Solutions for Sustaining Environmental Flows

Flows in the Rio Chama, a tributary of the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico,
have dwindled from drought and rising temperatures as well as diversion for agricultural irrigation. These diminished flows threaten groundwater resources and habitat for endangered plants and animals. Paul Tashjian, Director of Freshwater Conservation with Audubon Southwest, tells us about solutions that have been implemented to alleviate pressures on the Rio Chama and other waterways, bringing back flows for the natural habitat.

Relevant Links:
Five-Year Lease of Water Rights for Environmental Flows Along the Rio Chama

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Transcript

Emile: Welcome to Come Rain or Shine, podcast of the USDA Southwest Climate Hub

Sarah: And the DOI Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center for Southwest CASC, operated by the USGS. I'm Sarah LeRoy, Research Coordinator for the Southwest CASC. 

Emile: And I'm Emile Elias, Director of the Southwest Climate Hub. Here we highlight stories to share the most recent advances in climate science, weather, and climate adaptation and innovative practices to support resilient landscapes and communities.

Sarah: We believe that sharing some of the most innovative, forward thinking, and creative climate science and adaptation will strengthen our collective ability to respond to even the most challenging impacts of climate change in one of the hottest and driest regions of the world.

The contents of this podcast are for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as endorsement for any of the products, technologies, or strategies discussed.

For this episode, we're focusing our attention on the Rio Chama, a tributary of the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico. Flows in the Rio Chama have dwindled from drought and rising temperatures, as well as diversion for agricultural irrigation. These diminished flows threaten groundwater resources and habitat for endangered plants and animals.

Today, we're talking with Paul Tashjian, Director of Freshwater Conservation with Audubon Southwest, about solutions that have been implemented in New Mexico to try and alleviate pressures on the Rio Chama from over allocation of water rights and to bring back flows for the natural habitat. Thanks for joining us today, Paul.

Maybe you could start off just by giving us an overview of environmental flows. What, what are they and why do they matter? 

Paul: Thanks, Sarah. Yeah, environmental flows to me encompass two things. But one is the science of understanding how much water a river ecosystem needs and in this is like, where are the environmental flow gaps? Like, where is it deficient? And this can pertain to a river or a segment of a river. 

And then secondly, it is the legal and management activities that are done to help fill these environmental flow gaps. So that becomes much more of a legal management policy world. The science of how much water a river needs has evolved over the years, and it's not just about minimum flows anymore.

We're also recognizing the importance of pulses and things like the snowmelt runoff as being really primary ecologic drivers that in themselves need to be protected and enhanced.

Sarah: Excellent. Thank you. So now what are some of the challenges and issues around securing and maintaining environmental flows in waterways in the Southwest?

Paul: It is challenging to protect and restore river flows in the Southwest, in all Western states, I would say. Water management in the West has evolved around the traditional uses of agriculture, municipal and industrial. The structure of water law and management revolves around consumption, using the water.

Environmental flows are largely non-consumptive, and this often is a mismatch with how water is administered. For many years, leaving water in the river wasn't even considered a beneficial use in many western states. This has finally changed, but so it's a challenging situation. The other thing that's challenging is that there's a lot of misconceptions about what environmental flows are.

Many still view environmental flows as a threat to their water rights. Back in the day, we used to refer to environmental flows as in-stream flows. And these words took on a larger than life meaning - often being associated with a radical, sort of “tree-hugging” kind of threat, where environmentalists were poised to somehow supersede state water law and steal your water.

As I'll discuss, I think many of these misconceptions are being dispelled through on the ground examples of how these types of transactions can actually benefit farmers. 

Sarah: Thanks, Paul. And so now I wanted to focus on a specific project. So a few years ago, you worked on a unique project that involved leases of agricultural water rights for environmental flows in the Rio Chama. So, could you tell us a little bit about this project? 

Paul: Yeah, um, in 2019, Audubon Southwest received the first ever private water right permit in New Mexico for in-stream flow as a beneficial use of a water right. This project demonstrated that a privately held agricultural water right could be transferred to leave it in-stream and still retain its water right standing.

