Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Binational Symposium

Draft of Recommendations Presented by Forgotten River Advisory Committee to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Mexican Secretaria de Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca at the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Binational Symposium held June 14th, 2000 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

The 1,825-mile, 3,042 kilometer Rio Grande/Rio Bravo is woven into the national mythologies of two countries. The Rio Grande's extensive watershed, including major tributaries - such as the Pecos River in Texas and the Rio Conchos in Chihuahua - encompasses 335,000 square miles, or 862,500 square kilometers, equal in size to 11 percent of the continental United States. Some nine million people live in the Rio Bravo basin. The river supplies irrigation water, water for cities' economic development, water for recreation and, in many cases, community potable drinking water.

The natural heritage of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo basin is likely unmatched by any desert river system in the world. The streams and springs of the basin are home to a staggering diversity of fishes, a wondrous variety of pupfish, shiners, gambusia, minnows, darters, and cichlids, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. The meanders, oxbows, and seasonal floods that characterized the basin's rivers created a mosaic of habitats: riparian forests of cottonwood and willow, mudflats, salt marshes, and freshwater ciénegas. These habitats teemed with wildlife: jaguars, pronghorn and other large mammals escaping the heat of the desert, millions of resident and migratory birds stopping to feed and rest, and reptiles and amphibians thriving in the wetlands.

Poor management practices and excessive use of its waters are sapping the life from the legendary Rio Grande and its tributaries. Diversions for irrigation and municipal use claim about 98% percent of the Rio Grande's average annual flow. In fact, claims to the Rio Grande's flow greatly exceed its actual supply. Inefficient irrigation practices continue because few incentives to implement conservation techniques exist on a broad scale. Losses in transport of water through the system also occur. Some municipal systems in the basin are also largely inefficient due to leaks and out-dated conveyance systems - in fact, in 1996 the city of Nuevo Laredo reported that of the total annual demand for water, 66% constituted leaks and water losses. In some places, massive diversions leave the Rio Grande completely bereft of water. Most of the meanders and oxbows are gone, and seasonal floods are, for the most part, a thing of the past.

Yet, attempts to construct new water projects continue. Federal, state, and local decisions to be made in 2000 could determine whether the Rio Grande will survive as a living river system. If significant changes to river management are not made soon, the Rio Grande will lose its ability to sustain the fish, birds, wildlife, and people that depend on it. For some wildlife, it is already too late. The jaguar has not been seen on the Rio Grande in decades. The great Rio Grande sturgeon may soon be only a memory. The phantom shiner and the Amistad gambusia, once found in the Rio Grande and nowhere else, are extinct. The future survival of other species is also uncertain. Non-native species proliferate in riparian zones where the willow flycatcher nests, and the ocelot and jaguarundi, once fairly common in the dense riverine thickets of the lower reaches of the river, have almost vanished from the region. Habitat fragmentation along the river degrades neotropical migratory flyways and nesting areas of many native birds.

Since the construction of Elephant Butte Reservoir, the Rio Grande has experienced severe ecological decline. Throughout the 20th century, other projects on the Rio Grande undertaken in the name of flood control, water supply, and border maintenance, have also contributed to the river's degraded state. These projects have involved channelization, levee construction, clearing of native riparian vegetation, dredging, and water diversion.

In the upper watershed, new municipal diversions threaten the already desiccated river. Ninety-eight percent of the middle Rio Grande watershed population lives in the Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and El Paso metropolitan areas; some of the fastest growing communities in the nation. Currently, El Paso and Albuquerque draw 55 and 100 percent of their water, respectively, from groundwater aquifers. Faced with severe declines in these aquifers and a rising need for municipal water, these cities will have to devise a way to generate increased drinking water supplies from available surface water. Plans call for water released from Elephant Butte to be reapportioned between urban and rural users. To get the needed water, it is anticipated that about 21,000 acres of irrigated farmland will have to be taken out of production. While irrigation itself can contribute to salinity problems from farm run-off, the reverse side of the coin is that - as return flows decrease in proportion to decreases in irrigated farmland and effluent water is recycled, salinity problems downstream could become even more acute.

Downstream of Fort Quitman, impacts of upstream diversions and engineering projects are severely manifest. Historically, periodic peak flows maintained the integrity of the river channel and dispersed salts and sediments evenly throughout this reach. The absence of these flood flows has drastically changed the appearance of the river and its ability to transport water and sediments, causing the channel to narrow while exotic salt cedar proliferates and native riverine habitat disappears.

