Call of the Canyon Wren: The Future of Water Use in the West

The West is using more water than the Colorado River can provide. So what do we do about it?

BY JEN PELZ

As I walked along the bank of the Colorado River in Marble Canyon, I noticed a tiny bird fluttering around the brush. We locked eyes for a long moment as it bobbed up and down in a curious dance, but before I could take in a long breath, it disappeared into the canyon wall.

It wasn’t until later that I realized that I’d just come face-to-face with the elusive canyon wren — a tiny creature that is famous for filling desert canyons with song.

Canyon wren. J.N. STUART

I first heard the wren’s cascading melody in Boquillas Canyon on the Rio Grande along the U.S.-Mexico border. At that time, I thought this sound was just a souvenir unique to that place and that moment.

A year later and over 800 miles to the north, the same song skipped off the canyon walls of the Rio Grande Gorge in northern New Mexico. I had lived there or ventured home to explore for decades, and yet this experience, this encounter, had eluded me.

My serendipitous reunion with the wren in Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in 2019 was a lucky one indeed. A long-time river guide and friend from Taos, New Mexico who had floated the river thousands of times over half a century told me he had only floated this reach once before — the water was always too low. When we entered the canyon, in that year of unusually high flows that extended into June, the challenge was finding a place to camp, not walking our kayaks for miles in ankle-deep water.

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, New Mexico. JIM EKSTRAND

I reflect on these experiences because it is not actually the canyon wren that is scarce and fleeting, but the waterways that carved these canyons (and others all over the West) that are wilting under the stress of overuse and the reduction of flows into the rivers each year due to climate change. 

Since the late 1800s, the Rio Grande has faced extreme water shortages and extensive drying. A 200-mile section of the river south of El Paso, Texas — commonly referred to as the “Forgotten Reach” — is nearly always dry unless there is a significant rainstorm. Other sections of the river only flow for a few months each year when water is transferred to irrigators downstream. The river just south of my childhood home in Albuquerque, New Mexico dries nearly every summer. 

For the past decade, I roamed the banks of the Rio Grande as a part of my work at a nonprofit to find solutions to help reconnect this disappearing river and others in the West, hoping the rivers available to me as a child would exist for my young daughters and future generations. It was personal, it was inspiring, and it was also incredibly sad. 

The visible bathtub ring around the reservoir of Lake Powell, where water levels have dropped precipitously. U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

If you have not seen a dry river, it is unreal. I have walked through sand and seen cracked and dry earth where muddy water used to flow. I’ve encountered dead and dying fish in tiny pools of water left behind. I’ve heard the stories of young people in El Paso, Texas who only know that there was a river in their community because of stories their parents or, more typically, their grandparents told. It is a loss to multiple generations that is hard to piece back together once the river and all that it brings with it are gone.

These accounts exist in the Colorado River Basin as well, including the drying of the Colorado River Delta as the river failed to reach the sea after Glen Canyon Dam was built and Lake Powell began filling in the 1960s. This was just one of the first signs of the river’s imbalance. What lies ahead for the whole basin is equally as dire if we don’t find a path forward. 

Over the past 22 years, the Southwest has experienced the driest conditions in 1,200 years. As a result, Colorado River flows have declined by 20 percent. Half of this reduction is attributed to climate change, and scientists predict additional reductions in Colorado River flows by the end of the century. As temperatures rise, we see snowpack melting more quickly, and more runoff evaporates or is absorbed by drought-stressed plants. Before this mega-drought, the basin was insulated by the sheer volume of water that flowed into the Colorado River and by the ability to store that water in the two largest reservoirs in the United States — Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Less water is stressing the fabric of the system developed to allocate, distribute, store, and manage water in the West and is speeding up and amplifying the effects of overuse.

Map of the U.S. portion of the Colorado River basin. STEPHANIE SMITH

For example, in 1999, Lake Powell and Lake Mead combined were 92 percent full. Lake Powell was only 19 feet from the top of the dam. Since that time, the combined storage in these reservoirs has decreased by nearly 70 percent to only 26 percent of capacity. Lake Powell has dropped 160 feet in elevation and the water in the lake is now 179 feet from the top of the dam. The decline is visible in the bathtub ring around the perimeter of the lake. This precipitous drop in water level is essentially the result of the basin using not only the water available each year, but also tapping its savings account — its reservoirs — in ways that are unsustainable. The West is using more water than the river can provide.

