Crisis on the Rio Grande

The Rio Grande existed long before humans. It may not outlive us. Through millions of years, the river is mapped in strata, in oral traditions. More recently, in computer models, too. All tell of rapidly receding waters. A shrunken Rio Grande remains for thirstier landscapes and wildlife drawn to its banks. For people, too. The river is low because people take from it, and because we reshaped it — both exacerbated by climate change.

Source New Mexico presents a series of stories that span nearly 700 miles of the Upper Rio Grande, from the headwaters in Colorado to the Forgotten Reach about 100 miles inside Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border. Loss and heartache flow through them as the river suffers. Eddies of denial surface, and some seedlings of restoration. But even those are under threat. These are the narratives that shape people who live along the river, just as we shape its waters.

COMMENTARY
White-throated swifts carry insects to feed their young, nestled against the bottom of bridges along the Rio Grande.

Still Pools: Teeming with life at the edge

BY: - February 27, 2023

SUNLAND PARK — Below the crags of Mount Cristo Rey, a string of little pools in the riverbed reflect its steep hills and white cross perched atop the peak. Black-necked stilts pick their way across on shocking pink legs, pushing through vibrant grass. A lone peacock, gone feral, zips through the streambed, interrupting the mountain’s […]

John Sproul, manager of the Rio Bosque Park, waters a young willow.

A hidden gem of wetland near the Texas border fence

BY: - February 24, 2023

EL PASO — More than 300 acres of Rio Grande wetland is tucked away at the edge of El Paso city limits, abutting the border fence. The Rio Bosque Park, managed by the University of Texas at El Paso, is a prime example of water use in the West, requiring layers of red tape and […]

Estela Padilla recalls memories of the river from her youth in her home in El Paso, Texas.

‘It’s like a crime scene’ what’s happened to the Rio Grande in far west Texas

BY: - February 22, 2023

SOCORRO, TEXAS — Estela Padilla dreams of the Rio Grande, the river of her youth. In her home shaded by pine and pecan, Padilla, 77, said her heart is broken by the vast changes in what was once a mosaic of wild spaces. “My grandchildren cannot relate to my memory of the river because they […]

Salted earth at the tail of the Rio Grande’s snowmelt

BY: - February 20, 2023

EL PASO, Texas — The Rio Grande is strictly managed, apportioned and allocated beneath Elephant Butte Dam as it makes its way to Texas. Only when the dam is open does the water travel through El Paso, ferried in concrete-lined straight channels to Mexico’s reservoirs or to irrigation ditches downstream. The flows travel, sometimes spreading […]

Danzantes, from left to right: Leeane Chavez dances with her father Ted Chavez, 6-year-old Deja Tapia and Iaasac Nieto for the Saint Anthony Fiesta in June 2022.

A procession as the globe warms

BY: - February 17, 2023

CARNUEL, N.M. — The sun beats down on the high mountain church in a rural farming community folded into the crevices of the Sandia Mountains. Smoke rises from grills in the stands outside, as 2005-era Usher and Sean Paul dribble out from a PA system. Only a few people linger inside the cool sanctuary of […]

Mallory Boro and Keegan Epping comb through the fine net for any silvery minnows left in the drying ponds of the Rio Grande at San Acacia. Fish litter the riverbed, inhabiting increasingly smaller ponds where the river breaks.

Rescuing silvery minnows like ‘slapping a Band-Aid on a severed limb’

BY: - February 15, 2023

SOCORRO COUNTY, N.M. — Four people walk the streambed, combing the pools in Socorro County’s San Acacia Reach. Two wade thigh-deep in the bank crook, a seine net strung between them, and tug it through the water. Another calls out temperatures and measures the pool. The fourth jots it down in a notebook. At the […]

Phoebe Suina, a hydrologist and board member of the Interstate Stream Commission, stands in front of the federally built reservoir on Cochiti Pueblo.

‘Not an object to be bartered,’ the Rio Grande is lifeblood for the land

BY: - February 13, 2023

SILE, N.M. — The river is something Phoebe Suina carries with her always. “I look at my hand, and you have all of these veins. They’re all blue, just like a river,” Suina (Cochiti Pueblo) said. “As blood flows through us, so do the rivers and streams across the land from the mountains.” The river […]

The oxbow, a horseshoe curve of the river which has transformed over time into a marsh, as seen from the San Antonio Bluffs on Albuquerque's Westside.

