SNOW PRAYERS & POPULAR POSTS OF 2013

.

 .

Community Church on Main Street, Magdalena, New Mexico

Prepare drought plans, NM warned

By John Fleck / Journal Staff Writer

Fri, Jan 17, 2014

........................................................................................................................................................................................

 Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal

 State officials are warning New Mexico

 communities to prepare drought plans, with

 federal forecasters Thursday saying odds favor

 continued warm and dry weather at least

 through April.

At a time of year that is critical for building New Mexico’s

 water supply, seasonal snowstorms have largely bypassed

 New Mexico since the third week of December,

 and the new forecast suggests more of the same.

 Albuquerque is on track for one of its longest winter season

 rainless or snowless streaks on record, according to the

National Weather Service.

Snowpack around the state ranged from three quarters of average

 in the Sangre de Cristos to less than half in the headwaters

 of the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico. Federal

 officials met with local water agencies this week to discuss

 possible first-ever shortfalls of water for the San Juan-Chama Project,

 which imports San Juan River water for use in the

 Rio Grande Basin. And on the Rio Grande itself,

 the January forecast calls for 59 percent of normal flow into

 Elephant Butte Reservoir in southern New Mexico.

.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.abqjournal.com/338372/news/prepare-drought-plans-forecasters-warn-nm-communities.html

.

.

The video below is basically a prayer for snow

 (this is the Southwest),

 and a little more.  Our "PRAY FOR SNOW" efforts 

are ongoing this season, so that we might see

 the drought recede here in New Mexico, and

 get people to understand that this approach

 isn't superstition or folly at all, but something

 serious and real.  The Land of Enchantment,

 as New Mexico is called, needs a snowpack -

 so the rivers might run this Spring,

and the water speculators might be silenced,

 at least for a while. 

  Most of the images are from the Alamo Navajo Reservation

 in west-central New Mexico.

  The music is "Quiet Season" by

 Robert Mirabal from Taos Pueblo.

.

.

For the benefit of those who use "Google Translate"

 we're here posting the text that is in the video.

.

A Winter Prayer

.

From Isaiah

Chapter 55

Verse 10

.

"For as the rains

come down,

and the snow

from heaven

.

and does not

go back again,

but gives water

to the earth,

.

and makes it fertile,

giving seed

to the sower,

and bread to

the hungry."

***

O Lord, please bless

 our land with snow

this winter,

.

that we may oversome

the dangers and perils

of further drought,

.

and learn something

about the intelligent

conservation and use

of water,

.

that gift of your

universe that

sustains our land,

our animals,

and ourselves.

.

Water our country

with your

winter snows,

.

and water our souls

with the river of

living water

that Jesus

promised.

.

We ask your blessing -

snow on us,

purify us,

and save us.

Amen

.

.

.

.

Does praying for rain or snow work?

Well, before I would even try to answer that,

I'd suggest you first take a look at the article

 below from THE TIMES OF ISRAEL.

.

Heavens open

Rabbis: You can stop praying for rain now

Jews now encouraged to say prayer of thanks for the deluge

.

By Gavriel FiskeDecember 12, 2013, 3:24 pm9

.

Now that Israel’s winter has begun in earnest,

 with a major storm and snow Wednesday and

 Thursday, Jews around the world should stop

 saying the special prayer for rain they were

 asked to utter last week, the Chief Rabbinate

  said.
.

This early winter was one of the driest on

 record, even by the parched standards of the

 region, and so last Wednesday, December 4,

 Israel’s chief rabbis asked Jews worldwide to

 insert an additional traditional prayer for rain

 into their daily supplications and to recite 

specific psalms.       

.

.

Soon after the rabbis’ prayer request was

 made, meteorological data indicated that rain

 was headed to Israel. Since its arrival, the

 rabbis have asked the public to cease saying the

  extra prayer, and instead to insert
 a thanksgiving prayer for rain —
a prayer that is

 “a little modern, from around 400 years ago,”
 Chief Rabbinate spokesman Ziv Maor
 told The Times of Israel on Thursday.

