The Backstory

For over a million years, the Rio’s flow was dictated solely by the rhythms of snow and rain, winter and summer. Sometimes, it surged—flooding its banks and ushering sediment downstream. In other years, it whispered its winding way across the landscape. Now, human demands and diversions dictate the course and flow of the river. And, increasingly, a warming climate will establish a rhythm determined by sparse snow and limited runoff.

For people and wildlife that depend on the Rio Grande, this shift in snow and water availability is a cause for serious concern. Less snow means less water for trees, making them more vulnerable to wildfire. It means less water in the river, which means less water in fields and wetlands that dry up and stretches of river where fish can no longer swim.   

But climate change isn’t the only threat facing the Rio, its tributaries, and the connected underground sources of water. Since the late 20th Century, developers in Colorado have proposed various plans to pump water out of the aquifers that sit below the Rio Grande for expanding communities on the Colorado Front Range. The latest threat manifests as a developer buying up land and water rights in the northeastern portion of the San Luis Valley, with plans to pump groundwater nearly 200 miles over Poncha Pass in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to communities north of Colorado Springs.

Existing diversions for municipal and agricultural use already claim a significant portion of the Rio Grande’s average annual flow, and Elephant Butte, the major reservoir south of Albuquerque, only reliably provides irrigation water during a  short irrigation season. Increasingly frequent droughts in the face of climate change and growing populations around Albuquerque and El Paso could exacerbate the problem.

The San Luis Valley

In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, the Rio Grande River supports both people and wildlife. The Valley is home to the Rio Grande National Forest, three National Wildlife Refuges and thousands of acres of private lands supporting well-known and lesser-loved wildlife, including the Rio Grande cutthroat trout and the Sandhill Crane. Over 250 unique species of bird are found in the Great Sand Dunes National Park alone. The iconic Sandhill Crane relies on the Valley’s wetlands, stopping here in the spring and fall to rest and gain strength for their journey between New Mexico and the northern United States and Canada. 

After winding its way through some of the most productive trout waters in southern Colorado, the Rio Grande tumbles into a cavity of sheer-walled canyons carved from the volcanic rock near northern New Mexico’s Taos Pueblo. The box canyons of the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, designated in 2013, offer dramatic wilderness and important bird sanctuary surrounding some of the finest whitewater in the West for skilled paddlers, highlighting an outdoor recreational mecca that extends downstream along 74 miles of designated Wild & Scenic river.

It’s a solid 600 miles between rapids before the river reaches its lower Wild & Scenic designation surrounding Big Bend National Park along the Texas border with Mexico. Despite being diverted and depleted for hundreds of miles before reaching El Paso, the river gets replenished by Mexico’s Rio Conchos just upstream from Big Bend’s eastern boundary – enough to feed a 191-mile segment of Wild & Scenic River, established in 1978.

Towering limestone walls stretching up to 1,500 feet in the park’s Santa Elena and Mariscal canyons provide much of the scenery amidst a remote, rugged wilderness that extends far beyond Big Bend’s 118-mile river boundary.

Check out the below resources on the San Luis Valley to gain a better understanding of why protecting and preserving the health of the Rio Grande, the viability of aquifers, and the deep history of the San Luis Valley is as critical for communities that rely directly on the river as it is for the state of Colorado and the Southwest.

The Future

The Rio Grande undoubtedly faces challenges from its headwaters in Colorado to its terminus in the Gulf of Mexico. However, work is being done across its full length  to sustain this essential river. 

In Colorado, the Rio Grande ties together generations of people and communities across the San Luis Valley. Brought together by shared ethics of caring for land and water, everyone in the San Luis Valley depends deeply on the Rio Grande – for their livelihoods, the rich diversity of wildlife and activities they enjoy, and their connection to the rich history of people who have come before them. 

Communities in the San Luis Valley are learning to do more with less, and every drop of water works just a little bit harder. A number of planning initiatives within the Valley have identified multi-benefit projects and solutions to help address the challenges they face. This includes water sharing agreements, restoring riparian areas and instream restoration, implementing nature-based solutions, and upgrading agricultural infrastructure. These strategies will all help restore the river and bolster water flowing underneath the Valley. Learn more about the interdependent nature of the people, wildlife, and the river in our film Through Line. Watch Through Line here.  

In New Mexico, water partners and stakeholders are beginning to work with the Bureau of Reclamation on the Rio Grande New Mexico Basin Study. This is a collaborative study that looks to evaluate and develop strategies to help the river and populations who depend upon it adapt to a  future with much less water while supporting the basin’s unique human culture and ecosystems. This study will increase preparedness for future changes in water supply and demand and provide a technical basis for water planning and policy decisions throughout the Basin. The Basin Study is anticipated to launch in early 2022. 

