The Friends of the Rio de Flag is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose goal is to protect, restore, clean up and improve the Rio de Flag and its tributaries to maximize their beauty, educational, recreational, and natural resource values, including the riparian habitats they provide.
Where is the Rio de Flag anyway? Click here to see a 3D image of the Rio watershed.
Join us on November 7 to hear Robert Wallace, the City’s Open Space specialist. He will be talking about the progress and plans for Picture Canyon, one of the jewels of the the Rio de Flag. Learn more about the wonderful places that Flagstaff has preserved all around town.
September 5 at the Montoya Center 245 N Thorpe Rd 6pm
The recent Museum Fire has brought quite a bit of attention to Spruce Avenue Wash, a stream that few in Flagstaff had heard about or even knew about prior to the fire. Spruce Avenue Wash is one of over a dozen washes that make up 88 miles of stream channel within the Flagstaff city limits. The watersheds of these washes vary from small urban drainages to the Rio de Flag that extents all the way to the top of the peaks. This presentation will provide a quick overview of the watersheds of Flagstaff including current and future work at the city to maintain and protect the watersheds and the challenges and threats to the stream courses. Hopefully the presentation will provide perspective, allowing the audience to understand the need and power of grassroots organizations like the Friends of the Rio.
Ed Schenk is a project manager with the City of Flagstaff’s Stormwater team. He has lived in Flagstaff for the last 4 years with additional hydrology and geology work at the Museum of Northern Arizona and the National Park Service. Ed was a research scientist with the USGS for the decade before moving to Arizona with river restoration experience in more than 10 states. He has a Master’s from Indiana University and over 30 publications on river, wetlands, and estuary ecosystem function. Last May Ed led a walk with the Friends of the Rio de Flag to the Cheshire Wetlands to look at the restoration potential of the Cheshire Pond.
Many thanks to the small but effective group of volunteers that helped touch up the Zuni Bowl construction site in Cheshire last Saturday. April Smith, Jenifer Lefere, Allison Lefere, and Alice Lefere all pitched in to install rock grade control in the construction bypass channel, pull weeds, rake out the spoils piles and plant native seed. These little details will help to mitigate the construction impacts and are greatly appreciated.
A big effort was organized by Sharon Masek Lopez, with the help of Collis and others that surveyed and cleaned out trash and debris from the Spruce Ave Wash channel downstream of Rt 66 in preparation for flooding. Those folks also get a big thank you from FoRio.
Volunteers Requested on the Rio de Flag!
Where: Corner of Boldt and Cooper in Cheshire, just downstream of the bridge over the Rio
When: Saturday August 3, 2019 at 8:30 am until 11:30 am
What: City of Flagstaff had a contractor construct a rock structure to stop a head cut in the Rio de Flag Channel. The contractor is done but there is a need for some site clean up, seeding, and minor rock work. Learn about erosion control and zuni bowl construction. Plus you will likely see water in the creek.
How: Show up with Gloves, sunscreen and water. We will have tools and direction on hand.
Contact: Allen Haden (928) 600-6649
| We will meet at the SW corner of the Sams Club parking lot and walk down South Babbitt Drive to the Rio de Flag near the treatment plant. From there we will head downstream past the I-40 wetlands and continue towards the Little America property. Wear comfortable walking shoes and be prepared to walk approximately 3 miles |
Welcome Kelly Burke!
We are pleased to introduce you to Kelly Burke, Friends of the Rio de Flag’s new Watershed Group Coordinator!
As Watershed Group Coordinator, Kelly will work with diverse stakeholders and the public to help expand and formalize the Watershed Group and create a watershed plan for the Rio de Flag. The goal of the plan is to outline watershed needs and opportunities, especially as these relate to restoration. This two-year project is being funded by a Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART Cooperative Watershed Management grant (Phase I).
Kelly brings a wealth of experience and training to the Friends of the Rio. As cofounder and Director of the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, a science-based conservation organization in Flagstaff, Kelly has overseen the completion of major restoration projects, including a collaborative riparian restoration plan with the National Park Service for the Glen Canyon Reach of the Colorado River. Her background is in structural geology, hydrology and aqueous geochemistry, fluvial geomorphology, geoarcheology, and springs and riparian restoration, which she combines with experience in coordinating field projects and conservation campaigns, building partnerships, community engagement, nonprofit leadership, and fundraising.
Kelly loves people, water, and wild nature with a common concern for their health, free movement, and full lives. We are thrilled to have Kelly join the organization and excited to have her strong leadership and positive attitude guide us through watershed planning in Flagstaff and the surrounding communities.
Please welcome Kelly!
