State engineer warns of record-low snowpack and launches drought dashboard; lawmakers press for watershed and mapping details

Tanya Trujillo, deputy state engineer, told the Water and Natural Resources Committee on May 21 that this year’s combination of the lowest recorded snowpack, record-high spring temperatures and very low reservoir storage is producing an unusually severe drought across New Mexico.

"Unfortunately, that's what we're seeing this year," Trujillo said, describing runoff on the Rio Grande at 7 to 30 percent of historical averages and reservoirs including Elephant Butte at roughly 11 percent capacity. She demonstrated a newly launched drought information portal and a 50-year water-action-plan dashboard designed to track three implementation "buckets": conservation, new water supplies (including brackish desalination) and water-quality and watershed protection.

Trujillo walked members through dashboard features — links to agency resources, grant and application information, a progress timeline and program pages including New Mexico Tech’s aquifer mapping work and agricultural water-resilience grants. She told the committee that funds recently appropriated include roughly $277 million in new funding and nearly $400 million appropriated last year that together will be put toward water projects and program implementation.

Committee members probed technical points and asked for additional briefings. Representative Mark Murphy asked about apparent mid-century trends in a temperature graph; Trujillo said the dashboard allows more fine-grained data review and that the long-term trend shows rising temperatures. Representative Kathleen Cates asked whether the state has a formal search-and-rescue office; staff said they would follow up. Several members, including Representative Henry and others, pressed for clearer ties between forest management and water recharge, and Trujillo said watershed restoration and forest-management actions are explicitly included in action item C4 of the 50-year plan.

Trujillo highlighted grant and program details: a $10 million ag-water-conservation appropriation and a strategic water-supply program supporting brackish-water desalination projects, plus a public application process open through June 29 for certain grants. She encouraged members to use and review the dashboard and to provide feedback on improvements.

Next steps: Committee members asked the state engineer’s office to return with more detailed briefings on aquifer mapping, forest-watershed integration, and the structure and outcomes of brackish-desalination contracts and grants.