{"id":555928,"date":"2018-04-02T15:32:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T21:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=555928"},"modified":"2018-04-04T09:20:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-04T15:20:00","slug":"facing-down-a-century-old-problem-on-the-canadian-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/04\/facing-down-a-century-old-problem-on-the-canadian-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing down a century-old problem on the Canadian River"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_555932\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-555932\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1027-2-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Tom Udall and Jack Chatfield\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1027-2-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1027-2-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1027-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1027-2.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Laura Paskus \/ New Mexico Political Report<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Tom Udall, left and Jack Chatfield<\/p><\/div>\n<p>HARDING COUNTY, N.M. \u2014 Descending the narrow dirt road into Mills Canyon, U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Michael Atkinson jokes that in the Nineteenth Century some homesteaders headed to California surely reached the rim of the Canadian River, peered down its 1,000-foot-deep canyon and decided to settle here in New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>He points to a small stone building on the floodplain below and explains that in the 1880s, Melvin Mills planted thousands of fruit trees. For more than two decades, horses hauled up tons of peaches, pears, apples and cherries, as well as walnuts, chestnuts and almonds. But in 1904, a flood wiped out Mills Canyon Enterprise and now all that\u2019s left are the stone remains of the storehouse and Mills\u2019s home and this wagon road Atkinson twists down.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/820692\/facing-down-a-century-old-problem-on-the-canadian-river-en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Mexico Political Report<\/a>,\u00a0a nonprofit news organization\u00a0focused on promoting a greater public understanding of politics and policy in the state of New Mexico.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>That\u2019s not the only story this floodplain tells.<\/p>\n<p>Just a few years ago, this floodplain was a solid bank of salt cedar. The long-lived flowering tree, also called tamarisk, was<a href=\"https:\/\/www-jstor-org.libproxy.unm.edu\/stable\/pdf\/40271547.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A1c1566c3027544cea9685e5c85ec1296\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0imported to New England<\/a>\u00a0in the early nineteenth century as an ornamental. By the 1880s, it had moved out of gardens and nurseries and across western river banks. And in the early Twentieth Century the federal government planted salt cedar to slow erosion and keep farmers\u2019 soils from flying into the air.<\/p>\n<p>But the trees did their job too well, armoring the banks of New Mexico\u2019s rivers and narrowing their channels.<\/p>\n<p>That increased the velocity of the water, enhancing the river\u2019s ability to carry sediment, which causes downcutting, said Jack Chatfield, manager of the Canadian River Riparian Restoration Project. As the water blasts downstream and the riverbed keeps cutting deeper, the floodplain is separated not just from the river\u2019s surface water but the water table, too.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2004, the Canadian River Riparian Restoration Project has been working, mile by mile, to reclaim the river and its floodplain in New Mexico. Supported by eight soil and water conservation districts, as well as state and federal agencies, the effort even receives money from the state of Texas. The work is also supported by all five members of New Mexico\u2019s congressional delegation. Last year the five \u2014 four Democrats and a Republican \u2014 announced a $3.6 million grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service for the riparian restoration effort.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Udall took a detour while visiting communities in eastern New Mexico and joined Chatfield, Atkinson and other Forest Service staff at two of the restoration sites along the Canadian.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy job as an appropriator\u201d \u2014 Udall is on the Senate Appropriations Committee \u2014 \u201dis to be a guardian of the purse, so to speak, and make sure our money is being well spent,\u201d Udall said. \u201cI really believe this federal money is well-spent, and I\u2019m sure the state partners feel the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_555933\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-555933\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1008-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Canadian River\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1008.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1008-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1008-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Laura Paskus \/ New Mexico Political Report<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">This restored section of the Canadian River floodplain was previously crowded with salt cedar (and in the Nineteenth Century, was home to Mills Canyon Enterprise).<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Building trust, finding common ground<\/h3>\n<p>Most of the land along the Canadian River and its tributaries in New Mexico is privately owned, which means the project needed buy-in from ranchers and families across the watershed. Over the course of the project, Chatfield has signed up about 100 ranches and gained access to all but about 20 of the 2,000 miles along the river and its tributaries in the state.<\/p>\n<p>Chatfield himself grew up on a ranch near Hillsboro \u2014 he waxes nostalgic about the Arizona sycamore trees there \u2014 and now runs cattle east of the tiny town of Mosquero. \u201cThey know me,\u201d he said of the ranchers. \u201cHaving the trust of your neighbors is a very important part of this job.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Despite news-grabbing conflicts, ranchers and government officials can work together on watershed and river restoration. \u201cRanchers, you ask them what they\u2019re trying to do and maybe I can help you accomplish your dream,\u201d said Chatfield, who is also running for the state legislature, hoping to win the seat of fellow Republican Rep. Dennis Roch, who has decided not to run again. \u201cAnd the agencies have a plan, and if it\u2019s honest and good, I will help them accomplish their goals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ranchers and environmental groups oftentimes clash across the West, but there\u2019s also common ground.\u00a0\u201cWhatever we don\u2019t agree on, we\u2019ll put it on over in the parking lot,\u201d Chatfield said. \u201cWhat do we agree on? Well, I think we all want to help the watershed. I think we all know that a healthy watershed is good for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The work itself isn\u2019t easy. Riparian restoration work requires coming back year after year. Once the salt cedar has been killed, usually with herbicides, heavy equipment operators knock down the dead trees and masticate them into mulch. And crews keep surveying for re-sprouts, until the seed source has been destroyed and the trees are gone for good.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy vision is of this being a healthy, functioning ecosystem that has grass and willows and a variety of wildlife, that provides water for recreation, grazing, farming and communities downstream,\u201d Chatfield said. \u201cAnd I would say that all those things could happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As drought intensifies again across New Mexico, this type of work along New Mexico\u2019s rivers becomes even more important.\u00a0\u201cResilience is key: Drought is a huge stressor, even on a healthy watershed,\u201d Udall said. But healthy watersheds can endure drought better.<\/p>\n<p>When officials tried to slow soil erosion during and after the Dust Bowl, they did the best they could, Chatfield said, but there were unintended consequences \u2014 like the impact of salt cedar on the West\u2019s rivers and watersheds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuite honestly, they had a huge problem, and they did a good job,\u201d Chatfield said. \u201cWe recently went through the driest period in 125 years in New Mexico \u2014 drier than the drought of the Dust Bowl, drier than the drought of the 1950s, but we didn\u2019t wash away and we didn\u2019t blow away, and that is largely due to the fact that today\u2019s farmers and ranchers have better technology, better knowledge of how to manage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite news-grabbing conflicts, ranchers and government officials can work together on watershed and river restoration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":555932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[147,116],"class_list":["post-555928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-environment","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}