Communities throughout the Rio Grande Basin understand the challenges facing their sources of water. A balanced approach to water management and investments in activities to improve the resilience of the river and the communities that depend on it is needed if the once mighty Rio Grande hopes to recover.

One of the last free-flowing rivers in the Southwest, the San Miguel’s complex character marks a birth among alpine wildflowers before the river topples over Bridal Veil Falls and winds through the Telluride Valley Floor. The river meanders through the high mountain valley, where bike paths and signs celebrate its recently restored sinuosity. Between Sawpit and Placerville, the river flows past the Angler Inn where avid fly-fishers catch rainbow and brown trout. Before converging with the Dolores River, and then on to the Colorado River, the San Miguel moves through San Miguel and Norwood canyons—providing phenomenal Class I – Class IV runs for boating enthusiasts. Birders come to the shores of the river to watch American dippers nest along the canyon walls.

The San Miguel is one of the few naturally functioning rivers in Colorado, and the Southwest, providing most of the water that maintains the imperilled Dolores River through its lower canyons. More than 30 miles of the San Miguel River are protected in preserves, largely because of the important and rare riparian habitat the river’s natural hydrograph and limited development provide and protect. Narrowleaf cottonwood, Colorado blue spruce , and thinleaf alder are just a few of the important forest species that thrive in the steep canyons of the San Miguel. 

The San Miguel’s cool, clean water provides a rare refuge for native fish. Cold water mottled sculpin and cutthroat trout make home on the cobbled river bottom. Seven genetically pure populations of cutthroat thrive in its waters. Downstream, warm water fish like the roundtail chub, flannelmouth sucker, and bluemouth sucker rely on consistent flows throughout the season for reproduction.

In 2015, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the instream water rights for the San Miguel river, approving protections for up to 325 cubic feet per second in-stream flows to protect fish and wildlife. Faced with warming temperatures and decreasing snowpack under future climate conditions, and threatened by growing demand, the future of the small but critical river remains tenuous. American Rivers and our local and regional partners are working to better understand and identify ways to keep the river functioning in the decades to come through participation in stream management planning.

While pumping is certainly legal by permitted landowners, such permit holders are required to leave a flow in the river sufficient to service the domestic and livestock users downstream.  In 2011, after priority calls were made by ranchers, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) did the right thing and suspended pumping.  The river filled up and flowed again despite irrigators’ claims that it was drought– not excessive pumping– that had dried up the river.  When irrigators pumped the river dry again in 2012, the TCEQ inexplicably denied the priority calls from downstream ranchers, refusing to enforce the law because they claimed they did not feel the suspension would result in restored river flows.  This position was puzzling since the flow returned to the river after the suspension in 2011– the year of the worst drought in more than 60 years.

The Backstory

The Nooksack Wild and Scenic effort is about conserving the ecological and recreational values of this magnificent river system. A diverse array of interested citizens, business owners, and organizations has worked for years to build widespread public support for Wild and Scenic River legislation designed to permanently protect over 100 river miles and 32,000 acres of riverside habitat in the upper Nooksack basin, including portions of all three forks and eight tributary streams.

Like much of the Northwest, some 40 hydroelectric dams have been proposed for various sites on the Nooksack since the 1970s, the legacy of logging impact remains along portions of the river, and a diversion dam on the Middle Fork has blocked passage of salmon and steelhead for nearly 70 years. Tremendous efforts are underway to restore the ecological health and improve the habitat of the Nooksack River and protecting the headwaters as Wild and Scenic would help protect these investments in restoration.

The Future

Keeping the Nooksack great remains a top priority in the region. Wild and Scenic designation would ensure that the river’s “Outstandingly Remarkable Values” are protected and enhanced in the future and prevent any new dams or other projects that would degrade the river’s natural character and healthy flows. The Nooksack Wild and Scenic campaign is working toward drafting legislation by 2017.

Recreational access around the river corridor is also a major concern and American Rivers is working with a variety of partners to implement recommendations in the Upper Nooksack River Recreation Plan, a planning effort spearheaded by American Rivers intended to improve access and guide recreational use in the region for the next 10-15 years. American Rivers is also an advisory committee member on Washington Department of Natural Resource’s new recreation planning effort called the Baker to Bellingham Recreation Plan.

In late 2020, American Rivers worked with several partners including Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Whatcom Land Trust, the Nooksack Tribe, American Whitewater, and others, with technical assistance from the National Parks Service, to finalize a plan for the Maple Creek Public River Access and Restoration Site. This site was identified in the Upper Nooksack River Recreation Plan as an ideal location for safe public recreation access along the North Fork Nooksack River, while also allowing natural resource managers to protect, restore, and enhance the adjacent riparian forest and natural river systems.

