Advocates and water officials have reached a settlement agreement about how to manage Rio Grande water to best protect an endangered fish.
WildEarth Guardians, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed the settlement agreement in U.S. District Court on Tuesday.
This settlement will bring a lawsuit WildEarth Guardians filed in 2022 to a close.
“Thirty years after the silvery minnow was listed as endangered in 1994, this bellwether species remains perilously close to extinction,” Daniel Timmons, wild rivers program director for WildEarth Guardians, said in a press release.”We can’t continue to suck the river completely dry each and every summer and expect things to improve. We look forward to working with the federal agencies and other stakeholders to ensure that the new Biological Opinion passes legal muster and provides meaningful protections for a living Rio Grande and the imperiled species and the precious aquatic and riparian habitat supported by this critical artery of life.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to prepare a new biological opinion, which will assess the impacts that the MRGCD and Bureau of Reclamation’s water operations and maintenance activities have on the Rio Grande silvery minnow as well as the southwestern willow flycatcher, the yellow-billed cuckoo and the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. The Fish and Wildlife Service will also evaluate how climate change and river drying are impacting those species and will develop new conservation measures intended to ensure the water management activities do not threaten the survival or recovery of those animals.
The MRGCD has agreed to conserve thousands of acre feet of water annually while the Fish and Wildlife Service develops the new biological opinion. That water conservation will occur by fallowing fields, making improvements on farms and implementing infrastructure efficiency measures.