Rio Rancho Moves to Corrales

It would be nice if the rains brought awareness like it brings the weeds. 

These two Journal stories: Path to River Cleared, about the Jones Channel in Corrales, and Mayor Wants Help, about Rio Rancho roads, are so obviously connected by the dirt right under our feet. 

There is, as usual, little or no recognition that soil loss in Rio Rancho is the cause of siltation and flooding in Corrales.   Heavier than "normal" rain isn't the story.  This is about unprecedented  erosion caused by land disturbance. 

The engineer with Southern Sandoval County Arroyo and Flood not-so-Control Authority said: 

"We just got so much sediment with that last storm, it overwhelmed the system," he said. "We never thought it would be the problem that it was. Mother Nature overwhelmed us."

No, 40 years of crappy development upstream overwhelmed you.  Corrales got AMREPed again.  Grading and drainage (aka "rape and scrape") of hundreds of acres at a time in preparation for the building of boxes some of us call home, exposes soils to erosion, obliterates smaller watershed absorption potential and eliminates vegetation.  In other areas, roads were graded  without regard for natural drainages and what would happen when it finally rained a lot. 

Don't blame Mother Nature for your own systematic disregard for her potential.