Bureau of Reclamations talks Rio Grande project in Corrales

CORRALES — The United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation Albuquerque Area office is beginning an eight-month project that will improve the Rio Grande's flow and life around it in Corrales.

The bureau is responsible for 260 miles of the Rio Grande and ensuring effective delivery of water, along with environmental stewardship and public safety. This project will only take up the area of the river between Corrales and the Pueblo of Sandia.

Reclamation area manager Jennifer Faler explained why the project is necessary.

"Dams upstream reduce the sediment supply, so the river can't function as a natural river. It causes incising because there's not enough sediment in the water, so it'll take it from the the banks of the river," she said.

Incising is a natural geological process where a river erodes its own bedrock or channel bed, causing a gradual lowering of its elevation.

"Now you have more side banks, and (the river) can't reach its floodplain is one of the biggest problems with that. The bed of the elevation is going down, but the floodplain stays at the same elevation, so it can't function as a natural river system, so it's not providing habitat, and it's not conveying it can," Faler said.

James Fluke, civil engineer, said they have levied the system for agricultural use and to avoid flooding.

"We have channel narrowing, and that's leading to a couple things. One is the floodplain is becoming disconnected from the water table, so the water is much lower than the the floodplain up there, and the plants have a hard time reaching the water," he said.

Another issue is the river's natural meandering. According to Fluke, the channel is getting narrower and meandering more. As these bends grow, the river starts shifting sideways and getting too close to the barriers built to contain it, which could become a problem.

"That's the main reason we're doing the project. Since we're there, we think we can do a lot of good for the system in terms of the the health of the floodplain, the connectivity of the floodplain and the ecosystem, the riparian habitat," Fluke said.

Dr. Jancoba Dorley, civil engineer, talked more about the impact on vegetation and wildlife along the bosque.

"We usually do all of our initial species protocol service for the birds and for the several minerals. We have in-house biologists that do those things," he said.

He added that here will be limited negative impact on any wildlife in the area.

"From this project, we are actually hoping that it will improve the habitat in this area because of the design and what we're doing. We are actually hoping that we can actually develop more wetlands within this area from the design of the project that we're working on," Dorley said.

"Also, the side channel that we are going to establish is also going to serve as good habitat breeding ground for the several minerals as well."

Faler added that nature "likes disturbance" and will evolve into a better habitat.

"We build in features to our river maintenance projects that are beneficial to listed species. We're able to spend extra money because there's an endangered species benefit to these projects," she said.

She said by lowering some of the bank areas, native plant life will have a better access to water. Part of this process also involves clearing the bosque floor of dead and downed plants that pose a fire risk, something that Corrales Fire Department Chief Anthony Martinez has already been working on with the help of village volunteers. Aside from the fire risk, this can also reduce access to water for live species, according to Faler.

Several of the live species are going to be temporarily removed so they won't be disrupted by construction.

"After our projects done, we're going to go back and do replanting so that we're keeping our replanting effort as local as possible," she said.

There will be some added species as well, such as the salt cedar plant, according to Dorley.

Faler said they have already seen success with the replanting effort just south of the project area.

Humans in the area will benefit, too, according to Faler.

"The reduced fire hazard is a big one. There will be some some traffic and some noise, again ... short term, but to have a a long-term less fire risk, new vegetation coming up, the ability to see these projects and recreate in the bosque and see a river project first hand," she said.

She added that a similar project was done in the Rio Rancho Rio Grande Open Space and the feedback from the public was positive.

"It's fun to go out, walk and see these brand-new cuttings and then, a year later, see that they're turning into trees and see a site evolve some recreation, reduce fire risk," she said.

Fluke agreed, saying the public enjoys the "naturalness" of the bosque.

"Disturbance is a big part of that; the system used to get flooded all the time and re-establish and move around, so that disturbance really does help the the natural system work as it's supposed to," he said.

He also recognized some of the safety improvements, especially for first responders during drownings.

"There's a couple of pretty significant cut banks in this area, so meanderings where the water's eroded very steep, like 15-, 20-foot bank and things like trees fall in there, and people get swept into those areas, and we've had numerous reports of the fire department needing to rescue people from there," he said.

Fluke stated the bank updates will also help with self-rescue.

So far this year, the Corrales Fire Department has rescued one person from the water, according to past village council meeting reports.

Nonetheless, the bureau has been working with the fire department to get a ramp added for easier access in case an emergency requires their services.

With better banks, according to Fluke, it will provide easier access for the general public as well.

The bank protection was designed it for a 10-year event, which realistically, means people might see 30 unmoved years, Fluke said.

"And that's, of course, depending on the flows that you see coming through and how sustained they are and things like that. This reach is affected by strong trends that are causing us to need to put a Band-Aid here. So, it should be fairly localized effects in terms of like the the river as a whole," he said.

"Reach" in this case means the project's effects will be felt from Bernalillo to Albuquerque.

Another integral area affected is the Pueblo of Sandia. The project will involve heavy replanting along that side of the bank, which has felt the affects of fires for some time as well.

Because of the incising of the river, the Pueblo has lost some of the land.

"There's a lot of lost Pueblo land. And so, with our project and protecting of this land, we're gonna try to regain some of that land back to the Pueblo, and that will help with loss of the land in the future as well," Dorley said.

There will also be some important water rights restored to the Pueblo.

This project also coincides with the Siphon Project, which involves both the village and the Pueblo.

"We've both been working on these projects for decades, and it turns out, we're both gonna be out there the exact same time," Faler said.

The construction involved with both projects will mean some schedule shifting as both move forward to avoid damage to the Siphon.

They hope to get started on the project next month with the agreement of both Corrales and Sandia. Each phase of the project will be broken up so as to not disturb too much of the traffic, residents and wildlife.