Owen Lammers, Glen Canyon Action Network

Owen Lammers is the executive director of Glen Canyon Action Network, a one-year-old Colorado River advocacy organization based in Moab, Utah. In the 12 years before he co-founded GCAN, Owen was the executive director and vice president of International Rivers Network, based in Berkeley, Calif.

This day was mostly a driving day, as we had to cover 550 miles and two watersheds!

We pulled out of Albuquerque around noon, headed south on Interstate 25 for the town of Belen, an old farming community along the Rio Grande River. We passed by the University of New Mexico's Championship 18-hole golf course in south Albuquerque, but we did not have time to stop for a photo op or a tee off. UNM promotes this golf course as a site for national golf tournaments. The city of Albuquerque boasts of having more than 15 courses. Well-watered, no doubt.

The first community we pass through is the Isleta Pueblo Indian Reservation. The Rio Grande flows through the Isleta Nation. The tribe, for whom the river is sacred, successfully sued the city of Albuquerque several years ago for dumping partially treated sewage into the river upstream of the reservation. This established an important legal precedent for both environmental protection and tribal sovereignty, because the courts for the first time recognized that Indian nations have authority to enforce environmental laws on their lands and in their streams, even if the culprit is off the reservation.

We were heartened to see a healthy, dense riparian forest of cottonwoods, willows, and other native plants along the riverbanks as we crossed the river at Isleta. The local term for this riparian forest is bosque, and the bosques are in real trouble because of lowered water tables caused by heavy agricultural water withdrawals and by clearing land for crops. In many areas of the Rio Grande, exotic tamarisk (salt cedar) has invaded and choked out native vegetation.

The Rio Grande south of Albuquerque is often two parallel streams -- the river and one or more ditches. At certain times, the ditches carry more water than the river.

Our first stop for the day was the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District in Belen, one of a string of communities along the river that have been inhabited for centuries. Some are called pueblitos -- a term that evokes the rich Hispanic heritage of the region.

The MRGCD has its headquarters in Albuquerque, but we chose instead to visit the distribution arm of the irrigation division, a nondescript cinder block structure with no identifying signage. We drove the water truck into the parking lot for our photo op, then walked inside. There we met the affable manager, Richard Jaramillo. We presented him with a copy of our letter requesting 1 percent of their currently used water allocations for the Colorado River Delta, and asked for his consideration. He very politely responded by telling us that he would bring this issue to the attention of his board of directors. We thanked him for his time and headed back out on the road.

I-25 follows the river south. It's just another piece of industrial infrastructure on the landscape, but the freeway also reflects the determinative role the river has played in the cultural and economic geography of the Southwest. Where for generations people walked, and later rode horseback, along the river, today a steady stream of autos, RVs, 18-wheelers, and yes, (full) water tankers flows by.

We pass the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro and later the Bosque del Apache Refuge. These refuges are vital to the waterfowl populations that migrate along the Rio Grande. Sadly, however, agribusiness and hunters keep a tight rein on the management of these refuges. Parts of the refuge are open to hunting, where the trigger-happy can find joy in shooting ducks at the "refuge."

Alfalfa and other grain crops are grown for cattle feed and duck feed on these federal public lands, providing yet another subsidy to the livestock industry in a region with an economy largely founded on such subsidies.

We rolled into Truth or Consequences, N.M., in late afternoon. This charming town, known for many years as "Hot Springs," made a deal with a TV game show back in the 1950s, in which the town changed its name to help promote the program.

We had water, not TV, on our minds, however, as we drove through downtown T or C, as it's known locally. We were headed to the far side of town, to a place known as Elephant Butte Dam on the Rio Grande. This was one of the first concrete dams constructed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the early 20th century. Rather ornately accented by a row of lights on concrete standards across the dam's crest, the dam is a sad sight. The reservoir has the dubious distinction of evaporating as much as 25 percent of the river's flow.

The water level in the reservoir was low, as usual. This reservoir is one of several in southern New Mexico that divert water for the state's agricultural sector. The town of Hatch, a few miles downstream from T or C, is the world-renowned center of the chile pepper industry. The peppers are a mainstay of the economy and the culture of the valley, and are grown with Rio Grande water. But the biggest crop of the valley is cattle feed such as alfalfa, grown for the benefit of feedlots and dairy farms in the vicinity.

Our water truck was one ton over the weight limit so we were unable to drive across the dam. We did get a photo of the truck, though, with the dam in the background.

Back on the highway, we cruised across the stunningly beautiful landscape of the Chihuahuan Desert and over the Continental Divide, where we reentered the Colorado River watershed. The Gila River, which rises in the Gila Wilderness country to the north, is a tributary of the Colorado. We'll be travelling through the Gila's watershed as we pass through Tucson and Phoenix.

As we pass into Arizona, we are detained briefly at the weigh station, where the authorities express skepticism at our story that we are driving this 11-ton truck around the Southwest for environmental education purposes. But they can't find anything to cite us for, so they let us go and we are off once again into the night.

The moon is almost full, and we drive through southern Arizona in the soft lunar glow. Our destination tonight is Phoenix, and tomorrow we will rally downtown. Check out our website for our next report!