Meet at the picture Canyon parking lot at 5:00 pm
Our walk on 6 June will start from the Picture Canyon Parking lot down to the Rio de Flag and then turn right on the FUTS route through the Wildcat Reach. This will be an out and back 2 mile walk. Jack Welch, well known and beloved leader of walks in the Flagstaff area and advocate for the Rio de Flag. He will take us into an area that he has long thought should be part of the Picture Canyon Open Space.
This is an excerpt from his July 17, 2017 Arizona Daily Sun column:
The section of the Rio de Flag east of Home Depot at the Flagstaff Mall and north of the railroad tracks has in recent years been called the Wildcat Reach. That segment of our ephemeral little river can be seen from East Route 66 down the slope from the ADOT yard.Countless years of abuse and maltreatment had that unit of the Rio looking more like an industrial dumping ground than a viable feature of a river system. Filled with trash and the coloration left from a long-abandoned paintball court, it seemed to be a permanent blemish on the body of Flagstaff.Not everybody, however, viewed the Wildcat Reach as irredeemable. Some could look past the highly damaged landscape and see an important city resource, a vital link into Picture Canyon and the possibility of a sustainable wetland.In 2008 the Flagstaff Stream Team did a survey and categorized the Wildcat Reach as one of the city locations most in need of restoration. Led by David McKee at a Make a Difference Day in 2011, a large group of citizen volunteers removed 8.2 tons of debris from the Wildcat Reach, including refrigerators, car parts and huge chunks of concrete.The unsightly paintball battlefield was completely eradicated. That space alone entailed the removal of 67 truck tires, many discarded couches and a dumpster full of invasive weeds.The Wildcat Reach of the Rio de Flag is located between East Route 66 and the Flagstaff El Paso Road. The section near East Route 66 is state trust land, then comes a segment of city owned property. The Coconino County parcel starts where the city land ends and follows a section of already constructed county trail to an open gate. From that point to the Flagstaff El Paso Road is city-owned land.Confused? Don’t be, because the county recently installed the easily identified section of trail between the two undeveloped pieces of city property and the State Trust Land still to be purchased. Once completed, the FUTS will connect East Route 66 through Wildcat Reach into the Picture Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve.Won’t it be wonderful when the FUTS is connected all the way through the Wildcat Reach and we can traverse Picture Canyon on a completed urban trail? And why not combine the Wildcat Reach and Picture Canyon into one city/county sponsored preserve?
Join us on Thursday, June 6 to see the changes, hopes and plans for the future of the Wildcat Reach.
with Ed Schenk, Stormwater Project Manager
A walk to look at restoration potential at Cheshire Pond
Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 from 5:30pm-7:00pm
Meet at the Northwest corner of the Museum of Northern Arizona’s parking lot. Wear comfortable shoes and dress for the weather of the day.
The Cheshire Pond Dam was built in the 1950s as a fishing pond. The dam location was likely selected to take advantage of the natural gorge that drained the Cheshire meadow before the neighborhood was developed. The resulting pond has rarely been managed, most recently by the Friends of the Rio as a wetland restoration on the fringe of the pond. The pond currently fills during monsoon rains and snowmelt but can dry completely in the early summer.
Ed Schenk, with the City’s Stormwater team will provide an overview of past activities at the pond and potential restoration and monitoring options including dredging the core pond to provide perennial surface water, wetlands plantings to increase biodiversity, and citizen science potential to engage the community in local watershed protection initiatives.
Ed Schenk is a project manager with the City of Flagstaff’s Stormwater team. He has lived in Flagstaff for the last 4 years with additional hydrology and geology work at the Museum of Northern Arizona and the National Park Service. Ed was a research scientist with the USGS for the decade before moving to Arizona with river restoration experience in more than 10 states. He has a Master’s from Indiana University and over 30 publications on river, wetlands, and estuary ecosystem function.
Participate as a citizen scientist during the 2nd annual Rio de Flag flow monitoring event! No experience needed. All equipment provided.
with Paul Beier
Thursday, April 4th, 2019
6:00pm-7:30pm
Montoya Community Center
245 N. Thorpe Road
The City of Flagstaff is currently considering potential new release sites for our reclaimed water, with the goal of recharging the C-aquifer that supplies the City’s water supply. This creates an exciting opportunity to create a year-round stream 1-2 miles long in the heart of the City!
Join us on Thursday, April 4th to learn about the amenity benefits from the four release sites under consideration. Paul Beier will describe the City of Flagstaff’s “groundwater recharge feasibility study” and the potential benefits to the Rio and its tributaries – and the people who love the Rio.
The speaker, Paul Beier, is Regents’ Professor of conservation biology at NAU. He is best known for his work on design of wildlife corridors, animal movement, and systematic conservation planning, and his studies of mountain lions, deer, owls, and goshawks. He is former President of the Society for Conservation Biology, and currently Secretary of the Board of the Friends of the Rio.