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PODCAST

Water Matters!

Utton Transboundary Resources Center

The Utton Transboundary Resources Center’s Water Matters! podcast looks at water and natural resources issues in New Mexico and beyond. Housed at the University of New Mexico School of Law, the Utton Transboundary Resources Center is a state-funded research and public service project that believes in the pursuit of well informed, collaborative solutions to our natural resource challenges. The Utton Transboundary Resources Center’s Sairis Perez-Gomez designed the podcast logo and wrote and performed

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All Episodes

10:30

Water Update (09/23/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/09/23

The Rains Return On this week’s episode, Rin Tara and John Fleck talk about Rin’s trip down Cataract Canyon on the Colorado River (totally work related!) while John stayed home and obsessed over weather radar and river gage readings as the Rio Grande, dry along large stretches through Central New Mexico for much of the summer, finally reconnected. To understand Cataract Canyon, check out the Returning Rapids ProjectTaos tightens water conservation measuresWednesday, Sept. 23, at the Gui...

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31:20

17: Understanding the History Behind How We Manage...

Water Matters! ·

2026/09/18

Guest: Eric Kuhn “We need to understand the history.” - Eric Kuhn This week Rin Tara and John Fleck are joined on Water Matters by their longtime friend and collaborator Eric Kuhn, arguably the preeminent historian of the intersection between Colorado River hydrology and the evolution of the institutions developed to manage it. Their subject is the arcane but now critically important issues of the Colorado River Basin’s “Upper Basi...

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17:50

Water Update (09/09/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/09/09

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 experience the brief return of the Rio Grande to a river bed that has been dry for most of the summer. Rin and John were there, tape recorder in hand, on Thursday (Sept. 3, 2026) at midday as a pulse of water provided by the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, and Audubo...

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9:40

Water Update (08/26/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/08/26

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 record large number only because it rained enough to drop this week’s number beneath last week’s 100 miles of drying. But Rin Tara and John Fleck soldier on, searching for signs of hope in an otherwise grim water situation: Money for Albuquerque’s aquifer storage and recovery projectTortugas Dam rehabilitation project New Mex...

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36:20

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

Water Matters! ·

2026/08/21

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 that journalist Allen Best dubbed The Traveling Wilburys of the Colorado River – to talk about the future of management of the Colorado River. Tara, Fleck, Sorensen, and Schmidt – along with fellow Wilburys Anne Castle and Eric Kuhn – have been collaborating for a number of years on analysis and recommendations for Colorado R...

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22:40

Water Update (08/12/2026)

Water Matters! ·

2026/08/12

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 episode, the Frijoles Fire has grown to 7,794 acres. Via John and Utah State’s Jack Schmidt, Lake Mead and Lake Powell continue their decline toward the lowest levels since the reservoirs were first built in the 1930s (Mead) and 1960s (Powell).The latest forecast for the coming Super El Niño: lots of winter precipitation for...

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13:40

Water Update (07/29/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/07/29

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*, wetting the Rio Grande and providing a burst of flow in otherwise dry valley irrigation ditches. *The storm we are talking about occurred on 7/24, but the Middle Rio Grande got another storm yesterday (7/28) that also dropped some moisture. In other news: El Niño is strengtheningDoña Ana County uranium drinking water contami...

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34:45

15: John Fleck on Tending the Middle Rio Grande Garden

Water Matters! ·

2026/07/17

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 about the new book he and Bob Berrens wrote, Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of Modern Albuquerque. From Voltaire’s Candide to the myth of a lost Garden of Eden on the Rio Grande Valley floor, Rin and John talk about how the effort to manage a river shaped the modern garden Albuquerque has become, and what less...

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17:55

Water Update (07/09/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/07/09

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 settlementAlgal blooms at Clayton Lake, but also dinosaur tracks! Santa Clara raises its water ratesHigh tech fire detection in Albuquerque’s bosqueRoswell water quality reportHeather Sackett on Colorado West Slope lawmakers breaking from their state’s tough stance on Colorado River negotiationsNew Mexico gets ...

