By Craig Springer For the Journal
New Mexico has links to many firsts: the birthplace of the atomic age, the cradle of rocketry — and trout.
Four centuries before Oppenheimer's guys tinkered with uranium, at least one of Coronado's men was thinking about trout. In 1541, as the explorers passed near Pecos, one Spaniard noted Rio Grande cutthroats swimming about Glorieta Creek, the first ever written record of trout in the New World.
Centuries later, but only mere miles away in Mora, another first is taking shape — large-scale water recirculation technology development at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Mora National Fish Hatchery and Technology Center. And it's the Rio Grande cutthroat that will be one of the immediate beneficiaries of this new first.
Visitors to the center won't see the vast expanses of raceways typical of most hatcheries. In fact, the entire facility is housed indoors.
Inside, under one roof, you will see the raceways that hold Rio Grande cutthroat trout and an innovative water recirculation system that recently garnered the facility the Department of Energy's coveted 2000 Federal Energy and Water Management Award for water conservation.
"We're self-contained," said center director, Dr. Gary Carmichael. "And we recirculate nearly all the water we use. Our re-circ system saves a lot of water, and the technology we are developing is transferable to other hatcheries, public and private, in arid lands."
The amount of water conserved is significant.
"On a yearly basis the water we save would flood 10 square miles one foot deep," notes Carmichael. "If that doesn't register, imagine 33 billion glasses of iced tea."
Fish hatcheries by their very nature tend to use a lot of water. In more humid climates, that's usually not a problem. But here in the arid Southwest where water is limited and fish need help, water conservation is crucial.
Special treatment of the water during the recirculation process allows high-density fish culture at the Mora hatchery. Treatment starts by screening out tiny particles and breaking down ammonia fish waste to nitrates that fish tolerate. Ozone is then injected into the water which destroys harmful bacteria, parasites and fungus — all this at about 4,500 gallons a minute.
The same water can pass through the raceways holding fish, and be treated, about 20 times over. About 5 percent of the water at any given time is new water; that is to say, about 95 percent of the water is continually recirculated.
While the center works in establishing a brood stock of Rio Grande cutthroats, other species are also held on station.
Gila trout, another trout native to New Mexico, are also kept at Mora. Once beset by fire, drought and flood, Gila trout restoration is succeeding to the point that downlisting them from "endangered" to "threatened" could come shortly. Gila trout have been closed off from fishing since 1956, but an improved conservation status may open up some limited sport fishing.
Not only does the center reuse water, it has the ability to heat water to support warm-water fish culture, essentially making it two hatcheries in one. Bonytail chub and razorback sucker, warm-water species native only to the Colorado River basin, are housed here. Both species are imperiled, and the bonytail chub may be the fish most endangered with extinction. The Mora facility figures prominently in preventing that from occurring.
The Mora National Fish Hatchery and Technology Center is one of seven technology centers found across the country. Established in 1965, the centers are chartered to improve fish culture techniques, innovate fish diets, and reduce costs associated with fish culture.
State, tribal and national fish hatcheries, as well as private aquaculturalists, benefit from technology developed by the centers.
Craig Springer is a USFWS biologist in Albuquerque.
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