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By Theresa Davis / Journal Staff Writer Saturday, June 4th, 2022 at 10:00PM

CORRALES – Rudy Perea and his family have cultivated fruit trees along the Rio Grande for generations.

His peaches, apples and cherries are a staple at local farmers markets.

But now the irrigation ditch that serves the Perea property is bone-dry, and it’s only June.

“I drilled a well, but it’s not enough,” he said. “I’m trying to save these trees. It’s going to wipe us out.”

Corrales farmers face a summer with little to no irrigation water, thanks to a broken siphon, a temporary pump system and extreme, prolonged drought.

Irrigation water deliveries for the village will come to a complete halt in the coming days if Rio Grande levels continue to drop as expected.

The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District manages irrigation from Cochiti Dam to Bosque del Apache.

Jason Casuga, the district’s CEO and chief engineer, acknowledged that aging infrastructure and limited water have placed Corrales farmers in an exceptionally difficult spot.

He commended district staff for coming up with a short-term fix that has delivered at least two cycles of irrigation water to the village.

“We did the best job that we could with the timing that we had,” Casuga said.

Problems began in late 2021, when district crews found a sinkhole above the Corrales siphon.

The 1,200-foot-long pipe, built in 1933, runs underneath the Rio Grande and uses gravity to move water to lands west of the river.

Crews then found a hole in the siphon.

“We tried to bring in equipment to pump out the water and were unable to pump the siphon dry,” Causga said, “so our ability to drain the siphon and fully inspect it to understand the damage was hampered.”

An engineering consultant advised the district that operating a siphon that is not watertight could cause more damage and jeopardize future fixes.

So the agency decided not to use the siphon at all this irrigation season.

The district approved a $911,000 contract with AUI Inc. in February to install two diesel-powered pumps and 350 feet of buried pipelines.

Pumps turned on in early April.

Since then, the system near Trailhead Beach has conveyed river water directly into the main Corrales canal.

Anthony Wagner walks through rows of dying apple trees behind his family’s well-known farm stand on Corrales Road.

“We’re getting water once a month right now on the apples, and they’re very stressed,” he said.

The siphon problems mean that Corrales farmers have only had two irrigation cycles this season.

That’s only half or even a third of what other area growers have received.

The district is working on scheduling a third watering, but that may benefit only a handful of farmers.

Wagner farms about 50 acres of orchards, corn, green chile and melons.

Some green chile fields never even sprouted this year.

“If I lose a corn crop, you know, we’ll plant it again the next year with corn or chile,” Wagner said. “But you lose an apple tree, that’s 60 years of growth.”

Once water levels drop below a certain point, the Corrales pumps will be inoperable.

The loud diesel pumps are high-maintenance.

They also burn through oil and must be serviced once they reach a certain number of operating hours.

Electric pumps weren’t an option for the district because of delays with easements and power service to the site.

Sediment sometimes clogs the pump infrastructure.

Fire danger also impacts how the district operates the equipment.

About 800 gallons of diesel burning a stone’s throw from the bosque is a big concern during one of New Mexico’s earliest, most intense fire seasons.

A 24/7 pumping operation would require continuous monitoring.

“We can’t just go to bed and leave them on for 12 hours,” Casuga said. “When they are run through the night, someone goes out there every four to five hours and checks them.”

More crops will die without water as temperatures rise.

The district warned Corrales farmers before the season started about scarce irrigation water.

Farmers were advised about the district’s emergency fallowing program, which pays $425 an acre to not water for a season.

Corrales irrigators were allowed to enroll less than 1 acre, which is the program’s minimum for other farmers.

“We’re farmers, so we farm,” Wagner said. “The money would not be enough to cover expenses.”

Faced with water shutoffs, some growers are turning to wells.

But it’s an expensive alternative, and not very common in the area.

“My energy bill, I just got a statement that it went up 83%, because I’m using pumps to irrigate,” said Gus Van de Velde, who farms chile, blue corn, onions and fruit trees.

Drilling new wells is often an expensive process involving time-consuming water rights documentation. The deeper a farmer has to drill to tap into groundwater, the more costly the project is.

Wilson & Company engineers are studying the feasibility of a siphon liner or other long-term solutions. The district plans to fund that design work. Casuga said the agency will likely need to seek state money to pay for construction.

Corrales is not alone in its water woes.

The rest of central New Mexico also faces a summer of severely limited water supplies.

If the region doesn’t receive rain soon, the irrigation district may be out of water in two weeks.

Irrigation would only be able to resume if and when rain boosts river flows.

Hydrologists anticipate that later this summer the Rio Grande could see extensive drying in Albuquerque – which hasn’t happened in decades.

Casuga said farmers need to invest in water-efficiency systems and drought-resilient infrastructure such as wells to survive in a “new hydrologic reality.”

“It’s a difficult time to be an irrigator or farmer or a water manager,” he said.

Wagner and other Corrales farmers have worked to conserve scarce supplies in recent years.

Many growers laser-leveled their fields to boost efficiency.

But they worry about what a year with little to no water could do to agriculture in the village.

Wagner’s family usually supplies produce to local schools, but that may not happen this year.

Businesses that let customers pick their own crops will also be hit hard.

Farmers fear that the village’s fall Harvest Festival may not be much of a celebration if the monsoon season is lackluster.

“They’ve been farming in this valley forever,” Wagner said. “We just want to keep it that way.”

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