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12:45

Water Update (06/24/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/06/24

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 Tara and John Fleck don’t shy away from the bad water news weighing on New Mexico: Total flow on the Rio Grande at Otowi so far this year is the lowest it has been since 1904 81 miles of the Rio Grande’s main channel between Otowi and San Marcial is dryThe federal government has stopped paying to monitor the Rio Grande for...

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29:34

14: A “Super” El Niño is coming. What does it mean...

Water Matters! ·

2026/06/19

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 means for New Mexico’s weather and climate. Dr. Manning explains how a shift in temperatures in the equatorial Pacific can have big impacts on the patterns of wet and dry weather, tipping the odds Since Rin, John, and Aidan recorded this conversation, the forecasts have been updated. Odds of a moderate or stronger El ...

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10:30

Water Update (06/10/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/06/10

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 Grande at Albuquerque dropped to zero June 3 and are likely to stay that way until the valley receives monsoon rains. By one measure, flow into the Middle Rio Grande Valley is the lowest ever recorded, with streamflow records going back to 1895. But if you want to see water, they provide hope in an odd place – Albuquerque’s was...

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19:50

13: Managing the Water in a Very Tough Year

Water Matters! ·

2026/05/22

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 and Telemetry Manager, it’s Marken’s job to marshal the Rio Grande’s precious water through New Mexico’s Middle Valley, juggling a dizzying array of competing needs, interests and values. In this week’s Water Matters, Anne talks with Rin Tara and John Fleck about what that means in this most difficult of water years, with decl...

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9:00

Water Update (05/20/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/05/20

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 system resilience, flows for the Rio Grande silvery minnow, and some remarks from the recent NM Water Dialogue. For further reading: http://mariafarrell.com/ https://www.abcwua.org/wp-content/uploads/Your_Drinking_Water-PDFs/Water_2120_Volume_I.pdf https://www.phoenix.gov/content/dam/phoenix/waterservicessite/documents/202...

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13:20

Water Update (05/06/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/05/06

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 Albuquerque. It’s a technique valuable in dry years to encourage the spawning of the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. And this is a very dry year – the lowest flow ever recorded for late April, for example (when Rin and John recorded this), at the US Geological Survey’s historic Embudo Gage. Links: · &n...

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11:50

Water Update (04/22/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/04/22

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's water update. Consider: Flow at Embudo, on the Rio Grande upstream from Española, is at its second lowest level for this point in the year in a record that, with a few gaps in the record in the early 20th century, goes back to the late 1800s. Flow at the the USGS Albuquerque gage is the lowest it has been at this ...

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25:40

12: Tucker Davidson on Birds and Hope

Water Matters! ·

2026/04/17

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 nerd – pulling out his binoculars as he drives Rio Grande levee roads and walks through Albuquerque’s bosque. Davidson joins Rin Tara and John Fleck to talk about the birds he loves, the places he loves, and how you can turn to birds to bring hope as drought and climate change dry New Mexico’s rivers. And you, too, can visit som...

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6:54

Water Update (04/08/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/04/08

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 Reclamation juggles competing needs. Expect low releases in 2026 from Glen Canyon Dam, which means lower levels at Lake Mead this year, and efforts to move water downstream from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Utah-Wyoming Border to prop up reservoir levels at Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam. On the Rio Grande, flows remain low, the ...

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43:55

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

Water Matters! ·

2026/03/27

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 John Fleck and joined by Phil King, retired New Mexico State University professor and one of the experts who has been helping sort out the complex details of the agreement. In the lawsuit, Texas charged that New Mexico's groundwater pumping was depriving Texas communities of water to which it was entitled under the 1938 Rio Grande Com...

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10:54

Water Update (03/11/26)

Water Matters! ·

2026/03/11

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 flows, and the remarkable temperatures Albuquerque has seen over the fall and winter of 2025-26. Links: USGS Albuquerque gage (Why do they spell it “gage” instead of “gauge”?) Snowpack reportsStatewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP!)Utton’s Rio Grande Basin DocumentaryThe European Space Agency’s Copernicu...

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