An Ecologist’s Perspective
By Gerald Z. Jacobi
A Santa Fe resident for over 30 years, Gerald Z. Jacobi is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science and Management at New Mexico Highlands University. He has also worked for state and federal resource agencies and is currently engaged in research projects with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, New Mexico Environment Department, U. S. Forest Service, and Trout Unlimited. He is a member of the Santa Fe River Commission.
I have been fortunate in my life and professional career to have spent most of my time observing and investigating freshwater ecosystems such as rivers, lakes, and ponds. My interest has not diminished since my curiosity as a child first took me to the banks of a living river in a small town along the front range of Colorado over 60 years ago. Moving water dominated my time. I raced toy boats, trying to avoid back currents and large rocks which might slow the downstream drift. I spent hours lying on the banks looking into the water at aquatic insects as they moved their gills while trying to maintain position against the current. Several times I collected them in jars to take home to observe, later getting up during the night to see if they were still alive (they weren’t), only to conclude they needed flowing water to survive (not knowing about respiration at the time). Fishing next caught my fancy, not only the thrill of catching an unknown, but to see what fish were eating. I examined stomach contents only to realize that insects and other invertebrates were important components in the diet of fish. I then tried to catch fish with artificial flies that I tied to imitate the immature and adult stages of insects, finally ascertaining that these two life stages were interconnected.
This early exposure to the aquatic natural world eventually led me to university teaching and research where I extolled the attributes of aquatic systems and the need for healthy rivers and watersheds in our lives. I exposed students to environmental ethics and encouraged them to pursue careers in environmental science. My professional career continues as a research biologist investigating the interconnectedness of the physical, chemical, and biological processes of freshwater ecosystems. I still look at flowing waters with wonder knowing they are extremely complex systems but can be enjoyed and appreciated without involving the details.
A living river is one which has an environmental flow satisfying all aspects of the riparian and instream biological community and is a constant reminder of the health of the watershed because activities upstream are manifest downstream. It contains a flow that provides water through time and space by mimicking the natural flow (hydrograph) and reflects the physical, chemical and biological integrity of the region. A river such as the Santa Fe River during pre-dam time may have been perennial some years and ephemeral others (with interrupted surface flow), but probably had reaches connected through sub-surface flow. Continuous perennial surface flows connected to the Rio Grande allowed native Rio Grande cutthroat trout and other fish to colonize upper reaches.
Presently in the high desert landscape of the southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains, rivers that reach the Rio Grande are few due to the vagaries in the weather and the multiple demands of humans on the water supply. In small freeflowing reaches such as the upper Santa Fe River, the natural water year begins with high spring flushing flows due to the melting of snow that accumulated during the winter. This increased flow wets the edge of the stream, flooding riparian vegetation like cottonwoods, willows, and grasses, and providing water that infiltrates and is stored in the flood plain for eventual slow release back into the channel later in the year. Beaver dams further enhance the storage capacity of the flood plain. Higher flows give dimension and pattern to the stream and redefine the channel. Vegetative debris and sediments that accumulated the previous year are redistributed downstream and to the edges of the stream to build up the banks so that grasses and woody vegetation gain a stronghold to further buffer succeeding floods.
The increase in discharge and warming water temperature during the spring rejuvenate surface algae, diatoms, mosses, vascular plants, and biofilms. During this time, the emergence of many aquatic insects such as mayflies, stoneflies, caddisflies, midges, and crane flies is triggered. These organisms complete their life cycles as reproducing aerial adults that disperse along the watercourse to eventually deposit eggs in the water to begin a new generation. Some of these insects will become food for fish and for riparian birds, mammals, amphibians, and other insects attracted to the aquatic habitat and the riparian vegetation. An increase in spring stream flow is also a signal for spawning by salmonids such as the Rio Grande cutthroat trout, which utilize cleaned stream bottom gravels.
Discharge begins to taper off after a few weeks of spring runoff. Summer flows generally are more stable, but can be interrupted by occasional floods. Monsoon rains later in the summer may cause temporary increases in volume. Flow and temperature decrease in late fall as precipitation decreases. Leaves falling into the water accumulate to form the food base for many aquatic organisms sustaining them through the winter. Snow accrued in the winter eventually melts in the spring to begin the runoff cycle again.
In an urban setting such as Santa Fe, summer rain and subsequent flooding is usually short lived, dramatic, and often times devastating. The impervious and built upon watershed acts as a shield, allowing the water to rush downstream through the previously dry and poorly vegetated arroyos and river channel. It is only when rushing water reaches the Santa Fe River Rural Protection Zone (originally the Santa Fe River Preserve) several miles downstream (below the City of Santa Fe Waste Water Treatment Plant discharge) that the riparian vegetation and expansive flood plain function as a cushion, buffering the flow. Here, high flows are absorbed and diverted throughout the bosque to later appear, diminished but sustained, to augment flow to the river downstream. Today, this phenomenon does not occur along the dry Santa Fe River near the downstream city limits of Santa Fe.