The Backstory

The Kansas River is no stranger to American Rivers’ Most Endangered Rivers® list, having been included five times since 1995. Some progress has been made since the most recent in 2012, although the Kaw still faces many threats. The most intense among them are impacts from in-river sand and gravel dredging used to make concrete. Dredging widens and deepens the river channel, lowering the water level of the river and the water table.

Dwindling access to water is a major threat to animals, humans, plants, and a significant agriculture industry in Kansas, especially when the looming concern of climate change is factored in. Scientific studies show that dredging a prairie river like the Kaw is particularly harmful since when sand is removed, the river attempts to fill the holes by carving away soil from the riverbanks. That erosion damages valuable farmland and wildlife habitat, to say nothing of the taxpayer-funded infrastructure like flood control structures, bridges, roads, and intake pipes for public water supplies.

The Corps of Engineers granted five-year permits for dredging operations at 10 locations along the Kansas River in 2007. But those permits to extract sand and gravel from the river stipulate that they would be terminated in any five-mile reach of the river where the average riverbed elevation dropped more than 2 feet. At least three of those permits have since been terminated, and a 2014 environmental review prompted the Corps to require a full Environmental Impact Study (EIS) before the remaining dredging permits on the Kansas River will be reauthorized.

The EIS is expected to be published in late 2016. The current permits, originally scheduled to expire Dec. 31, 2012, have been extended through the process.

The Future

The time has come to end the harmful practice of dredging in the Kaw and move on to addressing other issues. The river, for example, also drains more than 53,000 square miles of prime commercial farmland, and suffers greatly from fertilizer and animal waste pollution.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should complete a new Environmental Impact Study on dredging, deny all new permit and tonnage requests, and end dredging on the Kansas River by 2017.

Originally built in the late 1800s to generate power for a cotton mill, the 15-foot tall Steeles Mill Dam had fallen into disuse by 1999. The removal of the dam restored more than 15 miles of habitat for species including hickory shad, blueback herring, striped bass and Atlantic sturgeon. The dam removal was the result of efforts by partners including American Rivers, the City of Rockingham and NOAA.

“This is the beginning of a great new chapter for Hitchcock Creek and nearby communities,” said Gerrit Jöbsis, Southeast regional director for American Rivers, at the time of the dam removal. “Healthy rivers are the lifeblood of our communities and it is hard to overstate the many benefits they provide. When we tear down old infrastructure like obsolete dams, we build up our natural infrastructure – the streams, wetlands and floodplains that give our communities essential services like clean water, flood protection, and other economic benefits.” 

HITCHCOCK CREEK BLUE TRAIL

Following the dam removal, American Rivers worked with the City of Rockingham to create a new 14 mile blue trail from Ledbetter Lake to the Pee Dee River. Blue trails, the water equivalent to hiking trails, are created to facilitate recreation in and along rivers and other water bodies.  They can stimulate local economies, encourage physical fitness, improve community pride, and make rivers and communities healthier.

“This isn’t just about removing a dam, it’s about revitalizing Hitchcock Creek into an even greater asset for our community. We are excited about the creation of a new blue trail, and the economic, recreation, and quality of life rewards that will bring. Soon, a healthy Hitchcock Creek will be a source of pride for all of us, and residents and visitors alike will be able to reap the benefits,” said Gene McLaurin, the Mayor of Rockingham. 

As small communities around the country struggle to grow their economies, the city of Rockingham has recognized the ability of restoration projects to inject new dollars into the community. Projects such as these can lead to greater economic stability over the long term by restoring  commercial  and  recreational  fishing,  improving  tourism,  and  creating  new  business  and  recreation  opportunities. Community liabilities can be remade into community assets.

As part of this effort, the City of Rockingham protected 100 acres of bottomland forest along the Blue Trail, purchased two river access areas, and acquired a boat launch.

The Future

The Haw River has caught the attention of the community around it- with places like Saxapahaw centering much of their community and economic growth on the health of the river. North Carolina has developed a clean-up plan for the problems seen in the Jordan Lake Reservoir but that plan has not been able to be fully implemented and missed the opportunity to engage the entire watershed and bring the values of a healthy river system to all the communities in the watershed.

In 2015, American Rivers led the development of a new approach to managing water in the Haw River. This new approach was based on the principles of Integrated Water Management or One Water that looks to find the value in all water (stormwater, drinking water, reclaimed water, wastewater, etc.) This creates management efficiencies that save money and reduce regulatory burden while producing more ecological benefits.

