The Wonderful Rio
This is interesting. The bottom line is that there never was as much water in
the river as was assumed initially when the amount of water was allocated to
various states. Water wants are increasing. Law suits are proliferating. And
it seems to be raining less in the watershed.
Another question is "Why would a caver be interested in all this?"
First of all, most of us are basically explorers with a great appreciation of
nature. Caves are just one handy way to follow those instincts. The canyons
of West Texas are still poorly explored, especially by those of us who are not
locals. They are remote, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. We are curious. Why
and how did a major river find its way, a ribbon oasis, across a great arid,
mostly desert, region? Some of us are also conservationists and the
degradation of conditions along the river are of direct interest and concern.
Some of us are also very involved with that water and the control of it. In the
West water control is Power and Wealth. It is a lot more than just having
enough water to drink.
There is a much more significant aspect of this discussion for a caver. For
many miles the Rio Grande has exposed thousands of feet of good, soluble
limestone. Not far away are some of the most beautiful, complex, and
interesting caves in the world. When we moved to the Big Bend in 1967 we
immediately recognized this, along with the fact that almost nothing was known
about the cave potential of the area. We said "OH WOW!!". And started cave
hunting.
Over the years some of America's best cavers have been hunting, and have come
up with very little in the way of cave resources. Why? Caves do not seem to
be there in spite of lots of great limestone. The history of groundwater flow
must be the reason, and the history of the master drainage, the Rio Grande,
must play a role in that. Perhaps by understanding why there are not a lot of
great caves along the canyons of the Big Bend we will be able to understand
where they really are. Academically, as a geomorphologist and hydrologist, I
want to understand this cause and relationship, and how this landscape came to
be. Caves, it seems, should be a much more important part of this landscape
than they are.
When I was still actively teaching, I used to say that a discussion with
different "experts" about a lot of things in the Big Bend-was similar to the
fable of the blind men describing an elephant. That is especially true of
water in the Rio Grande. It depends on what part of the critter you are holding
on to. I realize that may apply to me as well. Discussion is encouraged.
I am not up to date on many things, especially the legal water wars between
California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and, on the international
level, between the US and Mexico. FYI my experiences are mostly along the Rio
Grande and Rio Conchos below El Paso to Amistad reservoir. I lived and worked
in the Big Bend for about 20 years after we moved there in 1967. Then I was
gone for about 20 years, and for the last 10 have been a winter visitor with a
cabin in Terlingua. A lot of things have changed in 50 years. I did spend
several years in the 60s working on the ancient history of the Gila River
headwaters and Rio Grande through New Mexico, with John Hawley as my mentor.
Rob: What is your involvement with all this? Yes, there is a huge delta
(mostly out of sight below today's sea level) that goes back millions of years
at the mouth of the Rio in the Gulf. The delta is a big garbage dump that
records the upstream erosional history. The petroleum companies have a lot of
detail that I tried to use to unravel the ancient history of erosion and river
development through the Chihuahuan Desert. That history is the focus of my
1978 article I referenced in a previous post. The ancestral Pecos seems to
have been the master stream until the Rio Conchos - Rio Grande spilled across
the desert southwest. This integration dumped a lot of sediment that
originated from volcanic rocks to the west into the delta in the gulf. Sorry,
you New Mexicans, the Rio Grande upstream from the Big Bend is but the tail of
the dog. It may be longer in miles to the headwaters in Colorado than to
headwaters of the Rio Conchos, but New Mexico and Colorado has supplied less
than 30% of the downstream flow. The dog itself is born in the Sierra Madre
west of Chihuahua City. The northern tail has been running hard to keep up!
There is a large reservoir downstream below Amistad, Falcon Reservoir. It was
completed in 1954 and can hold about four thousand acre-feet, about twice as
large as Elephant Butte in NM or La Boquilla on the Cohchos. Amistad was
completed in 1968 and holds about 5 1/2 thousand acre-feet. I think there are
also smaller diversion dams as well. So today, as Geary points out, water
released from Amistad is impounded again downstream and diverted for irrigation
in both the US and Mexico.
Pete and others interested in River Running:
It is the IBWC (International Boundary and Water Commission) that tracks the
river flow. You can find the current flow conditions from Caballo Dam in New
Mexico to Brownsville at
https://www.ibwc.gov/Water_Data/Reports/RG_Flow_data.html.
The Rio Grande Flow Conditions are updated daily, Monday thru Friday at
approximately 9:35 am Mountain Time/10:35 am Central Time. You can also access
a lot of other river and water data from this site.-
There have been huge changes since I was first in the area. I was fortunate to
be there when I was. The canyons in the Park and the Lower Canyons were close
to pristine. The flow was relatively uncontrolled. I admit to a great love for
the Lower Canyons - 84 miles of wonderful country with walls up to almost 2,000
feet. I ran study groups for the Texas Natural Areas Survey down there for
quite a number of years in the 1970s. It is one of the few wild and scenic
rivers that you can run in open canoes - with a few judicious portages or
lining.
It was common to have 4-6 feet of water at the Lajitas gage to run the canyons
in the Park. When I came back in the early 2000s it was all changed. The
Mexicans started withholding water in the Conchos drainage, especially for the
large Mennonite farms between Chihuahua City and Ojinaga (Presidio). This
effectively dried up the canyons downstream (Colorado, Santa Elena, Mariscal,
and Boquillas) except for times when the Mexicans were releasing water (then
it's still a lot of fun like it used to be) or there are local downpours closer
to the river. What was once a wonderful 1 or 2-day raft trip through Santa
Elena from Lajitas became a canoe trip paddling upstream from the mouth to
Fern Canyon, and a float back down. More work and not nearly as much fun. Or,
you can as Matthew did, literally walk upstream from the mouth and, with short
swims if necessary, get to Fern Canyon and even the Rock Slide. You can
swim/float back down!
An interesting thing is that starting with Hot Springs in the Park, there are
numerous thermal springs downstream along the river and by the time you get to
the Black Gap put-ins, there is enough water from spring flow to float a canoe
through the Lower Canyons, even when there is no flow released down the Conchos.
There are at least two accounts by folks who have floated the length of the
river. The first I know of is by a fine rock climber from Boulder (Philip
Sokol) and his brother, who started by dragging their kayaks across the snow
fields in Colorado. They went all the way to the Gulf in the mid 1970s. The
more recent was Keith Bowden and published as the “The Tacate Journals",
available in the Park and from Amazon. That book gives a very interesting
first-person account of today's conditions along the Rio Grande downstream from
El Paso.
Jerry: Read my earlier post. Historically there were long periods of no flow
in the Rio Grande below El Paso - we have the data. The dams in New Mexico
only made a chronic problem permanent. To say otherwise and claim that there
used to be a lot of water always flowing below El Paso is incorrect. Also,
most of the pollution in the Conchos comes from Ojinaga. We agree and DO NOT
recommend that you drink the river water with boiling first. While doing our
survey work, we lasted 2-3 weeks finding we need to take little meat. It was
very easy to jug-fish for more catfish than we could eat! I also suggest that,
because of the pollution from Mexico, that you do not eat fish from today's
river.
Dwight
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