Water Matters!

Water Update (09/09/26)

A River (Ever So Briefly) Returns This week’s water update is a special edition as Rin Tara and John Fleck take you out to the Rio Grand in Central Albuquerque to experi

Water Update (08/26/26)

A Search for Silver Linings The water numbers remain grim in this week’s Water Update, with 97 miles of drying in the New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande, which is not a reco

16: Discussing the Post-2026 FEIS with the Wilburys vol. I

Guests: Kathryn Sorensen and Jack Schmidt This week Rin Tara and John Fleck are joined by friends and colleagues Kathryn Sorensen and Jack Schmidt – members of the group

Water Update (08/12/2026)

A Dry Year Gets Drier This week Rin Tara and John Fleck do their best to find hope, but in a year this dry it takes more work. Note that at the time of posting this epis

Water Update (07/29/26)

It rained! On this week’s water update, Rin Tara and John Fleck talk about the joy of a summer rainstorm, as Albuquerque was drenched by a monsoon storm Friday, July 24*

15: John Fleck on Tending the Middle Rio Grande Garden

In this week’s Water Matters, John Fleck switches from the host’s chair to the guest’s chair (it’s really the same chair) as co-host Rin Tara sits down with him to talk a

Water Update (07/09/26)

Lots of news on this week’s Water Matters. Kelsey Fendler rows the Pacific (paywalled)Mark Olalde, Alex Hager, and Sharon Chischilly on the Northeastern Arizona water se

Water Update (06/24/26)

Hunting for signs of hope in a hot, dry June With a high pressure system parked over the Four Corners, Albuquerque has been hot and dry, and in this week’s episode Rin T

14: A “Super” El Niño is coming. What does it mean for New Mexico?

Guest: Aidan Manning  This week Rin Tara and John Fleck are joined by Aidan Manning from New Mexico Wild’s Rivers and Waters Program to talk about El Niño and what it me

Water Update (06/10/26)

A Drying Rio Grande This week Rin Tara and John Fleck provide an update on the increasingly dry conditions on New Mexico’s central river system, where flows on the Rio G

13: Managing the Water in a Very Tough Year

Guest: Anne Marken Anne Marken gets up every morning and looks at snowpack data and river flow numbers. As the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District’s River Operations

Water Update (05/20/26)

For the May 20 Water Update, Rin and John step away from discussing the bleak water numbers and take some time to talk about the moral obligation of hope, municipal water

Water Update (05/06/26)

In this week’s Water Matters, Rin Tara and John Fleck talk about the delightfully named “jiggle,” a series of pulses released from Isleta Diversion Dam downstream from Al

Water Update (04/22/26)

There is no way to sugar coat the bad water news pill as 2026 enters what should be the rising limb of the runoff season, as Rin Tara and John Fleck report in this week&a

12: Tucker Davidson on Birds and Hope

Guest: Tucker Davidson It seemed unfair – asking Tucker Davidson to name his favorite bird. A senior water associate at Audubon Southwest, Davidson is a hopeless bird ne

Water Update (04/08/26)

Water Update: a shrinking Colorado River forecast A declining runoff forecast for the Colorado River Basin means a tough year for water users as the Bureau of Reclamatio

11: The Proposed Settlement of Texas v. New Mexico on the Rio Grande

Guest: Phil King With a final agreement in sight that would settle Texas's 13-year-old lawsuit against New Mexico over water use on the Rio Grande, Rin Tara and Joh

Water Update (03/11/26)

With irrigation water flowing through the irrigation ditches of New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley, Rin Tara and John Fleck look at the latest snowpack numbers, river

Water Update (02/25/26)

The latest round of storms helped the snowpack in New Mexico’s headwaters rivers a little, but we’re so far behind that we still should expect to see a dry Rio Grande thr

10: Mapping Aquifers with the NMBGMR

Guest: Stacy Timmons, Associate Director for Hydrology Programs at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources  When the New Mexico legislature approved the W