A Land Of Little Rain

The majority of McKinley County, New Mexico is either desert or semi-desert, but the entire county is extremely arid. There are no permanent streams in the county, just "part-time" streams. The principal streams in the county are: Zuni River, Rio Nutria, Rio Pescado. Rio Puerco of the West, South Fork Rio Puerco of the West, Chaco River, Sand Springs Wash, Arroyo Chico, Fajada Wash, Whitewater Arroyo, Red Willow Wash and Bread Springs Wash.
  A point of clarification. There are 3 Rio Puerco's in New Mexico. The one in McKinley County is called 'Rio Puerco of the West' , but that is an unofficial name. It is officially Rio Puerco. The other 2 "Rio Puerco's" are east of the Continental Divide, this one is west of the divide. The longest river with this name is 237 miles long. It rises northeast of the little town of Cuba, NM on the west slope of San Pedro Peak in the Sierra Nacimiento in Santa Fe National Forest. It is a tumbling mountain stream in its nebulous beginnings in the
San Pedro Parks Wilderness Area.  It is mostly dry throughout its length, but early Spanish explorers wrote about all of the vegetation that once lined its banks and that the line of trees along the Rio Puerco could be seen from many miles away and were a welcome respite from the parched desert through which it travels. Today, most of the trees and other vegetation have disappeared and, through most of the river's length, it has steeply eroded banks. This was caused by a lowering of the water table because of excessive groundwater pumping.The disappearance of the vegetation that once lined the river has created serious erosion problems and excessive dust problems in the vicinity of the dry riverbed. This Rio Puerco meets the Rio Grande about 50 miles south of Albuquerque. I say "meets" because the Rio Puerco rarely flows anymore. The river generally runs in a south-southeast direction, but at its beginning in the Sierra Nacimiento, it flows west.
The most famous portion of the Rio Puerco is west of Albuquerque where old U.S. Highway 66 crosses it on a very narrow bridge. The bridge is still standing and is still in good condition, but is closed to traffic. People can walk across the bridge, however.
  Cuba, with about 800 people, is the biggest town on the Rio Puerco. It flows mostly through lightly populated or uninhabited areas, although it does just miss a major city, Albuquerque. When the old Route 66 bridge and also the Interstate 40 bridges nearby cross the Rio Puerco, they are only 9 miles west of the Albuquerque city limits.
  I will continue talking about the other 2 Rio Puerco's in the next installment of this blog before this installment gets too long.