River lament — hoping and praying for rain
The Pecos River is so low at present it’s heartbreaking. We own a few acres on the river in the Villanueva Valley. This year, the water has dropped four or five feet. I’m seeing things in the bank I never glimpsed before — muskrat holes and beaver dens. There are still ducks — but I saw one walking up the river instead of paddling.
This isn’t the time of year for the river to be shallow. Sometimes midsummer, the river dips this low for a few weeks before the monsoons arrive to freshen up the stream. But in spring, when the winter snowpack melts, there’s always been a raging torrent, overflowing the banks, carrying tree limbs and debris downriver. That’s what inspired parents, I’m guessing, to create the tale of La Llorona, a ghost lingering on the river’s edge moaning for her lost children, to scare children away from the wild, dangerous current.
But this year there was no snowpack, just the thinnest icy layer that quickly disappeared. Now each week, the weather forecast promises rain and we gaze hopefully at the sky, but so far only a few brief thunderstorms have arrived. We need days of rain or a week or two. When I walk across the field, the grasses crunch beneath my feet. The farmer who tends the field says he couldn’t get his plow into the hard dirt. Fortunately, the acequia is still flowing in our valley, but we’ve heard that villages a few miles farther south have no water in their ditches at all and that the riverbed is empty.
Farmers throughout the state are struggling to irrigate their crops. I understand Santa Fe has a two-year supply of water — enough to keep the parks from browning up, enough to keep the city from rationing water supplies, for now. We could blame climate change and it might be the culprit. But that doesn’t change the weather — it doesn’t bring the rain we so need. We can only hope and pray the summer monsoon arrives soon. Rosemary Zibart
Santa Fe
Just gets better
I’ll say one thing for President Donald Trump: Every day he outdoes himself in the “stupid department.” Richard “P-Nuts” Madrid
Santa Fe
Misguided
In his letter to the editor (“Best qualities,” May 15), former deputy state auditor Sanjay Bhakta unapologetically celebrates the misguided and ill-conceived executive order 2016003 on government accountability.
While the order may have “profoundly improved governmental accountability,” he fails to mention the disastrous and profound impact of the order on local government’s attempts to address critical water and sewer capital outlay-funded projects, causing the loss of thousands of jobs and adversely impacting the health and welfare of our citizens. He is remiss in acknowledging that this order underwent required and appropriate legal review by former Attorney General Gary King and was, in fact, declared unconstitutional, which means the order carries no legal or constitutional basis. Yet, its lingering strict enforcement continues to severely impact New Mexicans.
As stewards of the public trust, we have a responsibility, indeed an obligation, to provide accountability, transparency and full disclosure; but who needs government overreach? Arthur R. Varela
retired Pecos village treasurer Pecos
Making sure
Your listings on Mondays of food-service inspections help Santa Feans who eat out. Too often, the same restaurants appear in your lists. That leads to the question of what penalty a restaurant incurs by repeated, serious violations. It seems to me a guilty restaurant should be closed until corrections are made, and then there should be another inspection soon after to make sure the corrections remain in place. Marvin Lachman
Santa Fe