There has been several opinions that this type of water right transaction could be done dating back to a 1999 New Mexico Attorney General opinion. The project benefit the local ecology by not consuming 40 acre feet of agricultural water and allowing this water to stay in-stream during the critical months of April, May, and June.

New Mexico has many small water rights. This transaction is representative of the types of transactions that will be needed to be cobbled together to protect stream flows. But I must also add that while this was the first ever New Mexico private in-stream water right, New Mexico has developed other tools for addressing the need to keep water in rivers over the years.

Most of these have been developed to address the water needs of endangered species, like the Rio Grande silvery minnow. An example of these tools is the New Mexico Strategic Water Reserve, which allows the state to hold water rights for in-stream use to benefit either endangered species or interstate compact needs.

Sarah: So, are there any other examples that you're involved with for providing environmental water through water rights transactions in New Mexico, so similar to this other project? 

Paul: There are several activities that Audubon and other non-profits are currently engaged with to further protection and restoration of river flows in New Mexico.

A group of nonprofits are working on defining the water needs of six reaches of the Upper Rio Grande in New Mexico as part of the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation's and Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District's Rio Grande Basin Study. This is a very important step towards defining environmental flow gaps in the Rio Grande of New Mexico and describing how these gaps can be lessened.

There's also the San Juan Chama water, which is water which is imported from the Colorado River Basin. Audubon leases some of this water from willing municipalities and uses it to help keep water in the Middle Rio Grande of New Mexico. And the third thing I want to highlight is the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District of Central New Mexico is developing their own environmental flow program that works within their management system.

And we're assisting them with this project. It is an exciting demonstration of how these type of water leases can be done locally at the same time as keeping water available for the farmers. All these efforts are furthering the development of tools that are specific to New Mexico water management.

These projects protect the flows of rivers, which in turn protects the beauty of our rivers. They also help keep river and water systems, which is a benefit to downstream farmers and compact delivery. 

Emile: Paul, it's so great to hear those different projects you mentioned, especially that the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District is developing their own in-stream flow or environmental flow program.

My own first professional job was working with farmers and ranchers to lease water rights for environmental flows along salmon spawning streams, about 30 years ago. And at that time, sometimes the people we were working with were hesitant about the program, it was very new and so, I'm wondering if you had any challenges gaining traction or support for these ideas now, 30 years later in New Mexico?

Paul: Absolutely. As I alluded to before, just the idea has a lot of stigma to it in terms of this in-stream flow or environmental water flows. On the Rio Chama project, that project, the first in-stream flow water right, there was a lot of concern from the local Acequia district, the Rio Chama Acequia Association, over how this type of water right would affect their water management and water availability.

And so, we actually entered into mediation through the state engineer permitting process with them and were able to demonstrate that the action actually benefited their water usage because it kept water, as not being consumed above the diversion point. So that was a really exciting process to go through.

With the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District Program that they're developing, we saw a lot of resistance initially over concerns of loss in the water system, in the conveyance system, and how that might affect availability of water downstream. And all these concerns are legitimate and they need to be discussed and addressed.

This is why I really think local solutions are needed. And it's the, it also highlights the importance of test projects and pilot projects and developing programs that address the concerns and recognize the potential for unintended consequences. 

I will say this much, environmental water is largely not consumptive. And if it's administered locally, it can help to keep water in the system locally. This is much different than leasing water and exporting it from the local system. And there's a lot of concerns with that, you know, happening throughout the West. 

There's always a potential for unintended consequences when you start changing water management in a given area. So, I just think that this sort of highlights the need for staff. You know, state staff, federal staff, nonprofits working on these issues directly, locally, to find correct creative solutions. And to ensure that there are no unintended consequences. 

Emile: Yeah, I really appreciate you highlighting the potential for unintended consequences and the importance of local adaptation and, um, that all of these concerns are legitimate and need to be considered and discussed and that's an important space.

And so you started, started going down this road, but I'm curious specifically, what are some of the costs and benefits to irrigators for these projects? 