Through rivers, a variety of ecological communities are connected by the flow from headwater to lower elevations. In Santa Fe County, diverse neighborhoods, each with specific and perhaps different relationships to the river, are also intertwined. For most of the year the Santa Fe River through town and downstream is a dry remnant of its former self, visited and enjoyed by only a few. One only has to look to the community events celebrating the river when it occasionally flows in spring and summer to see how running water is cherished and appreciated. The river blessing at San Ysidro Crossing in Aqua Fria and the fishing derby and river festival within Santa Fe are well attended. A year round living Santa Fe River could provide an environment for play and exploration of the outdoors, linking neighborhoods through parks and the river trail and providing sustenance to nature. Once a living Santa Fe River is re-established, I would like to be involved in ecological studies. I want to take friends old and new to the river to turn over a few stones to see signs of the return, and encourage continuation of the numerous school projects showing our young people various positive aspects of the river. I hope such experiences will spur others to be as fascinated as I have always been with the life found in a river.
Agua Fria Village and the Once and Future River
The title of this "position paper" is the approximate title of an article by the Trust for Public Land in its national Land and People biannual magazine issue of May of 2006: http://www.tpl.org/tier3_cd.cfm?content_item_id=20636&folder_id=3228. We believe it accurately reflects the passion that Agua Frians have for their land and water from the past and into tomorrow.
DISCLAIMER: This is not an official position of the Agua Fria Village Association (of which I am President), Acequia Agua Fria (of which I am President), or the Agua Fria well Owners Association (of which I am Vice-President); but rather a compilation of a lot of things, said by a lot of Agua Frians, over many years. It is not a legal or a historical treatise but references a number of factual events.
But for the record….
Agua Fria Village is a place of settlement in New Mexico, first recognized as a place of modern recorded settlement, when Sergeant Major (Maestro Campo) Roque Madrid was given a land grant on the Santa Fe River from Ojito Fresco to Pueblo Quemado in 1693 by General Don Diego de Vargas for his service in the 1692 “Reconquest” of New Mexico by the Spanish Crown. His request was granted based on his parents and grandparents having farmed this area prior to the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.
Agua Fria exists on an alluvial plain farmed by Native Americans until a regional drought of circa 1250 A.D. The place was partially resettled in the 1300’s then finally abandoned in the 1400’s (http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/30-Dig).
Although the ancient Agua Fria Village has nearly been swallowed up by City of Santa Fe Annexations and nearly driven into extinction by the illegal damming of the Santa Fe River managed by the Santa Fe Ring, Agua Frians conceive of a totally different identity from the City of Santa Fe. There are some real distinctions between Agua Fria Village and the City of Santa Fe: Agua Frians do not consider the Fiestas as there celebration, but rather May 15th San Isidro Day; they do not pilgrimage north to Santuario but instead south to San Antonio Church in Cieneguilla; Agua Frians consider that they supported the City residents by their local food production, adobe block production and fuel wood collection. Agua Frians see themselves as completely independent of the City of Santa Fe and living on sustainable lands that have been encroached on by City’ values and greed. Whereas, city councilors often publicly talk about weaning the village off it dependence on city sewer and water systems for the last five decades.
So it has been a strife and conflict that has existed for quite some time. The City has asked for many things from us and we have reluctantly complied and then have been “abused” for complying.
Every stick of wood burned in a fireplace in Santa Fe to keep warm was brought by the vendors living on Agua Fria Street (no wood came from Pecos until the highway was paved in the 1950’s). Almost every ear of corn and pound of flour, and slice of meat came from Agua Fria; the virtual breadbasket of the City of Santa Fe. The repayment to Agua Frians has been the theft of land, water rights, the closing of acequias, and the cramming down our throats of every objectionable land use that the City desperately needed and was too good to put into their own backyard: the Siler Road sewer plant, the effluent line to the golf course, the high power electric lines from Algodones and White Rock; the sewer lines to Cieneguilla; the gas lines to Los Alamos; the road network like: Camino de los Carros[i] in the 1890’s, Cerrillos Road in the 1930’s, Airport Road, St. Francis Drive in 1950, Osage in 1955, Rufina Street in 1985 (for the easement) and the building of it in 1999, the Bypass or State Road 599; the Regional landfill; everything took land and divided family members on one side or the other of it physically.
We blocked the four laning of Agua Fria Street and West Alameda; projects that would have ejected long-time residents. We blocked the construction of River Road, Powerline Road, Sunset Road and Richards Avenue to West Alameda; projects which would have turned our community into a subdivision.
We encouraged the extension of Rufina Street, Siler Road, and South Meadows Road and these projects, which would have benefited us most, have literally taken decades.
We have attended all the City and County sponsored planning meetings and have joined task forces that meet for years on end and then their recommendations are shelved. We have been good citizens and partners when both the City and County have been deceitful, and in the pockets of developers. We formed the Southwest Area Taskforce, or SWAT, a powerfully descriptive acronym---in 1980. The group fought for ten years and then just got burnt out. The leaders felt used up by the community and refuse to participate in anything today. Some have moved away.
