Elephant Butte drops to 9% — New Mexico’s largest lake is vanishing, and an entire town built on the water is going dry.
Elephant Butte Reservoir on the Rio Grande has fallen to 9.6% full, and officials project it could hit just 2% of capacity by late August 2026.
After the earliest snowmelt on record and a third straight dry year, New Mexico’s biggest reservoir — once the largest man-made lake on Earth — is evaporating while the dam runs wide open to deliver water downstream to Las Cruces, El Paso, and treaty-owed Mexico. This is the story of Truth or Consequences, the marinas sitting in the mud, the Hatch chile farmers rationed to four inches of water, and a Supreme Court settlement quietly planning to retire the farms for good.
h/t @Teryl-u5k