May 22, 2026 · 20 min · 10 segments
Guest: Anne Marken Anne Marken gets up every morning and looks at snowpack data and river flow numbers. As the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District’s River Operations and Telemetry Manager, it’s…
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John FleckHostWren TaraHost
So maybe we should step back a second too, because, you know, Wren and I take this for granted, and you obviously, in conversations that we often have.
Why don't you explain to our listeners what the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District is?
The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, people call it an irrigation district, but we're actually a lot more than that.
So when the district was constructed, we constructed, um, levees along the river channel to protect the, um, populated areas within the, within the Middle Valley from river channel flooding, which happened frequently, as John probably talks about a lot on the podcast.
So when the district was constructed, the water table in the valley was quite high, and a lot of that land was inundated with water and couldn't be put into production.
And so when the district was built, we constructed a series of drains to lower that water table and bring that land back into production.
We divert water off of the river and, um, supply it to irrigators along the Middle Valley.
And when the district was constructed, there were already irrigators in the Middle Valley.
There was over 70 acequias that were taking water directly into their own facilities and, um, distributing it within their, their canal systems.
But when the district was constructing the levee system, it, it doesn't make sense for there to be seven- over 70 different holes within that levee system, um, so they were consolidated into, I think six, originally, diversion locations, and now there's four locations where we divert directly from the river.
And so all of the irrigators sort of along the Middle Rio Grande Valley floor within your benefited area rely to some degree on the MRGCD for getting water during irrigation season, at least as- at least surface water.
It's not as common in the Middle Valley as it is further south, but, um, we don't actually manage those.
So maybe we should step back a second too, because, you know, Wren and I take this for granted, and you obviously, in conversations that we often have.
Why don't you explain to our listeners what the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District is?
The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, people call it an irrigation district, but we're actually a lot more than that.
So when the district was constructed, we constructed, um, levees along the river channel to protect the, um, populated areas within the, within the Middle Valley from river channel flooding, which happened frequently, as John probably talks about a lot on the podcast.
So when the district was constructed, the water table in the valley was quite high, and a lot of that land was inundated with water and couldn't be put into production.
And so when the district was built, we constructed a series of drains to lower that water table and bring that land back into production.
We divert water off of the river and, um, supply it to irrigators along the Middle Valley.
And when the district was constructed, there were already irrigators in the Middle Valley.
There was over 70 acequias that were taking water directly into their own facilities and, um, distributing it within their, their canal systems.
But when the district was constructing the levee system, it, it doesn't make sense for there to be seven- over 70 different holes within that levee system, um, so they were consolidated into, I think six, originally, diversion locations, and now there's four locations where we divert directly from the river.
And so all of the irrigators sort of along the Middle Rio Grande Valley floor within your benefited area rely to some degree on the MRGCD for getting water during irrigation season, at least as- at least surface water.
It's not as common in the Middle Valley as it is further south, but, um, we don't actually manage those.
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