Pecos River

About the Pecos River

• The Pecos River rises in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near the village of Pecos, where Glorieta Creek joins it within Pecos National Historical Park, before the river runs south across New Mexico's eastern plains toward Texas.1
• Along its course Reclamation's Sumner, Brantley and Avalon dams store and divert Pecos water for farms around Fort Sumner and Carlsbad.2345
• New Mexico's use of the Pecos is governed by the 1948 Pecos River Compact with Texas; around Roswell, farms and towns draw almost all their water from an artesian aquifer rather than from the river.67

This report follows 740 miles (1,190 km) of the Pecos River across 6 watershed segments, from Pecos Headwaters downstream to Landreth-Monument Draws. At the lower end of the report the river drains about 29,806 square miles. Named tributaries joining it here include the Toyah Creek, Salt Creek, Rio Hondo, Rio Peñasco and Pintada Arroyo. Reservoirs on this reach: Red Bluff Reservoir, Lake McMillan, Lake Avalon, Buffalo Lake and Brainard Lake. Largest urban areas near it: Carlsbad, Pecos, Monahans, Las Vegas and Artesia. 37 gauges with at least 26 weeks of daily flow cover 1903 to 2026.

From the archive: NHDPlus river network, WBD watersheds, NHD waterbodies, TIGER urban areas and the report's gauges.

From the headwaters down

Each watershed segment in order, with last week's flow rated against the same week in 1991–2020.

1. 1

   Segment 1: Pecos Headwaters

   315 cfs last week much above normal, 285 dry days this year.

   Median conductance 233 µS/cm in the 2020s. Rain over the last 3 months: 167% of normal.

2. 2

   Segment 2: Upper Pecos

   82 cfs last week above normal.

   Median conductance 2,725 µS/cm in the 2020s. Rain over the last 3 months: 188% of normal.

3. 3

   Segment 3: Upper Pecos-Long Arroyo

   694 cfs last week much above normal.

   Median conductance 7,674 µS/cm in the 2020s. Rain over the last 3 months: 171% of normal.

4. 4

   Segment 4: Upper Pecos-Black

   196 cfs last week above normal, 3 dry days this year.

   Towns: Carlsbad.

   Water 19.9 °C at Pecos River At Red Bluff, NM. Median conductance 7,060 µS/cm in the 2020s. Rain over the last 3 months: 127% of normal.

5. 5

   Segment 5: Lower Pecos-Red Bluff Reservoir

   308 cfs last week much above normal, 9 dry days this year.

   Towns: Pecos.

   Median conductance 18,108 µS/cm in the 2020s. Rain over the last 3 months: 77% of normal.

6. 6

   Segment 6: Landreth-Monument Draws

   No data last week.

   Median conductance 21,300 µS/cm in the 2010s. Rain over the last 3 months: 103% of normal.

Culture

• Pecos National Historical Park preserves the ancestral Pecos Pueblo, once a major trading hub between Rio Grande and Plains peoples, along with a 17th-century Spanish mission and the Civil War Glorieta Pass battlefield, near the Pecos River's mountain headwaters.1
• The Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner tells how the U.S. Army forcibly removed Diné (Navajo) and Ndé (Mescalero Apache) people from their homelands to Bosque Redondo on the Pecos River.8
• Apache and Navajo people held at Bosque Redondo cultivated close to 3,000 acres along the Pecos River in 1863, decades before the same area was redeveloped as the Fort Sumner Irrigation District.2

Habitat

• The Pecos bluntnose shiner, a small minnow proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for listing as threatened, now lives only in about 175 miles of the Pecos River from Fort Sumner to Artesia.910
• Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1937 to give migratory birds winter habitat, protects some of the Pecos River watershed's most significant wetlands, where more than 26,000 sandhill cranes gather in fall migration.11
• The Pecos sunflower, listed as a threatened species in 1999, grows only in saturated desert wetlands (cienegas) and has designated critical habitat in Chaves and Guadalupe counties in the Pecos valley.12
• In the Roswell Artesian Basin, groundwater naturally discharges through karstic springs and sinkhole lakes that line both sides of the Pecos River at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge.7

Reservoirs

From the archive: National Inventory of Dams (USACE) and the reservoir registry.

Water users

• The Carlsbad Irrigation District holds water rights on about 25,000 acres near Carlsbad, drawing Pecos River water stored in the Santa Rosa, Sumner, Brantley and Avalon reservoirs (plus the Black River) to grow alfalfa, cotton and, increasingly, pecans.13
• The Fort Sumner Irrigation District holds a senior water right of up to 100 cubic feet per second from the Pecos River's natural flow to irrigate about 6,500 acres near Fort Sumner, water that passes through Lake Sumner on its way to the district's diversion dam.2
• The Roswell Artesian Basin gets virtually all of its irrigation and drinking water from a karstic artesian limestone aquifer, not from the Pecos River itself.7
• The 1948 Pecos River Compact between New Mexico and Texas, approved by Congress in 1949, apportions the river's water between the two states and created the interstate Pecos River Commission to administer it.6

Surface water withdrawn, 2020

In the counties this river crosses (Chaves, De Baca, Eddy, Guadalupe, Mora, San Miguel): 309,483 acre-feet. County totals include other streams.

State Engineer, New Mexico Water Use by Categories 2020.

Irrigation districts and acequias

• Pecos Valley Artesian Conservancy District (697,899 acres mapped)
• Carlsbad Irrigation District (80,587 acres mapped)
• Fort Sumner Irrigation District (12,902 acres mapped)

State Engineer's irrigation districts and acequia layers.

Public water systems beside the river

Otis MDWCA, Artesia Rural Water Co-Operative, Valley MDWCA, Puerto De Luna MDWCA, La Pasada MDWCA, Rowe MDWCA

State Engineer's public water systems layer (service areas within 2 km).