A planned prayer rally at the Western Wall,

 called for last Thursday, was called off because

 it was already clear that the rains

 were imminent, he added. The first major rain
 of the winter struck the country that same day.

.
This Wednesday-Thursday has seen Israel

 in the grip of a rain-, wind- and snowstorm

 that was expected to last through the weekend.

 Schools were closed and public transportation 

disrupted Thursday as snow fell on Mount

 Hermon, the Golan Heights, Safed, and

 Jerusalem and its surrounding higher-altitude

 areas.

.

.

.

Read more: Rabbis: You can stop praying for rain now | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/you-can-stop-praying-for-rain-now-rabbinate-says/#ixzz2q2SLzQpi
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook

.

.

Above - The Truchas Peaks in northern New Mexico, part

of the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountain Range.

Insert - The village cemetery at Truchas, NM .
These mountains, running from north of Santa Fe across the
state line into Colorado, are a major source of runoff for the
Rio Grande. 

 .

From the Las Cruces Sun-News

Mediocre snowpack shapes up in Rio Grande, expert says

Irrigators hopeful winter will bring more water to district

By Diana Alba Soular

dalba@lcsun-news.com

Las Cruces - After what Doña Ana County irrigators said was a mediocre start to the winter, snowpack levels in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico will be closely watched in the first quarter of 2014.

That's after a historic low irrigation year in 2013.

Phil King, water engineer for the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, said the season is shaping up better than a year ago, "which isn't saying much," because last year was a record low irrigation year. But neither is the forecast stellar.

"It's certainly not going to be a good one," he said. "It won't be anything close to a full supply."

A federal snowpack report Monday showed that the Upper Rio Grande Basin -- a key water source for the Rio Grande -- sat at about 90 percent of normal for this point in the season.

And while that might seem positive, experts said the figure is on a downward trend.

After the season began Oct. 1, there was decent snowfall in the watershed, experts said. But that changed.

"It was actually up over 100 percent (of normal) through early December, but then it quit snowing," King said.

Wayne Sleep, hydrologic technician for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, said the snowfall "pretty well shut down in December."

.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_24818510/mediocre-snowpack-shapes-up-rio-grande-headquarters-expert

.

.

Above - The Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range in Colorado.

The very headwaters are further west, in the San Juan Mountains (below).

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Now we'll begin uploading material that we're calling

a "highlights" list of blog posts over the past year -

probably a half-dozen - and WHAT IT WAS about each

post that made them stick out among the three-dozen+

that were published over the last twelve months.

.

.

Number One

TELL THE GUMBA NO AGUA!

January 9, 2013

.

Here we began the process of looking into WHO

these Italian folks, the father-son duet of Bruno

 and Vittorio Modena, actually are.  Everything

we found out about them raised flags.  Everything

we found out about them looked either suspicious,

or worse.

.

http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/01/tell-gumba-no-aqua.html

.

.

Number Two

COME DANCE & SEND A SHOUT TO SUSANA!

January 17, 2013

.

It seemed important to "do something" right away

for general issue-awareness and involvement.

We're all in this together, as New Mexicans, and

we needed to share info and educate ourselves.

This event at Magdalena's Golden Spur Saloon

served just that purpose, and was a lot of fun besides -

 and dozens of people sent messages to the

 Governor's office via the laptops we brought

for the task.  The music and food were both

terrific, and we were able to garner $1500 for

the San Augustin Water Coalition war chest.

.

 http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/01/come-dance-send-shout-to-susana.html

.

.

Number Three

WHO'S MICHEL JICHLINSKI?  A THIEF?

February 17, 2013

.

This got the ball rolling on finding out who the

new "Project Director" for the foreigners was.

This character turned out to be the former

President and CEO for a federal contractor that

got hit by the feds with the largest fine ever for

a war-time contractor.  Jichlinski ran a company

that the whistleblower called "a culture of fraud."

Our suspicions that the foreigners were probably

mob-connected on a serious level seemed not just

possible, but probable, when one considered what

kind of people they were hiring to represent them.

