WESLACO, Texas (Border Report) — During a hike around Estero Llano Grande State Park, water and agriculture experts pointed out best practices for planting vegetation to help conserve waterways, and actually clean the environment.
“Wood is good,” Ricky Linex, a retired wildlife biologist from the Natural Resource Conservation Service, told about 50 participants who gathered to learn about water conservation on Tuesday afternoon.
He was referencing woody trees, which he says provide shade to withering rivers like the Rio Grande, which can help to conserve water.
Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley is currently under a disaster drought declaration. That’s partly due to a lack of rainfall, and due to Mexico’s failure to pay an expected annual allotment of water to the Rio Grande, under a 1944 international water treaty.
Mexico technically has until October 2025 to pay the 1.75 million acre-feet of water it owes, but experts agree that is near impossible since Mexico has, so far, barely paid the U.S. one year’s worth of water it owes.
Amistad Dam, which supplies water to the Rio Grande Valley, was at 27% capacity on Thursday, according to the Texas Water Development Board.
Texas A&M Agrilife on Tuesday held a workshop on preserving stream and river ecosystems and the land surrounding them — called riparian zones. Experts say the key is ensuring the land embankments are lush with different types of vegetation and plants and trees.
“When there is a lot of vegetation present, our land is better protected, and it doesn’t erode as much. But when we have these bare spots or areas that are disturbed, that’s when we will have a lot more erosion, and further water quality issues resulting from erosion and runoff,” Alexander Neal, of the Texas Water Resources Institute, told Border Report.
Vegetation protects the land banks, stabilizes water channels, dissipates water flow energy and slows the velocity of streams. Plants even absorb flood water and help to purify water by cleaning pollutants, like chemicals and pesticides, before they enter waterways.
“Every stream, every tributary matters. The more riparian areas and the better functioning ecosystems we can have along every little tributary of the Rio here, the more water can be held in all of these systems. They all act like sponges, so when there’s a lot of vegetation there more water can be held, literally in the ground beneath our feet, at these locations,” Neal said.
Neal came down from Dallas to lead Tuesday’s day-long program which was attended by about 50 people, including park rangers, and students from UTRGV.
In the afternoon, the group walked a trail at the state park and Linex pointed out various species of plants, how deep their roots are, how long they take to grow, how they replicate and their benefits.
Despite 90-degree heat, active beehives and mounds of fire ants, Linex strolled slowly amidst the cedar and elm trees clutching a wooden walking stick and pointing out the virtues of everything he saw.
An embankment along the Arroyo Colorado too thick to traverse was a delight to his eyes. That’s because he says you need multiple plants in the riparian zone to protect the water and help conserve it.
“We’re just trying to spread the word on how to take better care of our riparian services, which are the areas of green on either side of the creeks and rivers,” Linex told Border Report.
Borderland owners, especially those along the Rio Grande, can help to bolster the international river, as experts say every drop of water counts right now.
Some tips to providing healthy riparian wetlands around the Rio Grande include:
- Not mowing up the water’s edge. Leave natural thicket and brush.
- Allow wild grasses and other vegetation to grow unfettered.
- Have a variety of trees, including young and old, to provide a shade canopy that can help reduce evaporation of the water.
- Have stabilizing plants with deep roots, like switchgrass, and elms and sycamore and willow trees.
- Make sure there are at least 10 different types of species for a good variety of vegetation.
“Organic matter holds 18 to 20 times its weight in water and recycles nutrients,” Linex said.
Jude Benavides, a professor at the UTRGV School of Earth, Environmental and Marine Sciences, said the geography of the Rio Grande Valley is a delta that drains to the Gulf of Mexico and has hundreds of water sources.
“There are more waterways in the Valley than there are roadways,” he said.
That includes streams, resacas, canals, and rivers like the Rio Grande, and the Arroyo Colorado, which runs through Estero Llano Grande State Park.
Neal said bare spots on embankments cause erosion and lead to trouble.
Border Report asked him about the clearing of land for border wall, concertina wire and other border security operations. Neal said he could not comment directly on any impact.
But Laiken Jordahl, of the Center for Biological Diversity, recently told Border Report that border wall and other border security infrastructure that requires land to be cleared on the Rio Grande causes harm to wildlife and the ecosystem.
His nonprofit has filed a handful of lawsuits against wall construction.
And they want scientific studies that analyze harm to the environment, ecosystem, wildlife and habitat.
“We really are flying blind. And that’s because Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security refuses to engage with communities. They refuse to meet with scientists with affected tribal members with local elected officials. This is an agency that is operating with no accountability. And we deeply need to change that they need to be accountable to the communities that they work in. They need to be accountable to elected officials to tribal members, and to all of us who care deeply about the borderlands,” Jordahl said.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@Borderreport.com.