Ruling Opens Door for Greater Protection of the Rio Grande

Rebuffs Corps Efforts to Evade Accountability

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—A federal court yesterday ruled that WildEarth Guardians’ lawsuit seeking to protect and restore dynamic flows in the Rio Grande in central New Mexico can proceed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The court found that Guardians’ complaint is sufficient to move forward and clears the way for it to prove that the Corps’ ongoing operation of its dams and reservoirs may harm endangered species that depend on a healthy Rio Grande.

“Cochiti Dam put a nail in the coffin of the Rio Grande as a functioning ecosystem 40 years ago,” said Jen Pelz, WildEarth Guardians’ Wild Rivers program director. “This ruling is the first step in holding the Corps accountable to repair that damage.”

In 2014, Guardians filed suit against the Corps to ensure its participation in legally mandated consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service aimed at requiring the Corps to help protect and recover the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow and Southwestern willow flycatcher in the Middle Rio Grande. The Corps resisted claiming it has no legal obligation to protect the species.

Since the mid 1990’s, when the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the flycatcher and the silvery minnow under the Act the Corps admitted that its activities harmed endangered species and participated with other federal water managers to help ensure their survival. However, in 2013, the Corps abruptly changed its position and walked away from such efforts claiming its hands were tied by a lack of authority.

“The Corps’ ability to re-operate Cochiti dam for the benefit of the fish and wildlife is key to the survival and recovery of listed species as well as the river,” added Pelz. “We hope the Corps will return to creative problem solving to protect the river but in the meantime we will invoke the mandates of the ESA to force the Corps to clean up the ecological mess it created.”

The 2014 suit also targets the failure of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to exercise its full range of authority to protect imperiled species and to meet the obligations of the 2003 water operations plan that requires measures to alleviate the harm caused Reclamation’s water management and river maintenance activities. The Court found that it could not determine the question as to the scope of Reclamation’s authority until the existing talks with the Service reach their conclusion, but allowed Guardians’ to proceed to hold Reclamation accountable for two decades worth of broken promises by the agency to restore the Rio Grande in a way that benefits the imperiled fish and wildlife.

Guardians won a similar lawsuit over a decade ago when Judge Parker ordered water managers to step up and use the full range of their authority to protect the river and its imperiled species. This opinion formed the basis of the 2003 plan that has governed the region for the past decade.

The court’s ruling means that the case will now continue before the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico on the merits for all the claims against the Corps and for all but one of the claims against Reclamation.


 

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