PecosGambusia_Cienega_Garrett_Gary_MountainHomeTX_28June2023_Reel4158.mp3

Gary Garrett [00:00:00] The spring at Balmorhea State Park, San Solomon Spring, flowed 23 million gallons a day. So, still a pretty large, large spring.

Gary Garrett [00:00:10] And prior to development out there, prior to really people coming in and developing the area, these were, these created what's called a "cienega". And a cienega is a Spanish word for swamp or wetland or marsh. And there were hundreds of acres of wetlands.

Gary Garrett [00:00:29] So you can imagine the value of that to wildlife - waterfowl, mammals, birds, insects and fish.

Gary Garrett [00:00:39] So over time, San Solomon, as farming came in and developed, they dried up the cienegas, built canals out from the springs (San Salomon's the big one, but there's several others in that complex), and they built canals out to their farms.

Gary Garrett [00:00:58] So they dried up the cienega.

Gary Garrett [00:01:00] The fish there: a lot of them survived. Some may have gone extinct, and we'll never know what they were, but some of them survived in these canals.

Gary Garrett [00:01:08] But you can imagine that wasn't the greatest place for them to live.

Gary Garrett [00:01:12] So, it so happened as I was working out there, the City of El Paso started buying up ranch land around Balmorhea, which is hundreds of miles away, for the express purpose of putting in water farms. And they were going to put pumps in and a pipeline back to El Paso to pump that aquifer down.

Gary Garrett [00:01:33] So obviously, there was some consternation, local consternation.

Gary Garrett [00:01:38] And I met with the local water district and the local farmers. And of course, they were very hesitant to talk to me because I was a government person and I was, I liked to save endangered species. All the wrong things in their minds.

Gary Garrett [00:01:54] But they did, because they were concerned.

Gary Garrett [00:01:56] And I just pointed out: I said, "You know what happened down at Fort Stockton. Those guys, their farms turned to sand and dirt, and blew away. They're gone."

Gary Garrett [00:02:05] "And it could happen here. And the state water law will not protect you. The Rule of Capture allows this."

Gary Garrett [00:02:13] "But there's one thing that can protect you. And you know, you can hold your nose if you want to, but it's called the Endangered Species Act. Federal law would keep that from happening."

Gary Garrett [00:02:23] So I got their attention and they said, "How do we do that? What can we do?"

Gary Garrett [00:02:27] And I said, "We can build a small cienega on Balmorhea State Park, but I need some of your water, some of your irrigation allotment. But all I need for it to do is flow through our cienega, and it'll flow back out the other side and go right onto your farmland. So you will lose some water to evaporation. And you'll lose some water to evaporation in the desert! But call that your insurance payment, for preserving your water."

Gary Garrett [00:02:53] And it's as long as this is endangered (and there's really two endangered species - the Comanche Springs pupfish, Cyprinodon elegans, but then also Gambusia nobilis, the Pecos gambusia, a mosquito fish), two federally endangered species.

Gary Garrett [00:03:08] So they cooperated with us.

Gary Garrett [00:03:10] We then get TXDOT to come in and provide engineering and big machines and manpower and all of that to dig this out.

Gary Garrett [00:03:19] And the local prison in Fort Stockton: I went over and talked to them, and they said they were always looking for projects for inmates to do some good in the world. And they agreed to bring them over.

Gary Garrett [00:03:31] And they'd ship them over in a van every day. And they planted riparian vegetation around the perimeter. They helped build a rock wall that has a, we built a large glass viewing area to where you can walk down and see underwater and watch, you know, get a better appreciation of what's going on.

Gary Garrett [00:03:52] And, it all came together. It all really worked well. Everybody saw what was in it for them and how it would be some good.

Gary Garrett [00:03:56] And the local community loved it because that just enhanced the tourism at Balmorhea State Park.

Gary Garrett [00:04:02] The local schools loved it. The kids came out. You know, we made it a very interactive sort of thing.

Gary Garrett [00:04:07] Just one edge of the cienega, we built a platform where you could walk out on it and look out, and, you know, interpretive signs so you know what's going on. And then beside that is that window wall. You can't go around the rest of the cienega and disturb anything.

Gary Garrett [00:04:21] But it's been quite popular.

Gary Garrett [00:04:23] And there's literally tens of thousands of more Comanche Springs pupfish and Pecos gambusia in the world because of that. And they're finally back in a similar, something similar, to their native habitat.