The Rio Abajo valley is a different soil story
Los Lunas sits in the Rio Abajo — the lower Rio Grande valley south of the Isleta Reservation — and the ground behaves noticeably differently here than it does on the mesas around Albuquerque. Instead of engineered fill over caliche, most Los Lunas, Bosque Farms and Peralta lots sit on alluvial soils: layered sandy loam, silt and pockets of expansive clay deposited by centuries of Rio Grande flooding and old acequia irrigation. The water table is shallower than the West Mesa, and in some Valencia County neighborhoods it swings within a few feet of the surface between irrigation and dry seasons. That combination — clay that expands and contracts with moisture, plus water sitting close to the slab — is the single biggest driver of the driveway, walkway and patio settlement we see across the valley.




