WildEarth Guardians

Friday, June 10, 2016
Federal Plan Threatens Future of the Rio Grande

Group Calls for Reclamation to Consider Moving Storage Upstream
Contact: Jen Pelz (303) 884-2702 jpelz@wildearthguardians.org

SANTA FE, N.M.— WildEarth Guardians this week called on the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to stop relying exclusively on storage in Elephant Butte Reservoir to satisfy the needs of its Rio Grande Project and San Juan-Chama Project contractors. The comments ask Reclamation to consider moving storage to upstream reservoirs on the Rio Chama (where less water will evaporate) to allow for better timing and availability of water to support native fish, wildlife and plants on Rio Grande in central New Mexico. The request came in the form of comments to a draft environmental impact statement released by Reclamation in March of 2016.

“Given the changing climate, we need to seriously consider the utility of continuing to store water from our ailing rivers in gigantic reservoirs in the desert,” said Jen Pelz, Wild Rivers Program Director at WildEarth Guardians. “Just like Lake Powell on the Colorado River, Elephant Butte Reservoir is a relic of the past century.”

Reclamation’s environmental impact statement evaluates the effects of the continued operation of Elephant Butte Reservoir under the 2008 Operating Agreement—an agreement between Reclamation, Elephant Butte Irrigation District (“EBID”), and the El Paso County Water Irrigation District (“EPCWID”)—that hopes to settle disputes between the parties and set out a revised system for allocating water under the Rio Grande Project. The review also included an analysis of the impact of storage 50,000 acre-feet of San Juan-Chama Project water in Elephant Butte on behalf of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (“Water Authority”). These changes would set the management of the Rio Grande for the next 35 years until 2050.

The group’s critique highlighted that Reclamation’s environmental review completely failed to consider the effects of storing and redistributing the Water Authority’s San Juan-Chama Project water on flows in the Rio Grande in central New Mexico (the 175-mile reach between Cochiti and Elephant Butte Reservoirs). San Juan-Chama Project water stored in Elephant Butte must be moved upstream by an accounting mechanism known as an exchange for it to actually benefit the Water Authority and yet those impacts were completely ignored.

Further, the group pointed out that the increased storage in Elephant Butte Reservoir—as a result of the project combined with the impacts of climate change—is predicted to result in the destruction of habitat around the reservoir utilized by the imperiled Southwestern willow flycatcher and yellow-billed cuckoo. The population of flycatchers and cuckoos on the Rio Grande is one of the largest in the region and increasing reservoir storage is predicted inundate the habitat (previously exposed by the reservoirs decline) and destroy 265 flycather and 106 cuckoo territories over the next 35 years.

“The survival and recovery of the flycatcher, cuckoo and a living Rio Grande over the next century depends on our concerted effort to restore flows and the historic floodplain habitat of the Rio Grande,” added Pelz. “Environmental reviews can and should be used as an opportunity to evaluate possible changes of course going forward, not to rubber stamp and solidify the status quo.”

A copy of out comment letter can be seen here.