Preserving, protecting, and restoring the Rio Grande bosque since 1994
Conceptual Restoration Plan Update: Phase I
Save Our Bosque Task Force is a cooperative, self-sustaining watershed group organized to promote the sustainable use of the water resources within the Rio Grande—Albuquerque Watershed located in New Mexico. The Conceptual Restoration Plan (CRP) for the Active Floodplain of the Middle Rio Grande—San Acacia to San Marcial, was completed in 2004 however there have been numerous changes in this reach since that time. For this reason, the Save Our Bosque Task Force is updating the Plan in a two-phased approach that takes into consideration social ,political, and environmental issues affecting this reach of river in Socorro County.
The Conceptual Restoration Plan Update Phase 1A:
Existing Conditions Report can be accessed
Phase I components include:
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Expanding the watershed group
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Developing a geodatabase to aid watershed project
conceptualization
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Using the geodatabase to develop a report to discuss
changes in infrastructure, channel width and
capaticty, overbank flood potential, and vegetation
since the 2004 CRP
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Preparing a State of the River Analysis and Report
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PROJECT AREA
For most of the Task Force’s existence, the group has been focused on the Rio Grande from the San Acacia Diversion Dam (SADD) south to the San Marcial railroad bridge. The Project Area for the current effort will expand the footprint to include the Rio Grande through all of Socorro County. The Project Area is approximately 85 miles long and contains a significant amount of infrastructure, including the SADD, the Low Flow Conveyance Channel (LFCC), a continuous levee along the west side of the river, and intermittent sections of spoil berms on the east side. The infrastructure, along with invasive woody species, water management and drought, has affected the morphology and dynamics of the river and floodplain and their hydrologic connectivity, the nature of the soils that underlie the floodplain and form the channel boundary, and the surface water-groundwater interactions that sustain riparian vegetation.
