State Engineer Tom Turney is worried about meeting the delivery requirement in the next few years. In an average year, New Mexico must deliver 707,000 acre-feet of water to Texas through Elephant Butte Reservoir, which serves as a sort of water bank for deliveries under the compact. A substantial amount of rain would help New Mexico meet its obligation to Texas this year, but wouldn't necessarily relieve obligations or problems of long-term drought in New Mexico. When the compact was signed in 1938, agricultural water uses in Colorado and in the El Paso area were fully developed. But the middle Rio Grande in New Mexico supported only a collection of acequias using little water.
Some people believe that because of that, New Mexico was allotted less water than it deserved.
Brian Shields, executive director of the Taos-based river advocacy group Amigos Bravos, said the compact should have considered other types of uses as well. People weren't thinking about the environment, what the needs were of the native species and the riparian ecosystems. The water delivered below Elephant Butte is used by farmers in southern New Mexico and in Texas. But even before the river reaches those farmers, evaporation and streamside vegetation consume a huge portion of the middle Rio Grande flow. Evaporation at Elephant Butte has averaged 180,000 acre-feet annually over the past 15 years.