While drought parches most of New Mexico, leaving it dry as kindling waiting for a spark, the village of Peralta in Valencia County has just the opposite problem - too much water. Early this morning the levee on the ditchbank on La Ladera Road broke, sending thousands of gallons of muddy water through Gilbert Aragon's yard, wiping out a gravel driveway and a lawn, washing out septic tanks, stranding cars in drifts of slimy mud. " It's bad," said Aragon. "It's going to take a lot of landscaping to replace all my gravel in the front, clean up all the dirt that came in, the mud. I've been here since 1973 and I never had anything like this happen here." The floodwaters poured across fields a half a mile sotuh of Aragon's house, flooding Escondida Lane and seeping into garages and toolsheds. " It's pretty bad, " said homeowner Jeff Krom. " Cars are up to their bumpers in the water. Power tools, air compressors - under water."
