Land Stewardship and Community Engagement
One of the best things we can do to revive the river is to nurture the people and lands that support it. We bring community members and land stewards together to learn, share and deepen relationships. It’s challenging in a rural region where folks are spread far apart. We are participating in community events, hosting educational programs, and gathering friends in small groups.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. We envision a network of involved people along the river sharing stewardship strategies, improving wildlife habitat for hunting and fishing, enjoying recreational activities, spreading alerts to issues, collaborating, and deepening friendships.
Land stewards and community members are all part of the river’s ecosystem; everyone can nurture the river for future generations in their own way.
Pecos River WaterSMART Project:
Studying the Chemistry and Flow of the Lower Pecos River
In 2023, Friends of the Pecos River initiated and supported a proposal to study the Chemistry and Flow of the Lower Pecos River. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) based in San Antonio, designed, wrote and was awarded a WaterSMART grant in 2025; A Characterization Study of the Lower Pecos River, funded by Horizon Foundation, The Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
A brief handout about this study can be downloaded here.
The Lower Pecos River is a crucial water resource for communities in the greater Rio Grande Basin. Despite this importance, the flow and water chemistry of certain segments of the river remain poorly understood. This limited scientific understanding prevents these communities from more effectively managing the river, especially as challenges such as drought and land use change impact the area.
To improve understanding about the Lower Pecos River’s water quantity and quality, the WaterSMART Characterization Study will support the following activities:
A team of researchers will collect water samples from springs, wells, and surface water for water chemistry analyses.
Researchers will measure the flow of the main river and its tributaries.
SwRI will use the chemistry and flow data to better understand the potential source areas of important springs and which areas are losing and gaining flow.
SwRI will combine all environmental data to arrive at an improved water quantity budget and water quality profile of the Lower Pecos from Imperial, TX to the river’s confluence with the Rio Grande.
We were happy to involve high school students from the Iraan-Sheffield ISD when this research team visited the Iraan Pecos River Park as part of their data collection fieldwork!
A progress report as of the summer of 2026 is available to read here.
Click here to enjoy an expanded article about the characterization study written by Lindsey Elkins of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Our hopes is that this study will benefit landowners and future generations by identifying:
Segments of the Lower Pecos most vulnerable to water quality and quantity issues,
Areas where aquifers most affect the river, and where the river contributes to aquifer recharge,
Areas to be targeted for longer-term efforts to ensure environmental and human health of those living in the watershed and those downstream.
Tamarisk Beetle Research and Relocation Project
Invasive tamarisk (saltcedar) trees occupy much of the waterways throughout the southwestern United States. This is particularly true along the Pecos River in Texas. Saltcedar can degrade habitat for wildlife and flora, as dense thickets reduce biodiversity and choke the river channel.
Common strategies to control saltcedar, such as broad herbicide treatments and mechanical removal, can be challenging because of the high cost and manpower required for success. These treatments also can be temporary with a return of saltcedar regrowth likely.
Tamarisk biological control (biocontrol) is one means of reducing saltcedar economically and without collateral damage to native flora. RiversEdge West, a Colorado nonprofit focused on riparian ecosystem restoration has been working on tamarisk research for decades, in fact they used to be named the Tamarisk Coalition. Now, a former leader in that organization is continuing tamarisk biocontrol work here in Texas, Dr. Christopher Ritzi, faculty member at Sul Ross State University. More resources on tamarisk from RiversEdge West can be found here.
Thanks to a gift from Lyda Hill, Dr. Ritzi is working on a project to establish beetles along the Pecos where long term control of saltcedar might be more economically achieved.
Beetles need to be collected from along the Rio Grande River from established sites and then relocated via beat buckets to sites along the Pecos River. After being deposited into the environment, active determines if the beetles are becoming established or if other applications are necessary. This work is slow going and much depends on timing and weather. Beetle populations along the Rio Grande are light and our first introduction of beetles to the Pecos in 2025 was not successful. Dr. Ritzi and a graduate student researcher are continuing their fieldwork in hopes of future success.
Texas Stream Team Citizen/Community Science
The Texas Stream Team is a statewide program based at Texas State University focused on community science and water quality monitoring. The Stream Team is dedicated to understanding and protecting the 191,000 miles of Texas waterways. They bring together community members, students, educators, academic researchers, environmental professionals, and both public and private sector partners to conduct scientific research and to promote environmental stewardship. Texas Stream Team has trained over 11,000 citizen scientists to monitor water and environmental quality across Texas.
The Iraan Pecos River Park is an official monitoring site, and Patina Crowder is a certified trainer. She has trained over 30 water quality monitors. Students and community members regularly visit the Iraan Pecos River Park to take water samples and report monthly as part of the official State of Texas database on water quality. Friends of the Pecos River provides all water testing equipment, supplies and resources and training. If you would like to be a volunteer water quality monitor, please let us know!
Watershed Protection Program
“Watershed Protection Plans (WPPs) are community-developed documents that identify potential sources of waterbody impairment throughout a watershed and provide a framework for implementing strategies to reduce pollution and improve overall water quality in Texas streams and rivers” – Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Once approved, WPP’s bring Federal Clean Water Act funding to accomplish the goals set forth in the plan. A WPP was created for the Pecos River was created in 2008 and accepted by the EPA in 2009. The report is available for download here. In 2013 an updated WPP was not approved by EPA.
In 2021, Friends of the Pecos River commissioned a study with the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment based at Texas State University, to evaluate a “path forward.” The study concluded that for a WPP to succeed, a subsection of the river should be targeted and that community relationships needed to be deepened.
Click to read A Path Forward for the Pecos River Watershed Protection Plan here. For now, there are no plans to initiate a new WPP for the Pecos River.
We welcome ideas for future research projects. Additional resources about Pecos River science can be found on our resource page.
“I love that old Pecos River.
It taught me to swim.”
—Delmon Hodges, who learned to swim in the Reeves County reach in the 1930s, excerpted from Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River