The Jordan Lake One Water (JLOW) initiative was launched in 2017. It brought together communities from across the watershed from Greensboro to Cary and interest groups from across the spectrum include other environmental advocates, Farm Bureau, NC Home Builders, and private businesses. The group is working to eliminate the silos dividing the work that each of the groups is doing and finding new partnerships and greater investment in strategies that restore the ecological health- and therefore the economic health- of the watershed. This system will invest in projects and develop policies that build resilience in the watershed to climate change including the impacts from flooding and droughts, builds community stability and opportunity, reduces pollution of all sorts going into the streams across the watershed, and restores the ecosystem of the watershed.

This attention to the river has also helped to encourage a greater interest in recreation and reconnecting the river by removing the antiquated dams that dot it. We’ve removed several remnant dams- the Upper Swepsonville dam and the Granite Mill dam– to restore the river. We hope to work with more communities and dam owners to find the long-term sustainable restoration solutions for many of the remaining dams in the system.

Threats To This River

The Harpeth River flows through the heart of downtown Franklin, the 14th fastest growing city in the United States, and traverses Williamson County, one of the fastest growing counties in Tennessee. This rapid development has already caused harm to the river from adding treated sewage, increasing stormwater runoff, and withdrawing water. If not managed responsibly, it could cause irreparable damage to the river.

Since the state of Tennessee first issued its required 303(d) list of impaired waters in 1999, the Harpeth has been listed because the river frequently fails to meet water quality standards for fish and aquatic life and recreational use during periods of low summer flow. Nearly 60 percent of the entire length of the main river is impaired, along with 37percent of its more than 1000 miles of tributary streams.

The river’s impairment is caused by dangerously low levels of dissolved oxygen driven by high concentrations of nutrients – particularly phosphorus – that fuel oxygen-hungry algal blooms that can lead to toxic conditions. Primary sources of nutrient pollution include treated sewage effluent and stormwater runoff. During summer months when the river experiences natural low flows, sewage effluent can dominate the river and significantly contribute to the total nutrient load downstream from the City of Franklin’s sewage treatment plant. For example, on average in August 2014, downstream from the sewer plant, 32 percent of the river’s total flow came from treated effluent that contained phosphorus levels 3.5 times higher than the river’s levels just upstream, according to the city’s own data.

The pollution problem is exacerbated by the City of Franklin’s aging 2 million gallons-a-day drinking water plant that withdraws water from the river not far upstream from its sewer plant. The city wants to replace its plant even though the Harpeth is too small to supply the city with its drinking water needs. The city’s primary, and most reliable, source of drinking water is a substantial utility that produces water from the much larger Cumberland River. This utility provides three-fourths of the city’s annual demand and up to 100 percent during the summer or when the city’s plant is down. Meanwhile, the city withdraws up to 20 percent of the Harpeth’s flow during low flow periods. According to the state, this is problematic for fish and aquatic life, and reduces the capacity of the river to handle the city’s treated sewage discharges and other pollutants downstream.

The Backstory

To protect “the roar of the river,” President Herbert Hoover declared the Black Canyon a national monument in 1933. In 1999, Congress declared it a National Park. Though beautiful and partially protected, the Gunnison River has been starkly impacted by man nonetheless.

Three dams operated by the Bureau of Reclamation just upstream from the park have severely altered the natural flow of the river. The Aspinall Unit, as the dams are collectively known, inundated more than 40 miles of prime native trout waters to allow more consistent control of the river’s water for irrigation and hydropower.

After being named America’s Most Endangered River^® in 1991 and returning to the list at No. 4 in 2003, a coalition of stakeholders and litigators hammered out a decree to protect the natural values of the Black Canyon in 2008. Decades of conflict eventually resulted in water rights that now promise a spring peak flow, shoulder flows and base flows critical to the health of the river.

The Future

Like other rivers in the Southwest, the Gunnison suffers from periodic drought, placing stress on agriculture, fish, and habitat. But water users throughout the basin are proactively addressing these challenges by installing water-saving irrigation infrastructure, investigating water sharing opportunities, and promoting in-stream flow protections, particularly at critical headwaters. Delta County, in the basin, is piloting a new agricultural hydropower program focused on pressurized sprinkler irrigation rather than flood irrigation in order to spur water conservation.

The Gunnison River is one of the last major sub-basins in Colorado that has not been diverted to provide water to ballooning Front Range communities, marking it as a potential target for the future. A major diversion out of the basin would have severe impact on fish, wildlife, agriculture and a growing recreation economy. For now though, the resilient river endures.