River floods national park; minor damage reported
BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK — Last Thursday morning, the Rio Grande reached a major flood stage on the eastern edge of Big Bend National Park. Per data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the gauge at Boquillas International Crossing registered a crest of about 21 feet. The floodwaters raged at around 30,000 cubic feet per second for around two hours, just shy of breaking a record for that gauge’s third-highest reading ever.
While most folks were celebrating the rain, the flood caused a few headaches for park staff and visitors. Nine campers were evacuated and sent to higher ground in the Chisos Basin. The water washed out many of the park’s dirt roads and peeled away a section of pavement on the road to Rio Grande Village. The Hot Springs historic district was hit hard, dumping mud and silt in the ruins of the century-old hotel and post office. The Boquillas Port of Entry shuttered temporarily and is set to reopen on Friday, July 11.
Don Corrick, the park’s new chief of interpretation and visitor services, said that damage assessment was ongoing and park guests should be prepared for mud. In a more general sense, he advised the park’s rainy season visitors to expect the unexpected. “Every flood event is unique and often unpredictable,” he said.
Floods pulsed in waterways throughout the area over the last week of June and first week of July. The National Weather Service in Midland reported 3.47 inches of rainfall at Panther Junction, 4.07 inches in Alpine and 4.79 inches in Fort Davis fell between the 23rd of June and the 4th of July.
Much of the The Big Bend Sentinel’s coverage area remained in alternating flood watches and warnings throughout this time period, thanks to weather systems radiating from the Pacific Ocean. Smaller waterways swelled, turning downtown Alpine into a waterpark and stranding tourists in Marfa.
Shafter residents living on the other side of Cibolo Creek were trapped much of last week by high waters. Cibolo Creek Ranch assisted by bulldozing mounds of mud from the crossing that allowed high-clearance vehicles to pass.
According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, the Big Bend region averages 8-20 inches of rainfall each year, varying based on elevation. Presidio, the area’s lowest population center, receives around 11 inches of rain a year; the relatively lush Chisos Basin receives around 19 inches. Much of that precipitation falls over the summer and early fall, with major historic flood events clustered between May and September.
But that sense of normal is shifting. Climate and water data collected in the park shows abnormally dry conditions starting around 2010 — a trend that’s offered only a few years of reprieve ever since, and mostly at high elevations.
Some old-timers say those numbers have been headed this way for a long time. When the river went dry at the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon in the spring of 2022, haunting images of the flaky riverbed made their way into publications across the country. That May, The Sentinel spoke to river guides who said they’d started seeing the writing on the canyon wall in the 1990s when the river dried up dramatically and the commercial rafting industry was forced to consider alternate ways of getting around the park.
Even before tourism took off in Terlingua, park records show that the Big Bend went through extraordinarily dry periods. In the 1950s, as the park’s legendary first superintendent fell ill, administrators had to figure out how to fill Ross Maxwell’s big shoes while navigating a drought that reduced the river to a few shallow pools between Santa Elena and the Hot Springs.
The very idea of the park was also the product of outside-the-box thinking during extreme weather — Big Bend was born during the Great Depression, and many of its roads, trails and outbuildings were built by folks who might otherwise work on farms and ranches. The cattle industry in South Brewster County was hit hard, making the pitch from the government to accept a check in exchange for a dream and a way of life an easier sell.
To make a millions-of-years-long story short, the big rain last week was welcome after an especially dusty spring, but it’s just a drop in the bucket. “It’ll change, and it’ll change back,” said veteran river guide Mike Davidson, who has seen the river go through numerous ups and downs since his first trip on the mighty, muddy Rio Grande nearly 50 years ago. “It’s still a desert river.”
Over the weekend, Davidson rafted Santa Elena with a handful of Terlingua VIPs. Once considered by many the park’s premiere river trip, a downstream passage has been physically impossible (with very, very brief exceptions) since the great dry-up in 2022. Near the mouth, Davidson and his party hit a dramatic thunderstorm with vicious headwinds — he had to put sunglasses on in the near-dark to keep the water out of his eyes while steering the boat — but they were treated to the rare sight of waterfalls pouring over the edge of the canyon walls. “It was epic,” he said.
