America's Rivers: Spoken For to the Last Drop

TAOS, N.M. — It happened in late October 2001. The mighty Rio Grande, storied river of cowboy lore, icon of the West, petered out before it reached the sea.

And the same thing happened the next year.

A river that once disgorged a vast plume of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico was transformed into little more than a brook that finally disappeared in the dry, flat country on the Texas-Mexico border, about 100 yards from the sea.

To be sure, the mouth of the Rio Grande dried up the second time during a drier-than-normal year that parched the western United States. But the drought was not the only reason the Rio Grande ran out of water, or even the major reason.

From Colorado through New Mexico and all along the Texas-Mexico border the river forms, the Rio Grande is tapped for agriculture and, in places, drinking water; so much so that the river's flow is but a fraction of what it once was. And demand for its water continues to grow.

"A whole series of events contributed to the river drying up," said Robert J. Edwards, a biologist at the University of Texas-Pan American who conducts research on the Rio Grande. "But the bottom line is, there are too many people using too much water."

North and south of Taos, in northern New Mexico, the Rio Grande flows more assuredly through steep canyon walls of pinon pine and sagebrush. But even here, the river is beleaguered, virtually every drop spoken for. Sit by a bridge long enough and you're likely to see a farmer pull up in a pickup truck, glance furtively over a shoulder to check that no one is watching, fill a tank with water and drive off.

The Rio Grande meets the sea once again these days, though just barely. Scientists assume it will dry up again and, barring major reforms in water usage, will do so ever more frequently as demand increases.

"In a nutshell, it's headed for a train wreck," said Steve Harris, owner of a Rio Grande rafting company and a self-described, self-taught conservationist who is executive director of Rio Grande Restoration, a private group. "We've got an over-allocation problem, and it's about to become real obvious to everybody."

In the arid Southwest, it is almost impossible to overstate how precious river water has become, and how contested it is. Along rivers like the Rio Grande, water is practically measured by the spoonful.