Overview of the Middle Rio Grande Restoration Project

Beginning in 2011, the Middle Rio Grande Restoration project will restore 916 acres of native bosque (riparian cottonwood forest) along a 26 mile stretch of the Middle Rio Grande between Isleta Pueblo and the northern border of Sandia Pueblo. The project was designed by the USACE in concert with the project sponsors, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) and Sandia Pueblo, and multiple collaborators including Federal, State, city governments, local neighborhoods, and others.

This $25 million project partially fulfills Corps requirements on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2003 Biological Opinion (Section 7, Endangered Species Act) to create and restore habitat within this reach of the river for the listed Rio Grande silvery minnow and Southwestern Willow Flycatcher. In addition, habitat restoration benefits songbirds and other species that migrate along this river corridor.

Major habitat restoration features include:

• Construction of high-flow channels and wetlands that serve as nurseries for the silvery minnow and refugia for multiple fish and wildlife species.
• Construction of swales favorable to the restoration of stands of native Goodding’s and Coyote willow to the floodplain in order establish and enhance available habitat for flycatcher and other riparian area obligates.
• Bank terracing efforts to create a more dynamic and diverse river environment favorable to native vegetation while simultaneously discouraging the establishment and spread of saltcedar and other exotic plants. These terracing efforts include the removal of selected Kellner Jetty Jacks within the project area.
• Reductions in the quantity of understory non-native vegetation, to create the kind of patchy, native shrub thickets, grasses, and open cottonwood forest that was characteristic of this region historically. This will be a continuation of City of Albuquerque fuel-reduction efforts to reduce the intensity of fires in the bosque and to recreate the pattern of natural firebreaks along the riparian corridor.
• Beneficial use of storm-drain outfall water, as redirected through the floodplain to the river creating moist soil environments and improving establishment of native vegetation

Major recreation features include trail improvements and signs, emergency watercraft access and canoe launching points,  pedestrian benches, and wildlife blinds.

The $13.1 million, 3-year contract for the first phase of construction has been awarded to AJAC Enterprises, Inc., an Albuquerque-based contractor, whose sub-contractors are also locally based.