Davidson is hopeful he’ll get back on the river this year, but is too experienced to bet on it thanks to a complex calculus of climate change and international diplomacy. “It’ll take a while for it to go back down — and hopefully we’ll get rain before it goes back down to zero — but without any rain events or reservoir releases, which I don’t think are forthcoming, it just goes back to nothing,” he said.
By “reservoir releases,” Davidson is referring to treaty obligations set between the United States and Mexico in 1944. For all its charm and grandeur in the Big Bend, the river is still an international boundary — and it has a job to do. For the past 81 years, Mexico has been obligated to release 350,000 acre feet of water to the United States from the Conchos River on five-year cycles in the hopes of meeting the needs of farmers and hydroelectric power-users in Texas.
In recent years, that arrangement has become a flashpoint. Mexico has lagged further and further behind on its obligations, leading leaders all the way up to President Trump to issue reprimands. From the Mexican perspective, the main issue is that there’s no water to give: the Rio Grande itself runs dry much of the time between El Paso and Presidio, thanks to insatiable upstream water use between the river’s headwaters and the Elephant Butte Dam in New Mexico.
The water that boaters enjoy in Big Bend National Park — and that brings life to crops in the Rio Grande Valley — mostly comes from the Conchos, which is in imminent danger of the same fate.
Data from the International Water and Boundary Commission (IBWC), the agency that monitors water in the Rio Grande and helps administrate the treaty, suggested that reservoirs on the Conchos got a little bit of a boost from last week’s rain event, which triggered floods all across the state of Chihuahua. La Boquilla Dam — which became the center of an uprising of angry farmers who took over the reservoir in 2020 in hopes of preventing Mexico from releasing any more water to the United States — got a lift of around 32 million gallons, but is still critically endangered at just 18% of its capacity.
The drying trend has long-term negative consequences for the health of the river. Kevin Urbanczyk, director of the Rio Grande Research Center at Sul Ross, considers the Conchos reservoir levels to be the “smoking gun” in the Rio’s slow death.
Urbanczyk says that looking at historical accounts and photographs can be helpful — starting with accounts of the first Spaniards arriving in the area in the 1500s, who described a wide river with sandy banks. Since the arrival of the Anglos, the river channel has narrowed and its banks have become choked with invasive vegetation like salt cedar and Arundo donax, a particularly thirsty kind of rivercane. These changes accelerated around the turn of the 20th century, when industries like mining and cattle ranching stripped the landscape and changed the way low-lying areas experienced flooding.
Historically speaking, the annual summer flood season acted like a toilet flush for invasive species and misplaced sediment. Urbanczyk describes this process a bit more politely as a “reset” — the likes of which the Big Bend hasn’t seen for almost two decades. “Every 20 years or so the river experiences something like the 2008 flood, but this was not a 2008-type reset event,” he explained.
Barring massive social and political change, the most folks can do is wait for rain. “[Last week’s rain] was good, but it’s not enough,” Urbanczyk said. “The demands of the water in the Conchos Basin are just going to go up, and this chronic lack of or zero flow is the reality. It’s the unfortunate normal.”
Stay Safe this Monsoon Season!
Tips from Don Corrick, Chief of Interpretation at Big Bend National Park
- Visitors should check the daily weather forecasts at park visitor centers and posted on bulletin boards.
- Storms can pop up very quickly and unexpectedly. Visitors should trust their instincts and err on the side of caution. If the weather looks serious but the forecast does not show rain — trust your eyes and ears! (And again, always err on the side of caution).
- Park visitors should be aware that most park roads are crossed by low water crossings, and any of these can flash flood during the rainy season.
- Never try to cross flowing water! The flowing water may be more powerful than it looks, and modern cars are relatively lightweight, which may make them vulnerable to being pushed off the roadway. The high water prevents you from seeing if the roadway is blocked, damaged or washed out completely. Water in smaller arroyos often recedes quickly, so motorists should be patient and wait for the water to drop.
- Never camp or leave your vehicle in an arroyo or dry stream bed. Flash floods can be generated by thunderstorms that are out of sight.
- Floodwater is often contaminated, so people should avoid getting into the water. Beware of animals displaced by floods, including venomous snakes and stinging insects.