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Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Iconic Rio Grande Diminished to Isolated Pools
Free Pass Issued to Agencies to Cover Decade of Inaction
Contact: Jen Pelz 303-884-2702
Albuquerque, New Mexico –Federal water management agencies received a get out of jail free card from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday when the agency approved a water management plan that allows major drying of the Rio Grande. The plan insulates federal and state water managers from liability for a decade of mismanagement and fails to require that they consider long-overdue water policy reforms.
“It is disheartening that the agency charged to conserve and protect fish and wildlife and their habitats felt compelled to intervene and condone the inaction of the past decade,” said Jen Pelz, Wild Rivers Program Director for WildEarth Guardians.
On Friday, the Service blessed a plan that effectively reduces habitat available for the minnow to a few geographically isolated pools around existing diversion dams. This emergency plan was the best worst-case scenario based on the agencies failed planning over the past decade.
There are many portions of the 2003 plan that if implemented would have created more flexibility for management this year. For example, had fish passage been in place at both the Isleta and San Acacia diversion dams by this summer—as was required by the 2003 plan—those isolated pools could provide greater refuge for the silvery minnow in this drought year.
“The agencies themselves played a significant role over the past decade in creating the emergency they now need a plan to address,” added Pelz. “It comes down to accountability and leadership, and neither exists in the Middle Rio Grande.”
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