Paul: So, not farming a field, is also called fallowing, and you know, in some programs, this is just, you know, rotational fallowing, but it also can be permanent fallowing, and that could be more detrimental, but one thing that the farmers have to deal with if they're not going to farm their field a given year is weeds, and sort of, that's sort of the, you know, the cost of weeds and cost of managing that land to ensure they can put it back into production.

So there's, there's issues with that. There's also the issues of less water in the irrigation system if it's being put in the river above there, so that can affect downstream delivery to other farms. Locally, I think as you get further downstream, it actually improves because all that water is going back into the system.

So there's issues with that that need to be addressed. Again, it's why local solutions are really need to be looked at. You can't do a one size fits all. The benefits to the farmers are that, for one, many of these programs, most of the programs will have money for taking a year off, but there's some, you know, per acre cost that is given to them, and then with that is often coupled money for on farm improvements, efficiency improvements, so all this stuff, a farmer could take a year off and do all this improvement to their, to their farm, and then go back into production in a later year, so that's beneficial.

And then for farmers who aren't enrolled in the programs, like I said before, it might locally impact, but you know, again, this has to be managed, might locally impact water availability, but when you get down river, it's actually keeping more water in the system and it's keeping the system whole for downstream diversions. 

Emile: Excellent. So those are some benefits to irrigators. Can you tell us a bit about the other benefits of environmental water rights in New Mexico? For example, what are the benefits to wildlife or other natural systems? And this is a challenging part of the question, how do you measure those benefits?

Paul: Yeah, it's a great question. There are obviously benefits to fish and wildlife and to birds. You know, Audubon, we're very interested in the bird usage of these riparian areas. And so, you know, that's a primary reason for doing these type of applications of water rights, is to keep water in the system for wildlife.

There's also benefits to people, though I would say, you know, people using the river systems, like in 2023 last year, September, we coupled with the Bureau of Reclamation to bring some of this San Juan Chama water that I talked about previously to the Rio Grande in Albuquerque to keep it whole for the month of September.

And this is a place that people, you know, walk in, you know, find solace in, and I don’t want to discount that importance as well. So, it's to the wildlife and also just to the communities and people who rely on the river for that type of activity. And then, you know, as I said before also, it benefits keeping rivers whole and keeping water flowing and rivers benefits downstream delivery to other farms and to the compact. Okay, so that's sort of the, you know, it's sort of multi-beneficial in my view. 

Measurement, so that's a, that's a really important question. For measurement, I think it falls into two camps. One is the physical measurement that is needed to be done for environmental flow of water rights, where you have to actually measure that the water is in stream, and that requires hydrology, doing discharge measurements and setting up stations, and that could be, you know, that could be costly and time consumptive. So, it's a factor that we're working with the state engineer on to try to simplify so that doesn't become a hindrance to future applications. 

And then to determine ecologically that the benefit is doing what you hope it to do is dependent upon surveys. So, you know, surveys for given bird species or for fish. And at our sites, we do both to try to develop that and, you know, to demonstrate that the wildlife that you intended to be using the in-stream water are actually using it. 

Emile: Excellent. And then you also mentioned the value to people of just being there and appreciating and enjoying the river. And, that's another challenging one to really measure. Yeah. So, I'm curious about how people get involved with these projects. Do irrigators volunteer or do Audubon members approach them or maybe a combination of both? 

Paul: Well, for that initial one on the Rio Chama that we started off this discussion about, my predecessor, she was looking for an agricultural water right that could have an ecological benefit to leaving it in-stream and whose owners were open to a potentially longish permitting process. This is the first in stream flow application in New Mexico and walking it through the process, we anticipated it was going to take time. So that one was one where she really shopped around and looked for the right that met those criteria and met with the landowners.

And I will say though, it was completely voluntary. None of this, all these actions are completely voluntary. There's no mandate or need to do it if a given landowner doesn't want to. 