Watching the oxbow dry

BY: - February 10, 2023

The Rio Grande is a silver thread ribboning its way through New Mexico, enhanced by a brocade of greenery. It roars to life through the tall pines, curves through the canyons carved by its steadfast course. The river vertically bisects the entire state and touches 14 sovereign pueblos, sluicing into canals and creeping across fields. […]

Alfalfa blooms in the fields next to the shell of the San Isidro Catholic Church, which burned in 1975.

The patron saint of farming

BY: - February 8, 2023

LAS MESITAS, Colo. — The husk of a church rises up, seemingly scraping the low, heavy clouds. The hollowed-out sanctuary is open to the whipping wind and a smattering of raindrops.  Gutted by fire in 1975, the bones of the mission-style San Isidro Catholic Church remain, purple cowslip and grasses sprouting in the aisles. Empty […]

JD Schmidt's sheep graze in the San Luis Valley on June 23, 2022.

A new mentality of collaboration in a river district

BY: - February 6, 2023

MANASSA, Colo. — Nathan Coombs, who manages the Conejos River District, used to hold beliefs that more water for conservation meant less for farmers.  “I was raised on a production ag farm,” he said. “Water was for crops. That was the only use in my perspective.” The farmer from Manassa, Colorado, said his mind was changed […]

Kyler Brown drives a calf on June 21, 2022 as part of a drive that went through downtown Del Norte, Colorado.

Moral questions on a standard San Luis Valley farm

BY: - February 3, 2023

MONTE VISTA, Colo. — A self-described Midwest import from Missouri, 39-year old Kyler Brown is a cowboy, farmer and philosopher. These days, he feels driven by questions of life and death.  “Do people feel like they have morality in their occupation? I think people have moral moments, but probably most people don’t question the morality of […]

Beetle-bitten fir and spruce, along with burn-scarred aspens, are part of the fabric of the forest around the Rio Grande headwaters.

Drought, plague and fire: What one Colorado forest is up against

BY: - February 1, 2023

RIO GRANDE NATIONAL FOREST — The high alpine forests are a sickbed. Swathes of gray trees are bald on one side, with patches of russet needles fading into scraggly branches. Others show thick strips of bark sloughed off, revealing bleached trunks beneath.  Much of the 1.86 million acres of Rio Grande National Forest is dead. […]

Crisis on the Rio Grande

The Rio Grande existed long before humans. It may not outlive us. Through millions of years, the river is mapped in strata, in oral traditions. More recently, in computer models, too. All tell of rapidly receding waters. A shrunken Rio Grande remains for thirstier landscapes and wildlife drawn to its banks. For people, too. The river is low because people take from it, and because we reshaped it — both exacerbated by climate change.

Source New Mexico presents a series of stories that span nearly 700 miles of the Upper Rio Grande, from the headwaters in Colorado to the Forgotten Reach about 100 miles inside Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border. Loss and heartache flow through them as the river suffers. Eddies of denial surface, and some seedlings of restoration. But even those are under threat. These are the narratives that shape people who live along the river, just as we shape its waters.

The River's Path

Colorado

After 15 miles of pockmarked dirt road, the Rio Grande spreads wide in the shadows of the San Juan Mountains. It glitters, aqua, whitecaps whipped up by the wind. But even in the birthplace of the river lay the stark stains of climate change.

Colorado

New Mexico

The river is a silver thread ribboning its way through New Mexico, enhanced by a brocade of greenery. It roars to life through the tall pines, curves through the canyons carved by its steadfast course.

New Mexico

Texas

The river stretches across the state line. Water seeps into the soil and evaporates under a scorching sun. Salt beads like pearls in a cracked riverbed, invasive saltcedar a thick wall on the bank. This is where the snowmelt ends.

Texas

Thank You

To the river. To the sources. To everyone who helped us tell a story about one of the biggest rivers in the West, in crisis now after millions of years of existence, injured by people and human-caused climate change.

Texas

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