Meet Our Speakers: Chris Schoneman

Near the southern terminus of California sits the Salton Sea, 375 square miles of water almost twice as salty as the Pacific Ocean. Sitting 230 feet below sea level, this basin has alternately filled and drained for thousands of years, enjoyed designated National Wildlife Preserve status since 1930, and been run under the steady hand of Chris Schoneman since 2004. The preserve encompasses 2,200 acres of critical migratory bird habitat, having hosted over 400 species on their journey through the Pacific Flyway. 1.3 million acre feet of water flow into the sea every year, most from salty agricultural runoff, and this poses a grave threat to the birds. Currently at 59 parts per thousand, the Sea’s salinity is steadily rising as extreme temperatures evaporate much of the incoming water and allow salt to build up. Past 60 ppt, experts predict several of the sea’s critical fish species will be unable to reproduce, and birds have already been found ashore literally starving to death.
    Chris oversees the development of 600 acres of partially desalinated water to serve as a buffer against further avian mortalities, and simultaneously works towards a system to mitigate the salinity of the Sea itself. He recognizes the necessity of cooperation with many different parties, saying, “we need to keep people involved, or we quickly become irrelevant,” but his first concern is for the wildlife. In the words of his longtime colleague, biologist Ray Bransfield, “birds have it rough. They need people like Chris.”

By Hunter Dunn

Meet Our Speakers: Iban Leal and Edgar Carrera

Las Arenitas is one of two wastewater treatment plants outside of Mexicali in Baja California that processes the city’s water to be reused for irrigation. Iban Leal is a chemist and the manager of the facility which is under the jurisdiction of CESPM, the state water commission. Water is pumped into the plant at a rate of 840 L per second and then travels through a series of ponds. This system of twelve shallow rectangular ponds help filter and clean the water through aeration, sunlight, chlorine and different types of bacteria. 
    From the ponds, the water flows into a 200-acre wetland. Edgar Carrera, a hydrologist and environmental engineer from the Sonoran Institute helps manage this area. The series of wetlands demonstrates a mutually beneficial partnership between the water treatment plant, the Sonoran Institute and the species that inhabit the marsh. The cattails that dominate the area filter out the chemicals left in the water and provide a home for over 150 species of waterfowl. Once the water has circulated through the wetland for several weeks, thirty percent is diverted towards the Río Hardy and the rest is pumped back into the Mexicali Valley for irrigation. Las Arenita’s wetland is also used for educational purposes. School groups from Mexicali come here to walk an interpretive trail built in partnership with the Sonoran Institute and learn about the project’s success.

Meet Our Speakers: Michelle Hernandez and Fernando Contreras

In Mexicali, a few blocks from the U.S. border, Michelle Hernández and Fernando Contreras speak in front of a municipal drain recently cleared of trash with a clear sense of purpose. Both recent graduates of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Michelle and Fernando are now key players in the Sonoran Institute’s first urban restoration project in Mexicali. This project aims to remove vast amounts of trash from Mexicali’s drains, getting the community involved to discourage further littering and revitalizing these illegal dump sites with trees, benches, and paths. 

As Project Coordinator, Michelle writes plans and proposals for funding, helps form community volunteer groups to maintain restoration sites and collaborates with government agencies. However, the hardest part of her job, she says, is environmental education: changing some Mexicali residents’ mindsets on waste disposal is a great challenge. 

The Sonoran Institute has received funding to restore six of Mexicali’s many trash-clogged drains, and these sites were chosen with the mapping expertise of Fernando, the Institute’s GIS (Global Information Systems) Coordinator. Fernando uses ArcGIS to construct models of potential restoration sites, analyzing topography, groundwater depth, and other features to help select the optimum locations for restoration. In Mexicali, the drains that Fernando has chosen flow to California’s Salton Sea and have communities and schools nearby. In this way, Fernando and Michelle’s work benefits not only the residents of Mexicali, but thousands of U.S. citizens as well.

