Seeking a siphon solution: Disabled irrigation pipe causes three years and counting of water woes for Corrales cultivators

CORRALES — A towering crane hoisted a load of hefty parts off a truck’s flatbed trailer and maneuvered it to a landing near a fenced-in jumble of mechanical equipment on the west bank of the Rio Grande.

It was late morning Aug. 29 at a point along the river close to the northern boundary of Corrales.

A crew of contractors was working to get a disabled water pump up and running.

The pump is among those that have been trying to suck water into the village’s irrigation ditches for the past three growing seasons — ever since the wooden siphon pipe that ushered water into the ditches for about nine decades failed due to structural damage.

In 2022, a diesel pumping system was employed. In 2023 and this year, two electric pumps located at this site have been tasked with the mission.

Anthony Wagner, whose family has been farming in Corrales for more than 100 years, watched Thursday’s efforts intently.

“Well, they’re doing something,” Wagner said. “We need the water.”

Those last few words have become something of a mantra for Wagner since the siphon failed.

The pumps don’t take up the slack created by the siphon’s loss because they don’t work when the river is too low — a common occurrence in recent years — and they swallow debris and sediment that cause them to choke up and die.

“Last year, we had no water after Aug. 10,” Wagner said. “I lost 30 percent of my apple trees, probably about 200 trees, 50-year-old trees planted by my dad. I’m probably going to lose more trees this year. You can’t go without water for six weeks.”

This season Wagner has lost most of the seven corn fields he planted, a plot of chile and much of a patch of black-eyed peas.

He sees irrigation water, delivered by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, going to Los Lunas, Socorro and other points south along the Rio Grande, but most of it bypassing Corrales because of the damaged siphon and pumps that can’t get the job done.

“We could sell this and build homes,” he said of his agricultural acreage. “But we don’t want to do that. All we want to get is our fair share of the water.”

Sticking points

Jason Casuga is the chief engineer and chief executive office of MRGCD, which is in charge of irrigation, drainage and flood control along the Rio Grande from Cochiti Dam to near the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge.

He says it is true that since the siphon has been sidelined, Corrales irrigators have been getting less water than other irrigators served by the district.

In 2023, he points out, Corrales got its last delivery of water on Aug. 18, while other irrigators continued to get water until Oct. 31.

That’s because of the limitation of the pumps, but Casuga expects Corrales will have to put up with the pumps through the 2025 irrigation season.

“Pumps are the best option we have,” he said. “I don’t know what we could have done to provide more water. But engines and machinery break down, which makes (the siphon’s) gravity system so much better.”

Construction of a new steel siphon has been delayed by the need for collecting data, designing the initial phase of the project and the fact it took until November 2023 to secure the approximately $9 million needed to plan and execute the project. Most of that came from the New Mexico Water Trust Board.

Casuga expects that the siphon project will be put out to bid this month and awarded in November. And, once started, the work will require 10 to 12 months to complete.

“This is highly specialized construction,” he said. “They must fully bore a new pipe under the Rio Grande.”

But there’s another sticking point. The siphon is part of the Corrales Main Canal, which originates on Sandia Pueblo land.

Casuga said that in December 2023, MRGCD was notified informally that the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is in charge of such matters, was reviewing the floodway easement that permits the conservancy district to work on the siphon on pueblo land.

“They have a concern that the easement in the floodway is not meant to cover the siphon,” Casuga said. “We obviously don’t think that’s true.”

In a letter dated Aug. 28 and addressed to the BIA Southwest regional director, Casuga writes that the conservancy district “would expect any issue that could hamper its ability to ensure a fully functioning Siphon would be communicated immediately by BIA and MRGCD would be afforded an opportunity to discuss such issues with BIA representatives and others.”

Casuga also noted in the letter that the conservancy district will move forward with its plan to replace the damaged siphon unless BIA issues a stop-work notice.

‘A crap shoot’

Russell Trujillo has lived in Corrales for 47 years, has farmed for 40 of those years and used irrigation water from ditches for most of those 40 years.

For the last 10 years, however, he has depended on drip tape, a micro-irrigation approach that puts water right on a plant’s roots. Drawing water from a domestic well through the tape, Trujillo is growing produce such as squash, garlic, onions, shallots and green onions.

