Guardians’ Rio Grande work this year and for 2016 leverages decades of our legal, political, and stakeholder engagement in southern Colorado and New Mexico to reform traditional water management practices to include restoring environmental flows and protecting endangered species. We are dedicated to utilizing our innovative approaches to ensure critical flows will support local farmers in the San Luis Valley and elsewhere in the upper watershed. We also work to remedy the biggest fundamental flaw in the state and federal water policy: the Rio Grande, which historically flowed continuously from the peaks of Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico, does not have a right to its own water.

We are currently working with several 5th generation farmers in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado that are interested in leasing their senior water rights to Guardians for the purpose of maintaining flows in the river. In addition, WildEarth Guardians presented at the 2015 Rio Grande Compact Commission meeting in Austin, Texas to gain support from the states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, and other federal agencies and stakeholders, for reauthorizing reservoirs in the Basin. In New Mexico, earlier this year, after extensively participating in the environmental review process for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ San Acacia Levee Project, the Corps decided to push forward with its original plan to construct 43 miles of engineered levees along the Rio Grande. WildEarth Guardians filed suit against the Corps on February 24, 2015 to ensure the Corps conduct the proper evaluation and consider less intrusive means of flood control including ecosystem restoration and tree planting.