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BUCKEYE, Ariz. — A portion of the Gila River near downtown Buckeye is being transformed from a brush-choked riverbed into an environmentally beneficial mesquite tree bosque.
The Flood Control District’s Buck Fire Revegetation Project is focusing on eliminating salt cedar plants on a 50-acre site on the north side of the Gila River along the Miller Road alignment. In June 2005, the Buck Fire swept through this site and another 500 acres of salt cedar brush along the river. Salt cedar, however, is a tenacious plant which quickly re-establishes itself. In the three years since the fire, salt cedar grew back in thickets nearly 18 feet in height.
The District has now eradicated the salt cedar vegetation and will be filling the freshly cleared space with native mesquite trees planted in different densities. District environmental staff will monitor the site to determine which density of mesquites prevents the regrowth of salt cedar.
Ultimately, the elimination of salt cedar will improve water flow in the river channel, enhance wildlife habitat and reduce the chance of another major brush fire.
Clearing the site of salt cedar, the first and most tedious stage of the project, was completed in mid-December 2008 by a District Operations and Maintenance (O&M) crew. In October, O&M bulldozers and other heavy machinery began a task complicated by unstable sandy soil, a dangerous 10-foot drop-off to the river channel, and salt cedar thickets so dense that bulldozer operators had difficulty locating survey markers.
The brush was pushed into trenches and burned. This process eliminated the process of moving waste off site and added nutrients to the soil.
By the middle of February 2009, experimental plots of velvet and screwbean mesquite trees were planted on the site. The trees came from the District's tall pot nursery, where trees are grown with long tap roots which boost survivability in areas where an irrigation system is not practical. Upper terraces at the site were sowed with native grass and shrub seeds shot from hydroseeding equipment.
The District was careful to abide by the strict environmental regulations related to working in and around a watercourse. In addition, a burning permit was obtained from the Maricopa County Air Quality Department. The O&M crew followed federal PM-10 dust control regulations throughout the clearing process by spraying water pumped from an adjacent Buckeye Water Conservation and Irrigation District canal through an agreement with the agency.
The District partnered with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the owners of the 50-acre site, and the Town of Buckeye, which provided easement for a temporary equipment yard.
Past flooding along the Gila has been destructive. In 1978, just east of the Buck Fire project site, the small community of Allenville was wiped out by floodwater. Revegetation projects like Buck Fire, in conjunction with the District’s river bank stabilization structures, are designed to mitigate this flooding hazard.
The Buck Fire Revegetation Project is part of the El Rio Watercourse Master Plan, a comprehensive flood control, river rejuvenation, habitat enhancement and multi-use recreation plan for a 17.5-mile stretch of the Gila River through Avondale, Goodyear and Buckeye.
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