But for other programs, such as the New Mexico Strategic Water Reserve and the Mid Rio Grande Conservancy District, their pilot program, it's voluntary and the word is you know, disseminated through websites, through meetings. I mean, it's just getting the word out. And it's also getting people more used to the more of these examples are out there. It becomes more normalized. It's not like, oh, here's this big threat coming to, you know, to impact your water, right? But hey, this could be a real option for, for a given landowner.

So having many examples, I think is also important, but it's sort of a dual thing of like, you know, of having those examples and then getting the information out through different venues about the programs. 

Sarah: Thanks, Paul. For this next question, I wanted to think more on like a community level, farmer, agrarian community level.

So, is there any concern that this kind of arrangement might inadvertently negatively impact farmers or the agrarian community in the area? So, for example, you know, maybe irrigators might decide that it's easier to make money from water leases and then just get out of the farming business altogether. Have you come across that at all or that concern? 

Paul: Yeah, there's always a concern. Like I said, there's been a concern about how these type of programs could impact that. There's a thing that's often referred to as buy and dry, which I think is what you're referring to where, you know, that, uh, a given entity, government agency, might come in and actually purchase farmland and retire it completely and take it out of the system.

And that's one model. But again, that needs to be done very carefully. And there's a lot, there's concerns about that, not just for the water delivery of the system, but also for, like I mentioned before, weeds and, you know, what, what happens to that land after you were, you fallow. And, and what, what kind of what can be done to restore that land so it becomes something that is still valuable in the system, and I think that that's where, again, like, I think that if it's done with local solutions and you keep the water local, a lot of those can be addressed, a lot of those concerns, but there definitely are concerns.

I mean, it's definitely, and I don't want to, I don't want to dismiss those concerns or make it seem like there's easy solutions because it's not. These aren't easy solutions, but they're valuable solutions. Yeah, and we need to just design these projects so we're sort of eyes wide open in terms of unintended consequences.

One thing that we're very interested in at this point is the development of a New Mexico environmental flow program, a state agency doing this kind of work. And there's some nascent movement this way with this, with the New Mexico Strategic Water Reserve. There's a position that's actually open now for joining that position.

So, there's, the state is beginning to do more of this. We're the only state in the West that doesn't have an environmental flow program. And I think that that sort of highlights, but there's been a lot of talk about having it. And the importance of that, you need people working on this stuff, you know, you can't just sort of have a cookie cutter approach. Sleeves rolled up, you know, and meeting with folks and understanding the local situation is really critical for success.

Sarah: Great, thank you. So now I'm curious also, were there any surprising outcomes? So anything that came up that was, you know, particularly you were surprised by from this water lease arrangement that you hadn't necessarily originally foreseen? 

Paul: Well, I think one of the more, sort of like, wonderful surprises that we had was, you know, we had been protested by the Acequia Association, and we worked with them in mediation, but it's sort of, you know, mediation is still sort of this legal atmosphere, and, it's a bit of like, keep your cards close to your chest sort of stuff, you know. We weren't doing that, but it still has that sort of feel to it.

A year ago, and so that was in 2019. A year ago, I was at a conference in Taos that focused on water shortage sharing agreements in the state and how we could actually develop these shortage sharing agreements locally that, you know, that could get us through drought and water shortages. And at the conference, there were a lot of the Acequia members were there.

It was great to see them. And one of them, when they gave their presentation, he said that he pointed to this, this application to the permit, the Rio Gallinas permit, and said that this is an example of how this is a win win. This is an example of how we can both protect the environment and help our flows.

And it was like, that was just, that was just wonderful. That was just like a, like, wow, this is, uh, this is making uh, progress in terms of bridging the gap between the conceptions and understanding that these things can be mutually beneficial. And, yeah, and some of the same things with the Middle Rio Grande work is just seeing some of these farmers who were initially opposed to the program are actually now enrolling in it because they see benefit.

So I think that's the seeds of change that I talked about where the more people out there who have examples to point to and can say, hey, this actually benefited us and here's how, the more we can develop acceptance and interest in these kind of programs. 

Sarah: Do you happen to know if there are any plans to continue the Rio Gallinas project beyond the five year lease or maybe even replicate it somewhere else?

