Dam vital for water storage faces long delay in renovation

Image Credit Jim Weber/SF New Mexican.

​By Scott Wyland
The Santa Fe New Mexican
 
A much-needed renovation of an aging dam that's crucial for storing and delivering water to the region's growers was supposed to be finished by 2026, but federal officials now say they must start over, adding years to the project.
 
Having El Vado Dam offline and the reservoir drained since repairs began two years ago has caused logistical challenges for water managers who are unable to store excess spring runoff to use late in the summer growing season when it's often most needed. 
 
Instead, they must let the Rio Grande carry all the water downstream with the hope it will chip away at the hefty water debt owed to Texas — though that hasn't proved effective because much of the southward flow is lost to evaporation and faulty infrastructure. 
 
Now the prospect of having a vital water storage hub shut down years longer than anticipated is frustrating irrigation district officials in charge of supplying Middle Rio Grande Valley growers with the water they need to cultivate crops on the area's 60,000 acres of farmland. 
 
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation found two key problems with the dam: Water was seeping through the old steel faceplate and the spillway was at risk of failing. The agency chose what it considered the cheapest, fastest way to fix the defects, which still would cost an estimated $33 million.
 
A year into the renovation, the agency learned its methods not only weren't working to shore up the faceplate but were worsening the problem. 
 
"We are going back to the drawing board on alternatives for seepage reduction," Jennifer Faler, the Bureau's Albuquerque area manager, told Middle River Valley Conservancy District board members at a meeting in May. "We were not able to find technical solutions to the challenges we were seeing." 
 
The agency must come up with new plans to fix the 90-year-old dam, a task that will take three to six years before construction can begin, Faler said. She will do everything she can to streamline it so work would start in closer to three years, she added. 
 
Faler said the Bureau's team picked the most economical option to save farmers money. The next time around, they will pursue the option most likely to work, she said. 
 
"We're more inclined to choose more of an ironclad, tried-and true solution," she said. 
 
News of the dam's renovation possibly dragging out to the end of the decade irked a couple of board directors. 
 
"You're playing with people's livelihoods down here — all these farmers," said board director Brian Giron. "You guys went the inexpensive way. Look at what it's doing. It's costing the most now. I'm extremely disappointed in how long this is taking." 
 
Faler said she shared his disappointment. 
 
In 2022, the reservoir was emptied so crews could grout behind the faceplate, weld weaknesses in the structure and then place a synthetic lining over the entire face to better seal it.
 
After the water was drained, engineers observed the dam was in worse shape than expected and the grouting was doing more harm than good, Faler told the district's directors. 
 
The grouting was deforming the faceplate, Faler said. And some of the angle irons that support the faceplate had become exposed.
 
"We made the decision in 2023 to stop the grouting because we only foresaw worse and worse conditions for the faceplate if we continued grouting," Faler said. "We'll be looking at other alternatives." 
 
Much thought and research went into the project, she said.
 
The Bureau's technical staff studied the dam and what needed to be corrected from 2007 to 2019, she said, focusing on the risks to the public. The biggest risks were determined to be "excessive seepage" and the aging spillway. 
 
Board director John P. Kelly said this sudden revelation from an agency that specializes in engineering and long-term planning puzzled him. 
 
"I find this highly unusual that the Bureau would switch horses in midstream, and we don't know which horse we're getting on," Kelly said. "We had multiple assurances that we're going to have water [in] 2027, 2028, 2029, and this just keeps moving out." 
 
Kelly asked if the agency would consider hiring a private consultant with dam expertise this time around. Faler said a panel of six outside experts reviewed the previous dam renovation while it was in the planning stage. 
 
"How in the world was this missed?" she said. "Or was it just impossible to have caught it?"
 
Having El Vado Dam shut down has been troublesome for water managers because it's the only reservoir in the middle valley authorized to store the Rio Grande's "native" or natural water for the irrigation district. 
 
But that's about to change. 
 
The neighboring Abiquiú Reservoir soon will be permitted to hold native river water because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's water-control guidelines were recently revised to allow it to be stored there, said Army Corps spokesman Michael Graff. 
 
Before, Abiquiu could only store San Juan-Chama water, which is diverted from the Rio Chama Basin through a federal system of tunnels and dams until it flows into the Rio Grande. The Bureau allocates this water every year to farmers, pueblos and the cities of Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
 
The final step to enabling Abiquiú to store native water is for the Corps to update its agreement with the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Graff said.  
Jason Casuga, the irrigation district's CEO, said it will be crucial to have an alternative storage site while El Vado is out of commission. 
 
El Vado is expected to hold only a relatively small amount of native water while the Bureau pursues the new renovation plans, Casuga said, adding it won't be nearly enough to meet the district's storage needs. 
 
Which is why the district and the Bureau are negotiating with the water authority in the hope it will let the district use some of that storage space, at least temporarily, he said. 
 
Under the 86-year-old Rio Grande Compact, New Mexico must store the volume of water it owes Texas before it can add irrigation water to the reservoir, Casuga said. Otherwise, all the water from, say, the spring runoff must go downstream to Texas, he said. 
 
Casuga said he looks forward to El Vado being rehabbed so it can store a large quantity of water again. It will enable the district to be autonomous and not have to rely on others for storage, he said. 
 
"Right now, without the facility to store water, we're asking for permission from other places," Casuga said.