Stealing millions of taxpayer dollars on jobs in

war zones, and a close familiarity with bribery,

are unique references on a resume.

.

http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/02/2011-01-01.html                                                       .                                                                

  .

Number Four

THE RIO GRANDE

April 23, 2013

.

This has been the biggest draw that the blog

has had for new "hits" - week after week.

  The Rio Grande is a major "player" in southwestern

water realities, and is a fascinating piece of southwestern

geography - physically, historically, culturally.

This post has an excerpt from Paul Horgan's

GREAT RIVER, a Pulitzer Prize bit of writing,

info on the "water war" between New Mexico and Texas,

good music, great photos, and much more.

.

http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-rio-grande.html

.

.

Number Five

PAUSE FOR A PRAYER FOR RAIN

March 3, 2013

.

This has gathered a lot of interest, and is one

of a small number of posts that approach the

issue from an ethical viewpoint, from a religious

reference point.  Of course this tied in with our

"PRAYER VIGIL FOR RAIN

& BLESSING OF THE WATERS"

we held  at the Chapel of the Living Waters

out at Montosa Ranch, not far from Magdalena, in mid-June.

But here's links to four of the posts along this line:

.
http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/01/psalm-29.html.

http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/03/pause-for-prayer.html.

.

Here's a "follow-up" to the Praying for Rain post:

http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/11/say-how-did-prayin-for-rain-work-out.html

 .

And here's a story with an ethical reference point

directed at Bruno Modena, head of the

foreign investors:

.

http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/10/blog-post.html

 .

.

Number Six

WHY GOD MADE BUMPER STICKERS

October 13, 2013

.

Danny Monette, a Socorro County Commissioner,

 has been a strong supporter of our efforts.

His story about how he's been "talking the

issue" with folks from around the state,

 and the west in general, with one of our

 bumper stickers getting the conversation rolling,
 is darned interesting.

This all says something about the power of

a good idea, or maybe the power of the truth.

Neat stuff.

.

http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-god-made-bumper-stickers.html

.

.

.

THE RIO GRANDE

.

.

.

The Rio Grande and the aquifer lying beneath the

San Augustin Plains are connected.  There's more about

that further below, but first we'd like to start with

some history.

The Mission de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe
 in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico,
 (above - the little mission on the left)
and the settlers who clustered around it,
comprised the first European settlement on the river,
and in the region, founded in 1659.
 It was then known as

"Paso del Norte" - Pass of the North,

and early on became a trading center

and economic hub of the region.

Oh, and the subject of songs too.

 .

 .

.

From

  GREAT RIVER -

The Rio Grande in North American History

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History (1954)

by Paul Horgan

.

"In its length of nearly two thousand miles and its
 cultural evidence encompassing ten centuries and more,
 the Great River remains the unifying vein of history not only
 of the life adjacent to its banks, but also of the greater
Southwest.  There, if often far afield, the political, social,
 and geographical significance of the river can be traced
through the times of five sovereignties - those of the Indian,
Spain, Mexico, Texas, and the United States.

.

In manners of living, a long, slow sequence unfolded for
 the early river peoples.  Prehistoric intuitions among them
 gradually gave way to knacks and simple ingenuities -

primitive technologies to do with water, fire, agriculture,
 shelter, travel, weaponry.  For centuries all these were
 developed without that sense of shock that accelerated rates of

 discovery produce.  But with the waves of activity and means
of control of the natural world that rose with the industrial
 revolution and the migratory imperatives of the nineteenth
 century, man's impact on the environment brought swift and
 radical change within a single human lifetime."

.

.

"Into the Rio Grande country, ranging through the area
of what became three immense modern states and touching
the great length of the river's immediate course, came
railroads, electricity, exploitation of mineral resources,
colonization, urbanization at key points, and - not to be
undervalued - the popular discovery of the natural aesthetic
of generally benign climate over a landscape of most
desirable beauty."

.

.

.

.

