ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Federal and state officials are partnering on a proposal for a $6 million pipeline that would help sustain an endangered species of fish during New Mexico’s extremely dry times.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission are looking to use the water stored in Sumner Reservoir, about 16 miles northwest of Fort Sumner, to create a fish pool for bluntnose shiners, tiny minnows that only live in a 170-mile stretch of the Pecos River in New Mexico, according to the Albuquerque Journal (https://bit.ly/1VGgZWM ). That pool would be used to supplement flows in the Pecos during exceptionally dry times.
The proposal is still subject to a bureau internal feasibility study and other bureaucratic hurdles.
“We are looking for alternative sources of water to assist us in extreme drought conditions, such as existed between 2011 and 2013, to provide flow targets between Sumner Dam and Brantley Dam,” said Michelle Estrada-Lopez, bureau Pecos Basin project manager. “The bluntnose shiner exists only in the Pecos between those two dams.”
Estrada-Lopez said the bluntnose shiner population had been growing before drought conditions dried out the Pecos between 2011 and 2013. After heavy rains in September 2013 the population has been increasing again and the Pecos River has been in continuous flow.
In order to create the Sumner pipeline, the stream commission has signed a 25-year lease agreement to take water from the VP Bar LLC. The agreement calls for 3,553 acre-feet of water to be delivered to Sumner Lake each year. An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre to a depth of one foot.
Estrada-Lopez said the VP Bar agreement would also provide water to downstream users and help the state meet the terms of the Pecos River Compact with Texas in addition to maintaining shiner habitat.
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Information from: Albuquerque Journal, https://www.abqjournal.com
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