QUAY COUNTY, New Mexico \u2014 The state of Texas is entitled to call for a release of water from Ute Reservoir in New Mexico once the water mark reaches just above 200,000-acre feet.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been since October of 2017, the last time there was a controlled release of water from Ute Reservoir in New Mexico. Canadian River Compact Commissioner Roger Cox tells ABC 7 News they have informed the state of New Mexico on Thursday Sept. 4th about a release of water from the Ute Reservoir now that the water depth has eclipsed the maximum capacity allowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Mexico has their able to store by compact 200,000-acre feet down stream of Conches,\u201d said Drew Satterwhite, general manager of Canadian River Municipal Water Authority. \u201cWere essentially watching the water levels at Ute because we have a water table that essentially shows water level equals water storage volume and when we hot that level, we\u2019re on the phone calling or they\u2019re on the phone coordinating releases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ute Reservoir receives inflow from the Canadian River south of the Conches Dam; there are a number of creeks or streams that provide water to Ute Reservoir.<\/p>\n
Once the water is released from Ute Reservoir the question becomes how long before it makes its way down the Canadian River and into Lake Meredith.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeven days, a couple of days, give or take,\u201d said Satterwhite.<\/p>\n
Not all of it makes its way to the lake (Lake Meredith) because of evaporation and other factors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is evaporation, there’s seepage in the river channel, and so yes not 100% of the water will get here,\u201d said Satterwhite.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanadian River was really flowing well, one area of the river coming into Lake Meredith was over 5-feet deep,\u201d said Dave Wright, owner of Wright On Bait & Tackle. \u201cThat is equivalent to over 13-thousand cubic feet of water a second of water coming into the lake. That\u2019s just one area plus all the other areas. There is some water being pumped out but that\u2019s going to hurt us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the most recent measurement showed it\u2019s just slightly above the 200-thousand-acre feet mark that means the release of water could potentially only be for a couple of hours to 24-hours.<\/p>\n
There is a 50\/50 chance of rain in the forecast over the weekend so if Ute Reservoir receives more inflow and precipitation, it will require another release pending the level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QUAY COUNTY, New Mexico \u2014 The state of Texas is entitled to call for a release of water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[84986,192,84988,84987,3828,79,1022,84984,50629,84985],"class_list":{"0":"post-135444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-canadian-river","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-evaporation","11":"tag-lake-meredith","12":"tag-new-mexico","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-ute-reservoir","16":"tag-water-levels","17":"tag-water-release"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}