State of the River

The state of the Rio Grande is well documented. Four times the river has been named to the "Most Threatened Rivers" list by the conservation group, American Rivers, the most such designations of any US river. Already modified by dams, levees, channel modifications, excessive depletions, watershed degradation and wastewater discharges, the Rio Grande is the object of more new development projects at Albuquerque and El Paso, whose groundwater supplies are rapidly dwindling.

The result of all this exploitation is a spiraling loss of the

biodiversity upon which all life depends:

• The number of its native fish species has been

reduced by about 70%. Gone are the shovelnose

sturgeon, the American eel, the painted redhorse, the

Rio Grande chub. The fate of such species as the Rio

Grande silvery minnow, Rio Grande sucker and Rio

Grande Cutthroat Trout hang in the balance.

• The Rio Grande Flyway has become fragmented by

development. Of the migrating water fowl and neotropical

songbirds which depend upon its riparian bosques for

shelter during their long seasonal migrations, 170 are in

decline, 20 are threatened or endangered.

• Although the Rio Grande still supports the region's most

extensive southwestern cottonwood-willow ecotone, the

stately forest is aging, only to be replaced with dense

stands of non-native species like Salt Cedar. Without

replenishment from the seasonal floods which no longer

pulse through its floodplains, the bosque itself is in peril.

• Even its physical processes seem to be breaking down

under the strain. In many places, the river channel is

steadily narrowing and deepening; it is unable to mobilize

and move its sediments.

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