"In modern days, therefore, population not only changed in

 character, it grew in a few generations to a size that threatened

to create a dangerous imbalance between what was available

to sustain life and what was demanded by headlong social

increase.  The problem was not exclusive to the Southwest,

it plagued the nation and, indeed, with Latin America included,

it invaded the hemisphere.

.

But it was in the Southwest that technological change

became most rapidly visible.  The desert country, having

sustained sufficiently the modest requirements of the Indians,

the Spaniard, and the Mexican, now had to meet the

 environmental levies of the United States genius for industry.

Added to these were a foreshortened vision of the good life,

which the American citizen and his suppliers made commonly

necessary without much common foresight for the future

effects of the technological society on such matters as pollution

of air, earth, and water, and - most significant for the

Southwest - dangerous depletion of the very sources

of water itself."

.

.

.

.

.

.

"The Rio Grande, long an adequate though never a

voluminous river except in flood tide, has been attended

in modern times by concerned management in its government

conservancy districts; but in many places the river has become

only a trickle, and in others entirely dry, to be replenished

only by flood from otherwise dry or meager local tributaries

and by diminishing groundwater, this always in the face of

increasing needs of its resources in both the United States

and Mexico."

.

.

.

.

.

.

Drought Fuels Water War Between

Texas and New Mexico

by Sandra Postel - Jaunuary 18, 2013

As climate change alters rainfall patterns and river flows, tensions are bound to rise between states and countries that share rivers that cross their borders.

In the Rio Grande Basin of the American Southwest, that future inevitability has arrived.

Last week Texas, suffering through a devastating drought, filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court alleging that New Mexico is failing to live up to its water delivery commitments under the 1938 Rio Grande Compact.

The Rio Grande rises in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado and flows 1,900 miles before entering the Gulf of Mexico.

Texas charges that New Mexico’s pumping of groundwater in the region below Elephant Butte Dam to the New Mexico-Texas border is reducing Rio Grande flows into Texas, thereby depriving the state’s farms and cities of water they are legally entitled to under the Compact.

Texas v. New Mexico is likely to be but one of a string of disputes that erupt as drought causes water supplies to dwindle and water-sharing pacts devised in wetter and less-populated times can no longer hold the peace.

Texas doesn’t specify how much water it believes New Mexico is illegally withholding, but indicates it is sufficient to irrigate thousands of acres of farmland. The city of El Paso also relies on Rio Grande water for half of its supply.

New Mexico officials have consistently maintained that the state is sending to Texas all the Rio Grande water to which it is legally entitled. The state attorney general said in a recent statement that Texas is “trying to rustle New Mexico’s water and using a lawsuit to extort an agreement that would only benefit Texas while destroying water resources for hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans.”

Fighting words, to be sure.

If the Supreme Court justices decide to take up the case, they would do well to first sign up for hydrology 101.

One of the great water myths is that rivers and underground aquifers are separate and distinct sources of water. In reality, rivers and groundwater are often intimately connected.

.

.

Groundwater provides the “base” flow that keeps many rivers running during dry times. For their part, rivers and irrigation canals leak water into the subsurface, recharging the aquifers below.

In dry years, when surface supplies run low, farmers often turn to underground water to replace or supplement their irrigation supply. That’s what New Mexico farmers downstream of Elephant Butte have done during years of drought and low river flows.

In the Mesilla Basin, for example, groundwater is the primary source of irrigation water for about 5,000 acres, but is a supplemental source of supply for more than 70,000 acres. So in dry times, groundwater withdrawals ratchet up.

According to an article on the impacts of groundwater pumping in the Rio Grande Basin published in this month’s Ecosphere, a journal of the Ecological Society of America, during the 2004 drought, when federal officials curtailed releases from Elephant Butte Dam, pumping from the Messila Aquifer rose to twice the long-term average.

The drought of recent years has elicited a similar response from farmers, and groundwater pumping in the Rio Grande Valley has increased markedly. But how much this pumping has affected flows into Texas is in question.

The current bi-state conflict began in 2007 when Texas farmers complained that New Mexico was extracting too much groundwater. To avoid an escalating legal fight, the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Elephant Butte, worked out an agreement with two irrigation districts in Texas and New Mexico to give Texas more river water to make up for New Mexico’s groundwater use. 