“Everyday we’re preparing and learning to do things better,” Fernando explains from a new litter-free path at the Dren (Drain) Internacional. “I like the work because I can really see the product of my efforts.”

By Thomas Meinzen

Meet Our Speakers: Antonia Torres

The Cucapa people have lived in the Colorado Delta and along the Sierra Cucapa mountains of Mexico for 3000 years teaches Antonia Torres, cultural educator at Don Juan Garcia Community Museum. Of her Cucapa people she says, “We are called the people from the river, we were born and we came out of the Colorado River.” The Colorado River that once flowed through their valley at the base of the Sierra Cucapa in the Colorado Delta is now dry, putting their livelihoods and culture at stake. Don Juan Garcia community center is the first community museum in the whole state with the goal to educate visitors on the tribe and their history, culture, and language. Antonia hopes to attract individuals who are motivated to become involved in their culture and promote economic growth. Antonia is actively working to preserve her culture through informative, beautiful exhibits at the Don Juan Garcia Community Museum while also teaching children in her community. As the cultural educator of the Cucapa, Antonia teaches Cucapa youth to be proud of who they are, what they have, and to spread the knowledge they have of their own culture. 

By Sophie Poukish

Meet Our Speakers: Yuliana Dimas

In 2014, an international effort secured the release of a pulse of water into the parched Colorado River delta. As ecologists delighted in the success of returning water to the natural channel of the Colorado River, communities in the Mexicali Valley celebrated as well. Yuliana Dimas, a social worker for one of Mexico’s leading environmental organizations, ProNatura Noroeste, recognizes the cultural significance of restoring the flow of the Colorado River through its natural delta. While ecologists continue to monitor the health of the ecosystem, Yulie studies the surrounding communities’ relationship with the pulse flow, which she says has largely been positive. Historically, communities in the Mexicali valley were very connected with the river and Yulie believes that the pulse flow is restoring those connections. When the water came, people gathered alongside the river banks to celebrate the long awaited sight of water flowing toward the sea. Yulie explains that children are learning about the river ecosystem and that families are volunteering with restoration projects which has “made the place happy, very happy.” The work of community advocates like Yulie means that returning water to the Colorado delta has strengthened the community as well as the ecosystem, reminding people of the joy of water.

By Sarah Dunn

Meet Our Speakers: Juan Riosmoreno

Juan Riosmoreno has spent the past 30 years working in water accounting on one of the most contested waterways in the world. Riosmoreno is an engineer and the acting Chief of Operations at Morelos Dam in Algodones, Mexico at the US-Mexico Border. His job entails monitoring the water’s salinity and flow when it reaches Mexico so that the Dam can release the water appropriately for use in Mexico. Morelos Dam was built in the 1950s to receive water from reservoirs higher up the Colorado River, such as Lake Mead. Riosmoreno and the Morelos Dam have witnessed many important events in the history of the Colorado’s flow into Mexico. One such event was 2014’s pulse flow. The pulse flow was part of Minute 319, a small piece of  a binational agreement that allowed a release of water into Mexico from the United States for the revitalization of the environment, as well as a smaller base flow delivered later in the year to sustain the channel’s flow over a longer time. The Morelos Dam was the release point for much of the water two years ago and Riosmoreno hopes for another release in the future, especially after Minute 319 expires next year. More water releases would help communities and conservation interests in the border regions of Mexico and in the Sonoran Desert where Riosmoreno works. Though bound by directives for opening the dam gates, Riosmoreno says that if he could, he would open the gates for the farmers, the cities and the environment. 

