Rural New Mexicans meet drought with culture of water sharing
Carolyn Kennedy can’t hurdle the ditch like she used to. So, on a warm August afternoon, she’s limping home with a twisted ankle.
Muddy and narrow, the ditch – known as an acequia – snakes up the northern slope of the Sandia Mountains in rugged ‘s’ bends. In the three centuries the village of Placitas has occupied these dusty orange hills, the acequia has barely changed. It’s one of the things Ms. Kennedy loves most about it.
But not everything is the same, she acknowledges as she settles into a green couch in the cottage she’s called home for about five decades.
As the rest of the world adopted new water storage and irrigation technologies, these hand-dug and gravity-fed trenches have remained an economic and cultural lifeline for rural New Mexico…
Click here for the full story.