Water Matters! Podcast By Utton Transboundary Resources Center cover art

Water Matters!

Water Matters!

By: Utton Transboundary Resources Center
Listen for free

The Utton Transboundary Resources Center’s Water Matters! podcast looks at water and natural resources issues in New Mexico and beyond. Housed at the University of New Mexico School of Law, the Utton Transboundary Resources Center is a state-funded research and public service project that believes in the pursuit of well informed, collaborative solutions to our natural resource challenges. The Utton Transboundary Resources Center’s Sairis Perez-Gomez designed the podcast logo and wrote and performed our theme music and Student Research Assistant Francesca Glaspell produced this episode.


Rin Tara is a staff attorney specializing in water policy and governance at the Utton Transboundary Resources Center. They are primarily interested in questions of water management in the face of climate change. They have done work in riparian restoration, river connectivity, tribal water sovereignty, climate change adaptation, and water rights. They have authored several papers on topics related to the future of western water management.

John Fleck is Writer in Residence at the Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico School of Law; and Professor of Practice in Water Policy and Governance in the University of New Mexico Department of Economics. The former director of the University of New Mexico’s Water Resources Program, he is the author of four books on water in the west, including the forthcoming history of Albuquerque’s relationship with the Rio Grande – Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of a Modern American City.

© 2026 Water Matters! Biological Sciences Science
Episodes
  • 11: The Proposed Settlement of Texas v. New Mexico on the Rio Grande

    11: The Proposed Settlement of Texas v. New Mexico on the Rio Grande
    Mar 27 2026

    Guest: Phil King

    With a final agreement in sight that would settle Texas's 13-year-old lawsuit against New Mexico over water use on the Rio Grande, Rin Tara and John Fleck and joined by Phil King, retired New Mexico State University professor and one of the experts who has been helping sort out the complex details of the agreement.

    In the lawsuit, Texas charged that New Mexico's groundwater pumping was depriving Texas communities of water to which it was entitled under the 1938 Rio Grande Compact, an agreement dividing the Rio Grande's water among Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.

    King explains how the proposed settlement would create a new way of measuring the flow of the Rio Grande from New Mexico to Texas, and require the retirement of agricultural land in Southern New Mexico as part of an effort to bring water use in line with available supply.

    The proposed settlement has won preliminary approval from the "special master" who has been advising the Supreme Court of the United States on the case, with final action on the agreement possible later this year
    Show more Show less
    44 mins
  • Water Update (03/11/26)

    Water Update (03/11/26)
    Mar 11 2026

    With irrigation water flowing through the irrigation ditches of New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley, Rin Tara and John Fleck look at the latest snowpack numbers, river flows, and the remarkable temperatures Albuquerque has seen over the fall and winter of 2025-26.

    Links:

    • USGS Albuquerque gage (Why do they spell it “gage” instead of “gauge”?)
    • Snowpack reports
    • Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP!)
    • Utton’s Rio Grande Basin Documentary
    • The European Space Agency’s Copernicus Browser, for the latest satellite data
    • Albuquerque temperature data from xmACIS
    Show more Show less
    11 mins
  • Water Update (02/25/26)

    Water Update (02/25/26)
    Feb 26 2026

    The latest round of storms helped the snowpack in New Mexico’s headwaters rivers a little, but we’re so far behind that we still should expect to see a dry Rio Grande through central New Mexico this summer.

    In this week’s Water Update, the Utton Center’s Rin Tara and John Fleck take a look at the snowpack, the runoff forecasts, and the latest reservoir storage numbers. Spoiler alert: they’re not good.

    But despite the bad news, both Tara and Fleck managed to get out to the river and find joy in what we’ve got.

    Correction: Aldo Leopold was the Secretary of the ABQ Chamber of Commerce from 1917-1919, not a member of City Council.

    Show notes links:

    · Colorado River Post-2026 management Environmental Impact Statement process

    · Snowpack maps

    · Streamflow at Albuquerque
    Show more Show less
    12 mins
No reviews yet