Albuquerque Area Office

The Albuquerque Area Office is one of the largest in Reclamation reaching from the Alamosa area of southern Colorado through most of New Mexico and into west Texas. Staff here manage delivery of water on the Rio Grande, Rio Chama, Pecos, and Canadian rivers from the main office in Albuquerque and six field offices in Alamosa, Colorado; Alamogordo, Chama, Elephant Butte, and Socorro, New Mexico; and El Paso, Texas. This office is also responsible for overseeing the management of nine major dams with a combined reservoir storage capacity of more than 3.5 million acre-feet that supply water for more than 439,000 acres of irrigated land and several municipal drinking water projects. They also oversee hydropower production at Elephant Butte Dam, and research and testing at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination and Research Facility.

News and Highlights

  • News Release – April 16, 2020

    Reclamation Prepares for Below Average Runoff in the Rio Grande

    ALBUQUERQUE, NM – On the heels of a banner water year on the Rio Grande, water managers are again preparing to manage through drought as a below average runoff is expected this spring based on the current snowpack in the mountains of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Read More 

  • News Release – February 27, 2020

    Reclamation begins releases for Rio Grande Project irrigation season and announces Annual Operating Plan public meetings

    Elephant Butte, N.M. – In the coming days, the Bureau of Reclamation will release water for the 2020 irrigation season on the Rio Grande Project, resulting in inundation to the dry riverbed below Elephant Butte and Caballo Reservoirs.

    Reclamation will begin releasing water from Elephant Butte Reservoir on March 3 at 8 a.m. The release from Caballo Reservoir will begin on March 13 at around 6 a.m. Initial releases from both reservoirs could reach around 2,000 cubic feet per second. The public is asked to avoid the river channel during the initial release and to be aware that flows will fluctuate throughout the irrigation season. Initial releases from Caballo Reservoir will meet demands of El Paso County Water Improvement District Number 1 and Mexico. The Elephant Butte Irrigation District plans to start irrigating the Rincon Valley at a later date. Read More 

  • News Release – November 4, 2019

    The Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility.Reclamation awards nearly $1 million for water purification and desalination pilot projects
    Goals are to reduce costs, energy requirements, environmental impact for treating unusable water

    DENVER – The Bureau of Reclamation has awarded nearly $1 million for projects under an innovative pilot-scale water treatment technologies and desalination program. The selected projects will receive funding through cooperative agreements and will include a period of pilot testing at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and other sites across the country. Read More 

  • News Release – September 17, 2019

    Commissioner Burman at PBRWS ROD ceremony Pojoaque Basin regional water system moves toward construction

    The Bureau of Reclamation is one step closer to constructing a water system to bring safe, reliable drinking water to four Pueblos and parts of Santa Fe County under the Aamodt Litigation Settlement Agreement. Today, Reclamation’s Commissioner Brenda Burman joined settlement parties to sign an agreement that renegotiated cost shares and cost savings measures in the project. Read More 

  • Features – April 2, 2019

    To support learning and education in the Alamogordo, New Mexico, area the Bureau of Reclamation's Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility hosted 545 students at the Fourth Annual Discovering Desal event. The students visited the facility from March 4-12 and came from the Alamogordo Public School System, two private schools and a local homeschooling group. Read More 
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Last Updated: 7/15/20