Over 70% of all the electric power and natural gas comes through the land of Agua Frians. Instead, of giving into the piece-meal easement acquisition we should have fought a class action lawsuit and asked for toll power lines and toll roads in exchange for our loss of wet water. But then we aren’t like that. Most feel we just need to go along to get along.
So we have had a relationship of broken promises with the City of Santa Fe:
From the American Society of Irrigation Engineers Annual conference and report for 1892-1893:
“But besides this we have here impounded 500 acre feet, or more than 20,000,000 gallons of water, ready to be turned on in July when the Acequias fail and the fruit in ready to shrivel. This will supply for July and August 1,000 acres and save the crop, worth $20 dollars an acre, or a quarter of a million of dollars. Here is an ample warrant of the expenditure, which will be profitable for both the company and the community.”
So the sales pitch for the reservoirs was that it would help the farmers. But it was a ploy to sell them water rather than to guarantee them water.
We’ve gone to many city council meetings and Municipal Boundary Commission meetings and the official representatives will say: “that is ancient history” and it may be. But it has been handed down from grandparent to grandchild and is fresh on the mind of most Agua Frians.
Agua Frians love their river and their land. The Santa Fe River helps to define the cultural landscape and our sense of place.
So enough history and to the charge of the Core Working Group: how would you put 1,000 acre feet annually into the Santa Fe River?
We feel that the product revealed on February is the best thing for all parties involved including the Agua Fria Village.
To get to this clean ending point we asked ourselves the following:
1.What would we like to see in a Living River? A flow of water that is something that comes down on San Isidro Day and the Santa Fe River Blessing on May 15th for sure and waters the plantings that groups like the Santa Fe Watershed Association have done. Also the once a year flushing of the over-the-winter-riverbed (a “spring cleaning” if you will). The first City Of Santa Fe Ordinance in 1896 made it illegal for residents to dump the bodies of dead animals in the riverbed to wait for a flushing.[ii]
2. What are our values?
For people in Agua Fria, it is a lot about customs and culture. The old Hispanic saying: “water is life” rings as true today as it did 400 years ago.
3. How would we feel about a more natural river?
Historically, Agua Frians were prohibited from cutting wood in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (now the Santa Fe National Forest) by Royal Decree and were instead directed to the Caja del Rio Grant (sometimes loosely called “Buckman”) for their fuel wood needs. Most people still go there. So that the mismanagement of that forest in the watershed has directly impacted the Santa Fe River Flows, and the blame has to be put squarely on the shoulders of the historical leaders and residents of Santa Fe. To let the forest change from a scattered Ponderosa type with a grass savannah to a water sucking pinion-juniper jungle with Chamisa plants---is a detriment to all in the watershed. Further, the loss of the natural beaver ponds until the last decade has also impacted the watershed adversely. So the restoration of the natural policy is the best management advice.
Agua Frians favor the planting of native trees that replace non-native and invasive trees and shrubs. We have learned a lot about river restoration from the Santa Fe Watershed Association (http://www.santafewatershed.org/). Many of us were taught that “engineers knew best” and that the river had to be channelized for public safety. The more concrete we could pour the better off we were. Get the water off the streets and into the Santa Fe River ASAP. Over the last decade SFWA has spearheaded a lot of presentations, tours and demonstration projects that have dispelled these engineering myths. We have seen how native willow and cottonwood plantings have brought back the banks of the river and wildlife. We have seen how veins . We have seen how a Zuni Bowl, Media Luna, rock mulch rundown and a one rock dam can slow and spread out the water of side arroyos and inlets to the river and make it sink in. This is the 3-S formula: slow it, spread it, make it sink in.
We have a lot of erosion from upstream and some downstream activities. Activities that have a certain legal liability to them if we were to engage in a class action lawsuit. The project flows mitigate this erosive force.
[i] Camino de los Carros was a winding “donkey path” road that you can see evidence of by looking at the wavy north property boundaries of McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Arby’s, Village Inn, etc. It was thirty feet wide and graveled. The road wound around a bit and went from what is now Osage Avenue out to Airport Road. The upper acequia generally followed the road and they would use the road to go maintain the ditch.
After the land exchange for the new Cerrillos Road by the State Highway Department, Manual Romero’s grandfather then lost the land south of Camino de los Carros; as did all people in Agua Fria. This had been farming land on which alfalfa was raised. The entire parcel was put into a tax parcel and former City Councilor Seligman purchased it for a few dollars at a state Tax Sale of which residents were not informed in the 1930’s. This effectively stole all the traditional lands of Agua Frians, whose U.S. Government land Patents (land grants) confirmed in 1909 and issued by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, stretched from the Arroyo de los Chamisos (near the present day Santa Fe Place Mall) to the Arroyo de los Frijoles or the southern most boundary of the San Ildefonso Pueblo grant; a distance of some five to seven miles in length. Lots were narrower in width and may have been only 600 to 900 feet (200 or 300 yards or “varas”).
[ii] Pamela Dupzyk, Education and Outreach Director of the Santa Fe Watershed Association, Presentation.