.

.

.

That agreement didn’t sit well with New Mexico officials, however, and three years later the state filed suit against the Bureau, charging that the deal gave away too much of New Mexico’s Rio Grande allotment to Texas and would cause $183 million in damages to the state’s agricultural economy.

Texas shot back with the lawsuit filed last week.

Meanwhile, the drought persists. Elephant Butte is at 8 percent of its storage capacity, the same as when I visited the reservoir last August.
.

.

While the legal case may drag on for years, it is a wake-up call for all states and nations that share transboundary waters to proactively add resilience to their treaties and institutions before crises hit, and even more importantly, to develop workable governing structures over water where they are lacking.

It is also a lesson to invest now in water efficiency improvements so as to reduce pressures on both rivers and aquifers.

Because while the Supreme Court may ultimately decide this Texas-sized water dispute, even the highest court in the land can’t dictate Mother Nature to deliver more water.

.

Sandra Postel is director of the Global Water Policy Project and Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society. She is the author of several acclaimed books, including the award-winning Last Oasis, a Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment, and one of the “Scientific American 50.”

 .

Below is a "Comment" to the article from

Dr. William Turner of Albuquerque,

a water broker.
.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

January 21

 Some New Mexico State Engineers have had a screw Texas point of view which is now coming home to roost. For example, in 1972, Charles Crowder, a land developer and visionary, acquired 22,000 acres of land in the area of Santa Theresa. It was his long term vision to build a major metropolitan community and he needed water. So, Mr. Crowder had a meeting with long time State Engineer Steve Reynolds. Mr. Crowder asked Mr. Reynolds if he needed to file applications with the State Engineer Office for the 36 water wells

 he planned.

.

.
  Reynolds replied:  “Hell no Charley.
  Drill all the wells you want. 
  We want to get that water before it gets to Texas.” 
His mismanagement of the Pecos River resulted in the failure
 of New Mexico to deliver water to Texas on the Pecos River. 
The Supreme Court required New Mexico to bring their
deliveries into accord with the Pecos River Compact.
 His mismanagement cost New New Mexico taxpayers more 
than $100 million to retire private water rights
 to satisfy the judgement.

.

To see all the comments go here: 
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/18/drought-fuels-water-war-between-texas-and-new-mexico/

.

.

.

.

.

The YouTube piece below is basically a music video

of birds in the Middle Rio Grande Valley set to the music of

Composer/Performer Paul Schwartz.

.

 .

.

The following is from a Middle Rio Grande Conservancy
District office report concerning the testimony of hydrologist
Dr. Frank Titus, after he testified before them as an
expert witness, in January of 2008.  The full report is
available on the San Augustin Water Coalition website.
It should be noted that since 2008 the LLC has modified
and enlarged on the original plan that was publicized -
which had the water being piped to Socorro and then put in
the Rio Grande at that point.  Now they talk about piping it to
Rio Rancho, or perhaps even Santa Fe.  This is also before
their new "idea" that they can catch enough rain to
recharge the aquifer - a ludicrous proposal, at best.
.
Bruce Frederick, the New Mexico Environmental Law Center
attorney that represents many, many parties objecting
 to the Water Grab, has done the math on that one.
It should be noted that this gentleman isn't just a lawyer,
he also has a Masters Degree in Groundwater Hydrology
 from New Mexico Tech.
.

