Santa Ana Pueblo Restores Stretch of Rio Grande River

In the Rio Grande’s altered state, native trees like cottonwoods, at top, and willows, did not have the floodplain conditions required to nurture germination. Meanwhile, non-native vegetation, such as salt cedar, above, and Russian olive, began taking root, quickly spreading through the bosque.

By Ben Ikenson

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico--Recent news in the Albuquerque Journal heralded the opening of an $80 million dollar Hyatt Regency resort hotel, a lavishly appointed, adobe-style affair perched just beyond the west bank of the Rio Grande, about 20 miles north of here, on the Santa Ana Pueblo reservation.

No less impressive are the conservation enterprises of the Pueblo of Santa Ana as its members undertake to restore the natural landscape of the river where it runs through their land. To tribal members, biologists and, indeed, guests of the new hotel, the restoration is already raising spirits--and proving that a flair for business does not relentlessly preclude environmental responsibility.

The Santa Ana Pueblo Bosque and River Restoration Projects, launched in 1997, aim to enhance the river and the bosque (forest) that lines its banks. The river flows through the reservation for six miles. Of that distance, the tribe and the Bureau of Reclamation have changed channel characteristics on a two-mile stretch; and with funding assistance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Pueblo has restored two miles of bosque on the river's west bank, just a stone's throw from the new hotel. Improvements on the east bank will begin soon, and plans are underway for restoring four more miles of the river.

Historical anecdotes describe the Rio Grande as "a mile wide and an inch deep." But the river used to dramatically fluctuate between high and low flows. Flooding in the early 1940s impelled federal agencies into a construction mode of flood-control and river channelization projects.

They built dams and levees and, along the river banks, they installed jetty jacks (those 12-foot cross-barred iron contraptions interlinked by thick metal coils) to trap sediment and debris during floods. These projects dramatically altered the character of the Rio Grande, converting it from a wide, shallow river to a much narrower and deeper one.

In the river's altered state, native trees like cottonwoods and willows did not have the floodplain conditions required to nurture germination. Meanwhile, non-native vegetation, such as salt cedar and Russian olive, began taking root, quickly spreading through the bosque. These exotic plants compete with native species like cottonwood and willow for water, light, and nutrients, and are more resilient to the fires produced by the understory fuel they generate within the forest. The bosque has been dying a long, slow death.

The Santa Ana Department of Natural Resources first documented baseline conditions by mapping vegetation and conducting soil and water table assessments. The results were no surprise: they found a jungle-like infestation of salt cedar and Russian olive; highly saline, degraded soils; and a deeply cut river bed. Obviously, the Pueblo had high hurdles to overcome in returning the river to its natural conditions.

Todd Caplan, director of Santa Ana Pueblo's Department of Natural Resources explained the tribe's goal this way: "The Pueblo wanted to remove exotic trees, reestablish a mosaic of native vegetation, restore river channel characteristics, and improve fish and wildlife habitat for endangered native species such as the Southwestern willow flycatcher and Rio Grande silvery minnow."

To deal with the infestation of exotic plants, the pueblo has been working with New Mexico State University and Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in testing different herbicides on Russian olive root sprouts. More discernible though, the Pueblo used heavy machinery and ground crews to eliminate thousands of salt cedar and Russian olive trees. The salt cedar was shredded into mulch; the Russian olive was cut into firewood and distributed to the Santa Ana Pueblo elders.

A 200-acre portion of the cottonwood bosque is now free of non-native trees. Many of the elderly members recalled the days of their childhood when the bosque was an open-gallery forest consisting of the old cottonwood and willow trees. "They told me that this was the way it looked when they were little," said Caplan.

After clearing 115 acres of salt cedar from what was previously a wet salt-grass meadow, Caplan and staff amended the saline soils with gyspum and irrigation water and seeded the area with a native, salt-tolerant grass mix that will prevent erosion. They also planted 1,600 cottonwood and black willow trees in areas where the salinity levels are low. A plant survival rate of 90 percent encourages the pueblo, which is closely monitoring the effort, surveying wildlife, testing soil treatments, and inspecting plant cover.

Upstream, the Bureau of Reclamation joined the tribe in restoring channel characteristics to a two-mile stretch of the Rio Grande. By slowing flow velocities, preventing channel erosion, and promoting over-bank flooding, a combination of hard and soft engineering techniques are working to restore native plant and animal communities, with an ultimate goal of restoring habitat for the silvery minnow, said Caplan. Still, as the project progresses, the irony does not escape him--that such engineering tactics are required to return the river to the conditions of a simpler past.

Though changes in time require new ways of thinking, the Santa Ana people have not forgotten their heritage. Theirs is an important lesson: True progress requires environmental stewardship.

While one hand builds a hotel, for example, the other must care for the land. Setting a precedent for its neighbors, the pueblo hopes the efforts along the six miles of river running through its land do not stop at the reservation boundary. Pueblo residents hope the desire to heal the river will flow through the hearts of other communities living along its broken banks.