Yuma Project Restores Lower Colorado Wetlands

Project could serve as model for more extensive efforts


Restoring the natural conditions of the Colorado River is an issue now in the spotlight, with various projects underway. These range from a regional, three-state partnership to a Yuma community consensus-building effort.

Yuma’s immediate goal in undertaking a project to restore 1,200 acres of wetlands along the Colorado River is to develop an environmental feature to boost the local economy. Not to be overlooked, however, is the broader goal of the Yuma East Wetland Project. Officials hope a successful project will serve as a model for other efforts to restore extensive reaches of the Lower Colorado River.

The YEWP covers 1,418 acres immediately upstream from Yuma, an area bounded on the north and south by Colorado River levees, on the west by the Ocean-to-Ocean Bridge and on the east by the Gila-Colorado River confluence. Plans call for restoring aquatic, wetland and riparian habitats to benefit wildlife species living in this area of the Lower Colorado River.

The project’s biological assessment states that the targeted area is “one of the most ecologically altered landscapes in the Southwest,” its natural conditions undermined by a century of environmentally destructive events including flow regulation, channelization, non-native species invasion, mining, wildfires and unregulated dumping. The area is now a wasteland of exotic salt cedar and giant cane.

Restoration strategies include converting fallow agricultural land into sheet-irrigated cottonwood/willow habitat; restoring flow through degrading marshes; planting dense cattail and bulrush; and revegetating riverbanks and other suitable riparian areas with cottonwood/willow, mesquite and other native species.
YEWP also will feature opportunities for cultural preservation, environmental education and low-impact, non-motorized recreation. Project plans call for the construction of natural-history interpretation centers and recreational facilities. The U.S. Corps of Engineers recently granted the project a 404 permit.

YEWP, a component within the broader Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area, grew and evolved as part of a collaborative strategy, with stakeholders and various interests working together with Heritage Area officials to ensure a community-based, cooperative effort. Participating on the team working out project details were the Quechan Indian Nation, the City of Yuma, Yuma County, private landowners and farmers. The effort showed results in 2001 when 28 stakeholders agreed to a restoration plan

Charles Flynn, Yuma’s riverfront development manager, says, “We essentially met people’s concerns, fears and needs up front. For example, we said to farmers, in and adjacent to the levees, that this is not going to be some kind of sacred preserve that will affect their farming practices or their property rights. ... If they choose to farm within the levee on their private property they can do it.”

Flynn stresses that all involvement in the project was voluntary “We don’t want even a whiff or scent of any kind compulsion. ... That creates a better sense that they can opt in or opt out, it is their choice.”

Flynn says they are seeking agricultural conversion funds to pay farmers who are willing to participate in the project by converting their farmland to habitat. Such funding would enable project officials to pay farmers the going rate for land rental. Further, the farmer might be paid to clear the land and to maintain and irrigate planted trees.

Flynn says the contract includes a hold harmless clause to allow farmers at the end of the lease the option of returning lands to agriculture regardless of its condition at that time. Flynn, however, adds “I believe that ultimately, at least within the levee, farmers will come to understand that owning mature habitat is worth more than other uses they could put their land to.”

By undertaking river restoration the project will be gaining mitigation credits. These credits certify that a certain amount of restoration has in fact taken place, and they are useful in attracting additional funding for the project. Mitigation credits also may be a negotiable commodity, with their value increasing over time. Farmers could profit by owning mitigation credits.

Some landowners outside the project area remain skeptical, fearing that some down-the-line development may work to the landowners’ disadvantage. Flynn says, “We are very aware of this tension between private property rights and environmental mitigation, and we try to work through it.”

The involvement of Quechan Indian Nation — it owns between 40 and 50 percent of the land — was essential to the success of the project. Flynn says efforts were made to bridge past historical and cultural differences by working with the tribe and meeting its concerns. He says the tribe’s support of the project was partly motivated by the land having once been an ancestral farming and hunting area. Restoring the land to some semblance of its condition 100 years ago therefore has a cultural significance to the tribe.

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