for their crops, said Wayne Treers, team
leader of water operations for th e! U.S. Bureau of Reclamation office in El
Paso.
Already! , the water allocations from what's available in the Elephant
Butte-Caballo reservoir system are considerably better than they were at
this time last year. For example, the available water for El Paso as of
Wednesday is 73,338 acre-feet, compared to 31,341 acre-feet last year at
this time.
Theoretically, Treers said, this is the amount of water that the region's
three major users could draw on right now. But the bureau's Rio Grande
Project won't actually release any water until the official start of the
irrigation season in March.
"We're still waiting on the runoff from snowpack above Elephant Butte,
which represents the bulk of our water supply," he said. "The Natural
Resources Conservation Service's snowpack forecast for January says our
water supply might end up at 70 percent of normal, which is the best
forecast we've had since 1997. But, we still have plenty of winter to go."
Jesus Reyes, general manager of El Paso's irrigation district, said the
district has 32 ,! 000 water accounts, including 250 to 300 large
agricultural users. Crops for this region are cotton, alfalfa, assorted
vegetables, wheat, onions and pecans. Each year, Elephant Butte and Caballo
lake also provide recreational areas for fishing and boating.
"We met (Thursday) with officials from Elephant Butte and Mexico at the
International Boundary and Water Commission to go over our plans based on
the latest projections," he said. "Everything looks positive up to now, but
we still plan to conserve and try to avoid as much loss as possible. We plan
to make one irrigation release in March, then shut off the supply until late
April and the next ones."
