WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Rio Grande to Benefit from New Water Acquisition Program

Congressional Spending Bill Approved Last Week
Contact: Jennifer Pelz 303-884-2702

Washington –A Congressional spending bill approved last week directs the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to develop and implement an environmental water acquisition program in central New Mexico to benefit river health and endangered species. If implemented and funded, the program would compensate farmers for ceasing use of their water for irrigating crops in a given year in exchange for allowing that water to be allocated to the river for environmental flows. 

“Senator Udall demonstrated his promise toward a living Rio Grande by endorsing a water-leasing program in the middle Rio Grande and championing the report language through a difficult Congress,” said Jen Pelz, Wild Rivers Program Director at WildEarth Guardians. “The responsibility now rests on Reclamation, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and the State of New Mexico to see this program through.”

The Senate Committee on Energy and Water Development instructed the Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Collaborative Program to take actions in support of the development of an agricultural water-leasing program in the District including: updating existing feasibility studies related to water-leasing, implementing a system of metering, creating a database of water rights, identifying willing sellers and buyers and determining the fair market value of leasehold interests in native water rights. The Committee acknowledged that the short-sighted solutions of the past are no longer adequate to protect the ecological values of the Rio Grande.

“Water acquisition programs throughout the west have helped save imperiled rivers,” added Pelz. “A program in central New Mexico is a long overdue solution to sustaining flows in the Rio Grande.”

The Committee also recognized the critical importance of the San Acacia reach—the portion of the Rio Grande that includes Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge—for the recovery of endangered species. The report called for a comprehensive evaluation of the infrastructure such as levees, canals, drains and diversion dams in the San Acacia reach and a large-scale restoration plan for this region.

“The San Acacia reach is one of the crown jewels of the Rio Grande,” said Pelz. “It is about time the federal agencies evaluated how to restore this beautiful ecosystem by finding alternatives to dams that obstruct, levees that strangle and separate artificial channels that serve to dry the river.”