Water authority gets money to build outfall restoration project

Native cottonwoods and invasive kochia weeds grow nearby. Porcupines can be found nosing around, and signs of beavers building homes can be seen along the Rio Grande where the city of Albuquerque’s treated wastewater is released into the river.

Now, a project to make the spot more inviting for people and a better habitat for wildlife just landed the remaining funding it needs.

The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority releases 55 million gallons of water per day into the Rio Grande at the outfall in the South Valley. The water authority plans to make the spot more welcoming, including for endangered species such as the silvery minnow.

The project just secured a $3 million WaterSMART Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Project grant from the federal Bureau of Reclamation.

The total cost for planning, permitting, design and construction is estimated at $7.9 million but could change based on actual costs once building begins.

With the final piece of funding secured, the water authority can put the project out for bids, and construction should start August 2024. The work will likely be completed by spring 2025.

“A lot of the work that we do is invisible,” said Diane Agnew, water rights program manager with the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority. “And this will be something that’s tangible, that we can take our community to — we can visit ourselves. So, we’re all very excited and are already diving deep into what that looks like after it’s built.”

The outfall project will turn the bank, which drops off, into a terraced bank, which should create a better habitat for the animals living there. The project includes removing invasive species and planting native plants over 18 acres, creating new hiding spots for fish to improve their habitat, creating new trails and removing jetty jacks.

After the upgrades are completed, the water authority will still be monitoring the area. For the first five years, its personnel will be required to monitor success because of the grant, but they plan to continue keeping track of the area long after the grant requirements are complete, Agnew said.

Before construction begins, the authority will count trees and plants in the area so that it can return later and quantify how many additional native plants have been added and how many invasive plants have been eliminated. Workers also will monitor erosion in the area to see if the new terraced bank is stable. There are plans to include the community in the science of monitoring the location’s environment.

“We have some conceptual ideas of doing time-lapse photography with our communities so that they can have a set picture point, and so if they’re out there hiking, they can take a picture and upload it to a QR code and send it to us,” Agnew said. “But we can take real-time monitoring that way. So, we have some technical, well-established monitoring things that we will do like the vegetation, and then we have some community science ideas that we’re starting to look at that we can involve the students in those field trips to do.”

The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, Army Corps of Engineers and Bernalillo County coordinated with the water authority to make the project happen, and Albuquerque’s Open Space Division will manage the area in the same way it manages the surrounding bosque.

The water authority has two existing restoration projects near Paseo del Norte and will be monitoring all three sites with the same method, which should provide a useful data set.