.
Here's what he told the Rio Rancho Observer:
“I think it’s an absurd notion on the face of it,” said New Mexico
 Environmental Law Center attorney Bruce Frederick of the
 proposal of pumping 54,000 acre-feet a year and replacing it
 with rain water.
Frederick has opposed the company’s attempt
 to get a pumping permit.
To meet the company’s goal, he said each acre
 in the proposed project area would have to produce
12 acre-feet, or 3.9 million gallons, of water each year."
.
.Well, unless the same kind of storms that came at Noah's time
are in the forecast, 144 inches of rain per year is
simply NOT in the cards.  Are these people really, really
that stupid - or do they take us all for fools?  Or both?
Anyhow, here's the report about Dr. Titus's testimony.
.
 Dr. Titus said that this proposal to bring 54,000 acre ft. of water per year out of the San Augustin Basin over to the Rio Grande, in his book, is imaginative and if it goes that way that it will be very profitable for somebody. But it will also screw a bunch of people. By his calculations, the 37 proposed wells to provide the water are laid out in an array covering about 14 sections in the vicinity of Datil and running from just south of US Hwy 60 north for about 6-7 miles. If these wells produce 54,000 ac-ft of water per year, and if they create a cone of depression that is twice the area of the footprint of the wells, they will create draw down of 30 feet a year and that is if they have the capacity to produce that much water at all. The proposition that 37 wells can provide that much water assumes that the wells in an aquifer that is as prolific as the aquifer in the vicinity of Albuquerque and this is a unique, marvelous aquifer. The proposition that 37 wells can be drilled in the northeastern part of the San Augustin Plains and produce 2,000-3,000 gallons per minutes is at least highly questionable. At 30 feet of draw down per year they could not produce for very long. The wells are in a highly prolific part of the aquifer, but in order to produce for many decades at that rate they would have to cover the whole basin with wells and have dramatic draw downs over the basin and most of the rest of the basin does not have the permeability
 that that particular part does.
.
If the State Engineer approve such a proposal, the most distressing part is that which is the good aquifer end of the San Augustin Plains it probably also discharges a significant amount of water down Alamosa Creek and ultimately through the box that is about 15 miles down stream and over to the west side of Elephant Butte Reservoir. There is no quantitative data to know how much water is involved coming down the pathway. A proposal to bring 54,000 ac-ft per year and put it in the river in the Socorro vicinity and thereby balance an equal amount of pumping out of the Albuquerque/Rio Rancho area does several things. First of all it would measurably reduce the flow of the Rio Grande surface water system including through the District’s distribution system. Markedly reduce the flow between Albuquerque and the point at which water is put into the Rio Grande Valley in the Socorro area - that is an 80 mile stretch. There is an inevitable reduction in wet water flow. There is the issue of the contribution from Monticello Creek, Alamosa Creek coming out of the San Augustin Basin to the west side of Elephant Butte Reservoir. Assuming that the addition at Socorro matches the withdrawal at Albuquerque at least there would be a balance in that reach. But when you go on down stream, it is inevitable that if you take water our of the San Augustin Basin and you pipe it to Socorro, then you cut off the flow down Alamosa Creek and Monticello Creek into Elephant Butte. Ultimately, even though it may take decades to happen, the total flow of the Rio Grande will be reduced by the amount of water that is taken out of the San Augustin Basin.

.

.
Then there is the problem of the closed basin character of the San Augustin Basin and it’s an issue of how long it is able to continue to contribute that water to the Socorro reach assuming a pipeline is built and water is piped. Over a period of decades the water table will be drawn down so much in the San Augustin region that it will no longer supply fresh water. Once all of the easily available water out of the San Augustin Basin is exploited and no longer able to contribute water to the Rio Grande, then there is no replacement water coming in. If this is approved, we will have created an additional cone of depression and removed water from the Albuquerque area which cannot be replaced now and there will be no more water coming into the Socorro area because the San Augustin region will be exhausted and we will cut off the source of water going down to recharge the system at Elephant Butte. By short sighted approval of such a proposition, we will be put in a position where there is simply no way to balance the amount of water that has been taken out and we will come up seriously short. Of course, it will not be within the tenure of this State Engineer or several others, but the State of New Mexico is going to be around for a long time as well as the MRGCD.  Dr. Titus said that in his personal opinion that for the District to participate in any way in this kind of a thing - it’s basically a
 money making scam by someone that
 owns a ranch over there.
.

.

 STOP THE WATER GRAB!

"A river seems a magic thing.

A magic, moving, living part

of the very earth itself."

Laura Gilpin

. 

."The Rio Grande Yields Its Surplus To The Sea"

Laura Gilpin

1948

.