Barbara Gomez Aguiñaga

Barbara Gomez Aguinaga does research for the Cross-Border Issues Group (CBIG), which studies North American immigration from Mexico and Central America by collecting primary data. She is a media intern at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center (NMILC), which provides support and legal services to immigrants residing in New Mexico. She is also a reporter for the New Mexico Daily Lobo, which has a circulation of more than 10,000 copies. She studied at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Estado de México, and is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication with a minor in sociology at the University of New Mexico.

The Rio Grande has a water depth of 3 feet within El Paso. (Nick Miller/Borderzine.com)

Drought makes water conservation more crucial than ever for El Paso

By Barbara Gomez Aguiñaga | May 24, 2012

The Rio Grande and the lack of water in a desert city

EL PASO – The availability of water is a huge problem for desert cities like El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. While Juarez gets most of its water from underground aquifers, El Paso, during a good year, will receive about fifty percent of its water from the Rio Grande. But this northern stretch of the Chihuahuan desert has been in a drought for the past 16 years and El Paso is not receiving the normal allotment from the river. Currently, the Rio Grande has a water depth of only 3.19 feet within El Paso,in contrast to 1995, when water reached up to 14 feet, according to the International Boundary and Water Commission. Anai Padilla, water conservation manager for El Paso Water Utilities (EPWU), says the lack of water in Rio Grande can be noticed everywhere within El Paso.