The Rio Ground

~ Patrick O'Grady
The Rio Grande, pictured July 11, two days before it was declared officially dry in The Duck! City.

Welp, piss on the dogs and call in the fire — the Rio Grande is now the Rio Ground.

John Fleck reports that the “official” call is that the Rio ran dry in the heart of Albuquerque last Sunday evening, for only the second time in the 21st century.

I was down by the river last Friday (not to shoot my baby; I was on a longer-than-usual bike ride) and took the above snap from the Gail Ryba Memorial Bridge paralleling Interstate 40. A stone bummer it was and will be; the future does not look bright, but we’ll have to wear shades anyway. And possibly Assos stillsuits as well.

I wasn’t wearing my dancing shoes.

Happily, I took two tall iced water bottles on this 45-miler. And I had drained both of them before I saw something that made me smile, in Lynnewood Park just short of The Old Home Place.

The Paseo de las Montañas Trail runs right through the park, and on the concrete path someone had drawn a rough square with a message inside: “Dance Here.”

I would’ve, too. But I was hot, tired, and thirsty, and the soles of my ancient Sidis have been ground down to nubbins by the years and miles. Plus it would’ve felt a little like dancing on my own grave.

17 thoughts on “The Rio Ground”

    1. Never thought about it this way, but in a hundred years, our great great great grandkids will ask why there are so many bridges with nothing underneath them.

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  4. Gail Ryba Memorial Bridge.

    I find it rather sad that Gail doesn’t have a better memorial up here. She lived up here in Santa Fe (on W. Zia) for many years after she resigned from working as a chemist at Sandia National Lab in order to be doing full time nonprofit work in renewable energy and sustainable transportation, including being president of the Bicycle Coalition of NM. We see a bridge commemorating her work is in Albuquerque but only a tiny bit of trail named after her up here. It is about 100 meters long and connects nothing to nowhere. In some ways, Santa Fe aspires to great liberalness, but actually falls short.

    Gail was one of the first people I met in bicycling when I moved here from Honolulu. Former BCNM President and LAB Board member Diane Albert talked her into coming up to Los Alamos for the 2001 Christmas Parade, where we had a big bicycle turnout. Gail, with a chemistry Ph.D. from Caltech, was a brilliant person to brainstorm with about just about anything. What a loss when she died of cancer, possibly related to being a chemist. Hmmm.

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    1. Oof. John writes:

      One of the most useful questions I learned to ask as a reporter covering water involved drilling down to the question of what happens when scarcity finally bites. What is the failure mode? Who actually doesn’t get water? How does that work?

      The combination of Jack’s analysis and Reclamation’s latest 24-month study suggests that we need to be asking that question in the near term. When Powell approaches minimum power pool, and Mead drops below 1030, whose water use will be curtailed to protect the system? If your answer involves a defense of why your own water supply should not be reduced, you’re doing this wrong. Everyone needs to be realistic about their risk of a legal outcome different from their agency lawyer’s position. But we also need to recognize moral obligations here, to find ways to share in this shrinking river. How are we going to come together, as a community, to respond?

      The longer term argument also needs to begin to take this form.

      “How are we going to come together, as a community,” period. The outcome of the last pestilential erection has not been encouraging in this regard.

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  8. Just when I was ready to live in my van down by the river you tell me it’s dried up. Ah…the Southwest….so far we’ve gotten enough rain to keep the Michigan rivers flowing nicely. But I aint’ bragging since it only takes a few weeks with zero rain and high temps to change the entire picture no matter where you go in the world.

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  9. Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting. An old Western saying from land owners trying to damn up rivers and creeks on their property and deny others water downstream. Fill your hand pilgrim!

    Has the Rio gone underground to surface further down river? The San Pedro river does that down here in SE Aridzona.

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