There is only limited information available regarding Mexico's plans for increased water usage. Some indicators, however, supply a glimpse of what may come. The population of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua alone - at 1.4 million, is approaching that of the entire state of New Mexico. The city's growth rate is projected to be 4.7% annually. The Rio Conchos, which supplies about 75% of flow to the Rio Bravo downstream of Ojinaga/Presidio, has shown steadily decreasing inflows at its confluence with the Rio Grande. For example, from 1990 to 1995, average annual measured flows from the Río Conchos to the Rio Grande dropped steadily from over 66.5 cubic meters per second (or 2,327 cubic feet per second) to 2.3 CMS (or 81 CFS). Irrigators in the Lower Rio Grande Valley claim that Mexico currently owes the U.S. over 1.4 million acre feet of water that has not been supplied by the Conchos as stipulated by the 1944 treaty. It is still unclear whether this situation is a result of drought in Mexico, increased irrigation of such crops as alfalfa, chile and pecans in Mexico, or a combination of both. However, it does seem clear that long term, protracted conflicts over Rio Grande water will continue to occur as long as current treaties remain insufficient vehicles for negotiation and proactive planning.

In the lower portion of its watershed, the Rio Grande/Bravo winds through Laredo/Nuevo Laredo in Webb County, and through the Lower Rio Grande Valley before it meets the Gulf of Mexico. Located along a main trading corridor. Laredo is one of the fastest-growing cities in Texas, and given current growth projections, will need to augment its current water supply with additional Rio Grande water. Laredo also has one of the highest per-capita consumption rates anywhere, at 254 gallons per day. In the lower valley, Cameron and Hidalgo counties are becoming a large "borderplex" of urbanization and sprawl - this region is the second fastest-growing region in Texas, with the two-county population expected to double in about 20 years to over a million people. McAllen, Brownsville and Harlingen are almost entirely dependent upon the Rio Grande for their drinking water supply, and Brownsville has been attempting for some time to construct another dam on the lowest reaches of the river to increase water storage for the city. High-salinity groundwater makes aquifer exploration unfeasible in this region - thus conversions from agriculture to municipal use of the Rio Grande's surface water supplies are also taking place here.

Since diversion projects have slowed its waters, freshwater flows to the estuary of the Rio Grande are practically nonexistent. Fresh water species once commonly found at the mouth of the river in 1850 have disappeared from the area altogether. Due to increased salinity throughout the basin, estuarine and marine fish species are gradually rising in number in the river - up to 450 miles, or 700 kilometers - upstream from the river mouth. Correspondingly, freshwater fish species once found in these same portions of the river are declining.

An Urgent Call To Action / Recommendations

Given the dire situation that the Rio Grande/Bravo faces throughout its reach, including the Fort Quitman to Amistad section, a constituency of conservation organizations and citizens (list following) calls for the Department of the Interior and the Secretaria del Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca, as well as other federal, state, and local governments and water management agencies in the U.S and Mexico to take the following steps to restore the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo basin to ecological health:

Ensure that at least 10% of the total yearly run-off of the river and its tributaries is reserved for instream flows by the year 2010 to support the river's ecological processes, riparian habitats, and aquatic species. We recognize that it may require considerably more than 10% of the basin's total flow to restore it to full ecological health, but we feel that 10% by 2010 is an achievable first step toward that ultimate goal.

Specific steps that would support this recommendation include:

Devise a cooperative, binational strategy for riparian habitat acquisition, protection and restoration, taking advantage of existing border protected areas and special designations (such as National Wild and Scenic Rivers).

Specific steps that would support this recommendation include:

Establish transparent, pro-active and flexible processes for better binational collaboration, agency interaction, and public participation with regard to Rio Grande/Rio Bravo water supply and use issues.

Specific steps that would support this recommendation include:

Work with local governments, lending institutions and development agencies to identify and implement infrastructure redevelopment projects to improve distribution and cut down on loss of water in agricultural and municipal systems.

For example:

In addition, we call on the U.S. and Mexican governments to appoint a Blue Ribbon Panel to determine the most effective means by which to take action on the above recommendations. The Panel should be comprised of local, state and federal water management agency representatives, irrigators, municipal planners, economic development councils, conservationists, and legal advisors. The Panel should begin its work immediately and all deliberations should be open to the public. Representatives of any transition teams that may be formed after the upcoming presidential elections in the U.S. and Mexico should be invited to participate in the work of the Panel, thus ensuring its continued smooth operation under the new administrations.

Signatories:

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