By Maggie Baker

Meet Our Speakers: Nathan Schroeder

On a warm afternoon outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Spa in Santa Ana Pueblo, Nathan Schroeder stands in blue jeans, a short sleeved button up work shirt, and black sunglasses. As the Restoration Division Manager for Santa Ana Pueblo in south-central New Mexico, Nathan works  to restore native ecological systems to the Rio Grande river corridor. After spending his undergraduate years at Bowling Green State University, he earned masters degree in natural resources management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Having worked for contract restoration firms in Chicago for several years, Nathan moved to New Mexico after the Great Recession. Nathan enjoys living and working in Santa Ana despite numerous obstacles to the restoration he’s tasked with completing, foremost among them the gradual strangling of the river by both the Jemez and Cochiti Dams upstream. Operated by the Army Corps of Engineers, these dams have significantly degraded the Rio Grande to the point where “the river we have now is not the river we had 70-80 years ago.” Nathan’s work day ranges from the annual introduction of the endangered silvery minnow into the Rio Grande to extensive invasive plant removal along the banks. His restoration work is ecologically focused, often opting for more expensive but environmentally friendly options in plant removal and regeneration. Preservation of remaining natural systems is at the core of his work, for “it's hard to work with systems once you destroy them.”

Gardner Dee

Meet Out Speakers: Nicole Horseherder

For Nicole Horseherder, “water is life.” As a founding member of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, a member of the Navajo chíshí dine’é clan in the Black Mesa area, and a mother, she is passionate about protecting the water resources that define her home. Horseherder defends her beliefs through action. In 2001, the Black Mesa Water Coalition was formed with the mission to protect both the natural environment and indigenous peoples’ culture from degradation. Nicole was part of one of their first campaigns, which successfully stopped the Peabody Western Coal Company from contaminating and depleting precious groundwater in the Black Mesa area through its use for slurry transportation of coal. Horseherder’s lifestyle reflects a reverence for the place she considers sacred. She is raising her children on rural land long inhabited by her native clan in order to maintain traditional relationships to their food, water, and language. Nicole lives in a place where the modern United States’ values and the Navajo lifestyle rub against one another. Her native farming lifestyle is silenced under the interests of Big Energy and technology is a dangerous distraction from seeing the environment in the ways her ancestors did. Water scarcity in a warming climate makes every one of these concerns more urgent. Despite the challenges, Horseherder has hope for the future: she sees water flowing through everything. Given a cup of water and a cup of oil, she offers, “everyone will always choose the cup of water.”

By: Signe Lindquist

Meet Our Speakers: Marshall Johnson

“The number one thing that matters is water” Marshall Johnson says as he picks up a large piece of cardboard and sketches on it the Navajo Sandstone Aquifer that lies deep below Black Mesa, a sacred piece of land on the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Aquifer (or “N-Aquifer”), sits 2,500 feet below ground level and holds extremely pure water due to sandstone filtration. It is the only potable water on the reservation but has a fraught history of water transfers to large-scale farmers and coal fired power plants. Marshall Johnson speaks of how difficult it is to see the water beneath your feet exported to large farming corporations in the southern part of the state and subsidized at a price much cheaper than the water on reservation.

            Marshall Johnson and his wife Nicole Horseherder started a grassroots organization named To Nizhoni Ani (Sacred Water Speaks) as a way for Navajo people to have their voices heard. To Nizhoni Ani, the first environmental group based in the region of Black Mesa, emphasizes water sustainability and education in the local community. They are preserving the water beneath Black Mesa by ending coal slurrying and installing water conservation equipment inside reservation schools, houses, and community buildings. Marshall Johnson and his family are working to instill in others a deeper respect of water, a value that could be treasured everywhere, but most especially in the heart of the arid West.

By Sophie Poukish

In the Wake of Lewis and Clark: Canoeing the Upper Missouri River

Last week we ditched the trailer for canoe paddles and took a trip down the Missouri River. We floated (and at times even paddled) from Coal Banks down to Judith Landing, a 47-mile excursion. On the way we slid past the white cliffs of the Missouri Breaks, hiked through slot canyons, climbed to towering sandstone hoodoos and searched for fossils in the muddy banks of the river. Along the way, our writer in residence, Todd Wilkinson, related the river through the eyes of Lewis and Clark and artist Karl Bodmer. It was at times wet and more than a little breezy but we all enjoyed the rest and recuperation that only time on the water can provide.