Protect

World Water Day 2025 was a splash!

This year, the Silver City Watershed Keepers celebrated World Water Day with a series of events focused on watershed education and protection. We had a great time meeting new neighbors in our community and working outdoors in our beautiful urban waterways.

For the past 12 years, Silver City has been celebrating World Water Day, an annual international observance day held on March 22 that highlights the importance of freshwater. The day is used to advocate for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.  The theme of each year focuses on topics relevant to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. This year, the international theme was focused on glacier preservation, protecting glaciers from further melting and from contamination and pollution. While this theme does not immediately impact Silver City, we are experiencing an extreme drought year, with near-zero snow accumulation in our mountains. Dry spring conditions are already decreasing the growth and germination of spring-growing plants in the area. Throughout the next month, lack of snow melt is predicted to slow or stop local stream and river flows, which could cause rippling effects: farmers and ranchers will not be able to use flood irrigation, dry grass and trees will be at higher risk of fire, and finite groundwater resources will be over-used.

We conducted our quarterly water quality assessment this week. Flows in the upper watershed, along Pinos Altos Creek, were low, resulting in some isolated, stagnant pools of water where E. coli were higher than in the rest of the stream, but still within reasonable environmental levels. Further along, flows increased, resulting in higher dissolved oxygen levels and lower E. coli counts. Green, emergent vegetation was sprouting throughout the watershed and vegetation near the stream looked healthy. We noticed that areas recently cleaned during Pick It Up – Toss No Más events looked beautiful and we counted over 25 species of birds, many early spring migrants, as we collected the water samples.

Our April Pick It Up – Toss No Más community litter cleanup focused on removing litter and debris from our neighborhood water drainages and waterways. We removed several hundred pounds of litter from these areas and also compiled reports about large litter items: a pile of tires in Silva Creek, a mattress and toilet in San Vicente Creek, and windblown litter and fallen branches accumulating in stagnant puddles of Pinos Altos Creek. Overall, it was enlightening for us and for our volunteers to assess litter in our local waterways.

Finally, we hosted a nature hike on World Water Day. Ten community members joined Alesia for a hike along the San Vicente Creek Trail. As we walked, we discussed how the rapid expansion of European settlement transformed the area from a marsh-like cienega into the Big Ditch and channelized stream that we know as San Vicente Creek today. We compared stories of what “the jungle” of Siberian elm and shrub thickets along the Creek looked like in past decades versus the open cottonwood gallery forest and trail system created by recent restoration programs have created today. Along the way, we watched longfin dace swimming in the stream and making rocky nests for their eggs, saw flowers and leaf buds sprouting, and even spotted the newly-returned black hawks hunting along the stream banks. Viewing our urban waterway through an historical and ecological lens, we began to appreciate that the Silver City Watershed has been irreparably altered from what it looked like pre-1800. We cannot return this area to a functioning cienega, but we do have the power to cultivate native plants, provide habitat for Gila wildlife, utilize this green zone for fire and sewer protections, and create open spaces for Silver Citizens to enjoy.

In the wake of World Water Day, we encourage our community to reflect on the importance of water in their lives and think of ways to conserve and protect our limited water resources! You can take action by changing a few or your daily water-use habits, joining our next community litter cleanup, volunteering for our River Stewardship restoration project, planting a climate-change-ready tree, or learning more about the species around you during City Nature Challenge.