Drip tape irrigation is not viable for pecan and apple trees, however, so if it’s available, Trujillo still uses irrigation water from ditches to put water into his orchards. But he has learned not to count on it.

“It used to be the first of March when the water was on, but the last few years it has been a crap shoot,” he said. “There have been a few times when both pumps have been down for two or three days, which throws everything out of rotation. It has been a debacle out there. I was down 90 percent in pecans last year.”

He said he has been doing all right this year with the drip tape.

“That has kind of saved my butt,” he said. “But you need electricity for the pumps to run that tape and that’s $200 a month, which adds up.”

He said one thing for sure is that it’s not getting any wetter out there.

“Always in the back of your mind is that one of these days, there’s not going to be anything as far as water,” Trujillo said.

Alan Brauer is the senior director of the Indigenous Farm Hub in Corrales. That’s a nonprofit organization whose mission is to engage Indigenous communities in creating a network of farmers and families that provides access to healthy foods and builds prosperity for farmers and communities through land reclamation.

Brauer said the Hub’s community supported agriculture program provides 100 to 150 boxes of fresh food to families each week of the 22-week growing season.

Now in its fifth year in Corrales, the Indigenous Farm Hub operates on 18 acres, most of them on the east side of Corrales Road, just across from the Wagner cornfield maze.

But Brauer said the Hub uses only a portion of that acreage to grow corn, potatoes, kale, Swiss chard, mustard greens, lettuce, squash, sunflowers, pumpkins, beets, carrots, cabbage, green beans, okra and more — all on drip tape water.

“We would love to use irrigation, but it is so sporadic,” he said. “Not having reliable irrigation holds us back from expanding on our acres. We would like to put in fruit trees, but fruit trees in Corrales need a lot of water, and it’s hard to expand in that area without some level of promise of water. It’s hard to keep anything alive when we might not get water after July 1.”

Unlike some others in the Corrales growing community, Brauer is not down on the MRGCD. He said he thinks the conservancy district has been heroic in its efforts to keep the pumps on the Rio Grande operating.”

“They have been trying to figure out how to keep things going,” he said.

Corrales irrigators did get water in August when MRGCD was able to release stored San Juan-Chama Project water to augment the natural flow of the Rio Grande, thus increasing river levels to a point where pumping is effective. But MRGCD water managers expect to run out of stored water in a few days.

It is projected that the Corrales pumps will shut down on Wednesday when river levels drop and may well remain out of action for the remainder of the irrigation season, which continues through October, unless the natural flow of the river rises enough to make them useful. That’s unlikely without a lot of good rain.

Finding a voice

On Aug. 14, Anthony Wagner called a meeting of concerned persons to talk about Corrales’ unique water crisis. More than 40 people showed up at Wagner Farm.

“I don’t know what we are going to do to move the siphon along because the pumps are not working for us,” Wagner said.

Attorney Daymon B. Ely, a former state legislator, said he wanted those assembled to start thinking about a political solution.

“Has anyone reached out to our federal delegation — (Sen.) Martin Heinrich, (Sen.) Ben Ray Luján, (Rep.) Melanie Stansbury, (Rep.) Teresa Leger Fernández?” Ely said.

State Rep. Kathleen Cates, whose 44th District includes Corrales, told the crowd they were at the mercy of the MRGCD.

“You don’t have a voice in your own destiny,” she said.

It was decided to initiate a letter-writing campaign aimed at the state’s political muscle. Cates said on Friday she estimates at least 130 letters have been mailed.

“We would like to be treated like other farmers up and down the Rio Grande,” Wagner wrote in his letter to Heinrich. “We are growing crops for humans and animals. If we don’t get this Siphon fixed, there might not be farming in the future of the Village of Corrales.”

That’s what worries Sam Thompson, co-chair of Corrales’ Farmland Preservation & Agricultural Commission. Corrales can be counted as one of the oldest farming communities in New Mexico, but is that part of its history destined to dry up and blow away?

“Corrales really likes to preserve its farmland, but we can’t keep our farmland if we can’t keep our farmers,” said Thompson, who was also at the Aug. 14 meeting. “This is not a good situation. I see cornfields that are dead. I can imagine farmers giving up.

“That’s why it is vital that we support our growers markets, start buying local produce. We’ve got to keep these farmers in business.”