3.0 Environmental and Cultural Overview, part V.

3.1.5 Hydrology

There are no perennial streams in the area, and therefore few are named. 

Water resources within and immediately adjacent to MCD consist primarily of low-order, intermittent drainages leading to tributaries to the master stream, the Wamels Draw. Wamels Draw, as previously discussed, is the primary drainage of Loteria Township; it flows out of the Cedar Mountain range to the north, and into the Laguna los Moscos south of the facility. 

Within MCD all streams flow northeast into seasonal mudflats on the north side of the Sierra Rica. The low order streams are spring-fed streams flow into semi-permanent drainages through wide flat valleys, with wide, low bordering bluffs. The pull of Wamels is so strong that the efflux of streams south of the range at times drainage up over the Sierra Rica towards the mudflats. 

This counterintuitive effect is due to the extremely high Sierra Rica aquifer which has been preserved under much of Loteria Township despite the arid conditions (cf. Terwilliger 1990)[1]. Liquid water in the region is trapped in the porous Proterozoic migmatite. Migmatite dykes are up thrust throughout the Sierra Rica as are the water bearing voids. Streams passing up into the Sierra Rica and drawn into a migmatite vein. Historically these veins were called “gushers” or “blisters” by miners, who could lose a mine shaft, and even a few miners to floods shod a vein be accidentally struck.  Effused o the leeward side of the mountains (Figure 3.1), streams are often pinkish in tinge due to particulate migmatite.[2]

Wamels Draw forms just to the east of the facility and at times has served as the boundary of territory.  It originates near northwest of Victorio and flows through Rock Hole Canyon entering the state of Chihuahua near Los Lamentos.  Land along the Wamels Draw is composed of old alluvium regardless of physiographic province. Extensive meandering of the river has been mitigated by the exposed Mississippian limestone within the valley (Terwilliger 1990). The Wamels Draw is the largest tributary of the Laguna los Moscos. As one would expect this lagoon is generally stagnant and a breeding ground for mosquitos and other insect larvae. Of note, the Chihuahua mosquito (Anopheles gigantum.)[3] is the primary food source of the beaded lizard herds that migrate to the lagoon to mate in the spring.

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Figure 3.1. Spring fed pink effluvium, exudes from a wooded mesa in the Sierra Rica.

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[1] Terwilliger, R. U. 1990.  Water in the New Mexico Crust. Pinafore Press, Springfield, MO.

[2] Note, this effect has only been documented since the modern occupation of the base and is not mentioned in historic accounts. Some attribute the pinkish water instead to the benzalkonium chloride synthesis facility located near the abandoned El Venada mining operation in Section 21. [fjt]

[3] Reportedly named for its relative size, not the Mexican province. [fjt]