Paul: So we're not going to continue the leasing of the Rio Gallinas. This is actually the last year, but, but Trout Unlimited has a similar lease on the Gallinas River near Las Vegas, New Mexico, not to be confused. And there are other applications in the hopper. What we're really focusing on at this point is, as I said before, is the development of a state environmental flow program and the need for having a really strong staff working on these problems.

And just again, the private leases that this is an example of are one tool in the toolbox. Of all these other tools that can be also used, and we need to have all, you know, figure out what fits for a given locations. It might just be a, the state has a conservation program where you can just develop, you know, not diverting your water right for several years, but still retain the water rights, uh, standings of those water rights.

And that can be just as effective as an in-stream flow water right. You know, there's tools, the Strategic Reserve, these, these tools all need to be employed. So, this is our focus. And yeah, and as I said before, I think there's some, the state is making progress in terms of developing of such a program and there's an understanding and need for it. It's just a question of, you know, staff and funding, which is always a challenge for them. 

Emile: Excellent. It's so nice to be reminded of the multiple options and tools available and emerging as well, so that's great to see. Is there anything we didn't ask you that you wish we would have asked? 

Paul: Well there's one thing I would say is obviously there's a lot to unpack in all this, right, but one point that I always like to make, and this especially applies to the Rio Grande in central New Mexico, is that keeping water for the farming communities and the rivers are interdependent.

There's a really interwoven interdependency between the two. So, by example is when, when the farmers run out of water in the middle of Rio Grande, which happened last September, which happened the previous year, it is so much harder and arguably impossible in some places to keep water in the river.

We're really dependent on that agricultural water for getting water back to the river and keeping the river whole, keeping the system whole. And then similarly, like I've said before, that this environmental water is largely non-consumptive. So, it has a benefit to downstream farmers. It has a benefit to the compact deliveries.

So, there's that mutual benefit that often gets, in the past at least, has been sort of pitted against each other, you know, it's fish versus farmer, you know, this sort of, you know, different sides fighting each other. It's, it's really not that. It's really a unified system. That you know, that has mutual benefits for keeping water for the farms and keeping water for the river.

Emile: That's a great answer. And something that I noticed recently at the Society for Range Management meeting was that where, where things used to be more contentious, they're becoming more collaborative. And I like to see that in the water space as well. We like to ask the same question of all the experts we're lucky to speak with. And so, I'll ask you this question as well. What gives you hope for the future? 

Paul: Yeah, I mean, for me, I would say the youth, the next generation gives me hope for the future, you know, especially in the water management world. I'm 60, so I've been doing this work for over three decades, and I'm really inspired by all the young talent out there that I meet in New Mexico and in the West.

But especially in New Mexico, they understand that water management is not about silos. It's not about, okay, how much water does the farms need? How much do the cities need? How much does the river need? But there's really this, this swell of, of understanding that water management is interconnected and these are unified systems.

And so, I really think that's a fundamental shift that I see taking place. And that is giving me great hope that we can find these solutions. So the, and, and these, these youngins are making their way into the water management agencies and nonprofits. And so that gives me really great hope for finding solutions in the future.

Emile: Excellent. Yes. And the final question for our conversation today, if people remember only one thing from our conversation, what's the one thing you'd like people to remember? 

Paul: That keeping our rivers alive and vibrant is essential for our future in New Mexico, that this is a part of our future. And we've got the talent and energy to do this.

Part of this one thing would be, you know, the next time that you, that you see a depressing climate change graph, just be inspired. You can, you can make a difference. You can shape our water future. It's not too late and our rivers need you. 

Emile: Excellent. Paul Tashjian, thank you so much for joining us. 

Paul: Thank you. My pleasure.

Emile: Thanks for listening to Come Rain or Shine, podcast of the USDA Southwest Climate Hub 

Sarah: And the USGS Southwest CASC. If you liked this podcast, don't forget to rate or review it and subscribe for more great episodes. A special thanks to our production crew, Skye Aney and Reanna Burnett. If you want more information, have any questions for the speakers, or would like to offer feedback, please reach out to us via our websites.