Santa Clara and Ohkay Owingeh: Restoring the River Together

Decades of dams and channels changed the Rio Grande through the Española Valley, cutting the river off from the floodplain that once fed cottonwood and willow forests on Pueblo lands. Ohkay Owingeh has been quietly healing its own bosque since the 1990s, and its restoration work now reaches across hundreds of acres.

In 2022, Santa Clara Pueblo and Ohkay Owingeh signed a design agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers for the Española Valley Ecosystem Restoration Project, a roughly $100 million effort to restore 958 acres of river and riparian habitat on the two pueblos’ lands. It was described as the first project of its kind for the Corps, shaped by the pueblos’ own vision and knowledge, and it may take a decade to complete. Each pueblo leads its own section, the way neighbors share an acequia, and the benefits flow downstream to everyone.

Sources: Pueblos and Army Corps sign Española Valley restoration agreement (Santa Fe New Mexican via Stars and Stripes) · Ohkay Owingeh riparian restoration case study (Duke Nicholas Institute)