TAOS — It's nothing compared with last year, but irrigators and rafters alike have been content with the snowmelt runoff so far this spring. The question for both groups: How long will it last? Bobby Jaramillo, who as mayordomo for the Acequia Madre del Rio Pueblo distributes water to a large number of parciantes in the Taos Valley, didn't hesitate when asked this week. "Oh, it's gonna be a short season this year," he said.
"We didn't get enough [snow]. I don't care what anybody says, you look at the modules — I mean, the runoff's already done." Jaramillo said the Rio Pueblo — the headwaters and a good stretch of which lie on Taos Pueblo land — has "already dropped around 6 to 7 feet.
We're already getting the clear water already." All Rio Grande tributaries that flow through the Taos Valley are running less ferociously than last spring, when lots of late-season snow and cooler-than-normal April temperatures spurred officials to issue warnings about potential flooding and risks associated with even typically tame tributaries like the Rio Fernando de Taos. By mid-June last year, three people had lost their lives while recreating on the Rio Grande, while a fourth was washed miles downstream after the raft she was in flipped.
Based on 97 years of data, flows at the Taos Junction Bridge near Taos are close to average this year, running at about 1,000 cubic feet per second May 20. Last year at this time, the Rio Grande was running between 4,500 cfs and 5,000 cfs, nearly ov.