The stakes could not be higher. The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people, nearly 5.5 million acres of farmland, a robust recreation economy, seven states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming), 30 tribal nations, and Mexico. Power plants at both reservoirs serve more than 7 million households in the West. The river also has its own intrinsic value as a waterway with ecological, spiritual, and cultural significance. Nowhere is this more evident than where the Colorado River flows through the Grand Canyon.

The author on the banks of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. AMY S. MARTIN

If Lake Powell falls another 31 feet from March 2023 levels, the dam will no longer be able to produce power and may not be able to release water safely through the existing structure to downstream states, tribes, and Mexico. This would mean no or very little water flowing through the Grand Canyon, which would create economic hardship in addition to cultural and spiritual losses for tribes, harm the imperiled humpback chub (a protected fish found only in the Colorado River and its tributaries), hurt recreation in the canyon, and affect water users downstream in Arizona, Nevada, California, and Mexico. There is a lot to lose.

Another vital resource that becomes increasingly threatened as water in rivers and reservoirs declines is groundwater. As rivers no longer supply all the water demanded by farms, cities, industry, and development, those water users dig wells to intercept and pump groundwater to the surface to satisfy their unmet needs. Although groundwater is invisible to most, when it does reveal itself, it is vital to the environment, surface river flows, cultural and spiritual practices and uses, and as a key source of drinking water for communities.

A petroglyph panel along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon hints at the continuous presence of Indigenous peoples in the region since time immemorial. However, tribes have long been excluded from decision making about the river. AMY S. MARTIN

Of particular concern is Arizona groundwater, which makes up 85 percent of all groundwater in the Colorado River Basin. Arizona allows water users to pump unlimited quantities of groundwater in 88 percent of the state, only excluding urban areas that are subject to the state’s Groundwater Management Act of 1980. This groundwater is the sole source of drinking water for some tribal communities along the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Through springs and seeps along the walls of the canyon and its tributaries, groundwater contributes about 8 percent of the water that enters the Colorado River below the dam. 

Given the importance of the Colorado River, its tributaries, and groundwater in the basin, the choices the West makes over the next several years will determine if the river and groundwater can be sustained long-term along with life and cultures in the region. Now is a critical time to engage and advocate for responsible water use in the Colorado River Basin. It’s also a critical time to listen to Indigenous perspectives long excluded from decision-making about the river as Indigenous people have stewarded the river since time immemorial.  

This time around, any solution must be centered in equity, both for the environment and for Native communities in the basin. It’s time to prioritize water security for the 30 basin tribes and ensure meaningful opportunities for the tribes to fully participate as equal sovereigns with the states, Mexico, and the federal government. 

Stone Creek, in the Grand Canyon. TIM PETERSON

Enough water must continue to flow through the Grand Canyon to maintain the canyon environment and support the cultural and spiritual practices and resources of the affiliated tribes. Additionally, we must significantly reduce water use in the basin so that water levels in the reservoirs can stabilize in the short term and a more sustainable balance between what flows into the river and what the West uses (supply and demand) can be reached long-term. This includes using groundwater more cautiously in Arizona, which will require reforming groundwater law and policy to ensure that aquifers can support rural communities and the environment long into the future. The Grand Canyon Trust has started a new Water Program to advocate for these changes in the context of the Grand Canyon region and to stand behind tribes and tribal communities as they advocate for their own needs and interests.

My story in this basin is just beginning, but the call of the canyon wren is a familiar thread that connects the tapestry of rivers, people, and landscapes that have sparked my curiosity and fueled my advocacy for decades. 

As I embark upon this new journey, I long to learn from new encounters, join others in helping to solve intractable problems, and, if I’m lucky, hear the wren’s cascading call echo above the ripple of water passing through many new canyons with many new people.

Jen Pelz directs the Grand Canyon Trust’s new Water Program.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views expressed by Advocate contributors are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Grand Canyon Trust.