Rio Grande Dries Through Bosque del Apache

10,000 fish dead as irrigators take full allocations

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—The Rio Grande dried for nearly 20 miles through Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico earlier this month killing over 40 adult and 10,000 young fish while irrigators continue to siphon water from this ecologically critical reach of the river. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released these statistics as a part of its August report detailing its rescue and salvage activities for the Rio Grande silvery minnow.

“Sucking a river dry to irrigate alfalfa in the desert is not a sound strategy for recovering a critically imperiled species,” said Jen Pelz the director of WildEarth Guardians’ wild rivers program. “The only way to break the downward spiral of the minnow and improve the health of the river is to keep the river flowing and connected.”

The Service listed the Rio Grande silvery minnow as endangered in 1994. However, despite the increased protections, the population has declined precipitously to levels lower than existed at the time of listing. This is due at least in part to the 2003 political compromise that led to the current management of the river and allows the Rio Grande below Isleta diversion dam to dry each year from June 15 to October 31. This section of the river provides the best habitat and is where the majority of the population is found.

These key reaches of the river (south of Albuquerque) have dried (with the exception of 2008) each year since 2001 due to the significant diversions by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. During the most extreme year, the river dried for up to 68 miles (40 percent) of the minnows designated critical habitat. The entire critical habitat for the minnow totals 157 miles between Cochiti Dam and Elephant Butte Reservoir.

The lack of late-season flows in the Rio Grande deprives the next generation of silvery minnow (the young-of-year) habitat to support their growth and development. The river drying has proven to negate the efforts of water managers earlier in the spring to generate a large peak flow to cue spawning in the minnow because most of the fish die before the end of the irrigation season.

“The pattern is obvious, when the river dries, the minnow population plummets,” added Pelz. “It’s time to let science and not politics determine how the river is managed and prioritize measure necessary to ensure survival and recovery of the species.”


 

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