Please join us on Saturday, April 23rd in celebrating Earth Day with the City of Flagstaff. The Friends of the Rio is partnering with AZ Conservation Corps to lead a community/Rio cleanup from 9am-11am and we’d love to have you out to help! We had a great time last year and made a big impact along the Rio near downtown. All participants will be entered into a prize drawing!

Please visit the Flagstaff Earth Day Facebook page for more information. If you’re interested in attending any of the workshops, please RSVP here indicating which workshops you will attend.

Volunteers from Heichal Baoranim/Temple in the Pines pose with 29 bags of waste removed during a cleanup event Sunday, April 3rd, 2016

We would like to extend our gratitude to the families from Heichal Baoranim/Temple in the Pines who came out to cleanup the Rio just downstream of Old Rte. 66 near Picture Canyon on Sunday, April 3rd. This particular stretch of the Rio becomes a landscape of trash each year as trash flows through a large part of Flagstaff’s stormwater infrastructure and ends up collecting at this site.

In just 2.5 hours these fifteen efficient volunteers collected thirteen bags of recyclable waste and sixteen of non-recyclable waste. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to keeping our watershed healthy and clean!

Join local artist Karen Knorowski (our December 2015 potluck guest speaker) for an exciting two-day workshop on the art of mosaic at Willow Bend Education Center. Participants will learn and practice important mosaic techniques while focusing on the “indirect method”. Completed works will be permanently displayed on the North Thorpe Road Bridge near Francis Short Pond as part of the Rainbow de Rio Mosaic Project.

All materials will be provided and are included in the cost of the workshop. All levels welcome, ages 18 and up. Two-day workshop: $140. Discounts available for Willow Bend members and if you are interested in attending both workshops.

• 1st workshop series: May 28-29, 9am-4pm
• 2nd workshop series: June 11-12, 9am-4pm

About Karen and the Rainbow de Rio Mosaic Project : Karen Knorowski is a full-time art teacher at an elementary and middle school on the Hopi reservation. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from NAU and has attended numerous classes at the Institute of Mosaic Art in Berkeley, California. Karen is currently working on the Rainbow de Rio Mosaic Project which is a celebration of the various habitats, plants, animals, and overall ecological importance of the Rio de Flag as expressed through the art of mosaic.

Upon completion of the 2-day workshop, participants are encouraged to join Karen at the mosaic site to help complete the project while learning the “direct method”. This will be a volunteer opportunity and will take place later in the summer; dates will be announced.

Please visit Willow Bend’s Adult Education webpage to register.

Canyon of the Rio de Flag at Logan’s Crossing, Coconino National Forest, east of Flagstaff. Photo courteous of Tom Bean

A Look Through Time: From Creating a Riparian Reserve with Treated Effluent to Exploring Opportunities for Open Space

Scott Anderson, Natural Resource Manager, Coconino County

Conservation and public education go hand in hand. Please join us tonight, Thursday, March 3rd, for a presentation by Scott Anderson, Natural Resource Manager for Coconino County. In an effort to support conservation and education interests, Scott founded a Riparian Institute in the Town of Gilbert and created a 308 acre riparian preserve using treated effluent. Today Scott’s conservation efforts focus on acquisition and management of Natural Areas with the goal of enhancing the Open Space and Parks system for Coconino County.

We look forward to seeing you tonight, Thursday March 3rd at 6:00PM at the Montoya Community Center for a presentation by Scott Anderson. Enjoy the sunshine!

Dear friends and family,

During Summer 2015 we applied for and received a Community Initiatives Grant with the goal of moving our website to a WordPress platform in order to give Board members better access to updating and posting on the website. After a few months, and with the help of a local web designer (Jesse Waitz), we launched our new site in early February. We hope you enjoy it! Please be patience as we continue to update and edit the site during the next few months, and feel free to contact us at deflagrio@gmail.com with any questions.

Sincerely,

Board of Directors, Friends of the Rio de Flag

Arizona Daily Sun Editorial • April 30, 2015

The purple dashed line shows the proposed Flagstaff Urban Trail System alignment from Old Route 66 to Townsend Winona Road. The proposed trail will pass through areas where the city and the county are working to restore the Rio de Flag riparian area.

When it comes to the Rio de Flag, Flagstaff can’t give the little ephemeral stream too much attention.

At nearly every twist and turn, the city and volunteer groups have lavished it with trails, holding ponds, marshes, interpretive signs and regular cleanups.

And if there are sections without those amenities, then there are plans to change that. It’s a far cry from when townsfolk referred to the “River de Flag” and used it to dispose of trash – or worse.

In recent decades, the portion of the Rio de Flag that runs through downtown has surfaced as a major flooding threat, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. But although the Corps has placed nearby properties in a 100-year-floodplain, thus limiting their development prospects, it hasn’t come through with much money to fix the problem. After years of delay, the cost to widen and deepen the channel has ballooned to $90 million, although some locals believe the city could do it for about $30 million less. (read more…)

Arizona Daily Sun • April 28, 2015 • By Emery Cowan

David McKee with the city of Flagstaff’s stormwater management department stands above the Rio de Flag waterway. The city of Flagstaff is in the midst of a project to restore the river’s historic watershed. Photo by Emery Cowan © AZ Daily Sun.

After it winds through Flagstaff, squeezing between homes, under roads and through culverts, the Rio de Flag ends up on the eastern edge of the city.

Here, boulders decorated with ancient petroglyphs rest in the shadows of construction trucks, and wildlife tracks appear just feet from a Cemex building materials work yard.

Here, the industrial uses that have been pushed to the city’s edge run up against, and tumble into, a rare ribbon of riparian habitat.

“A lot of this area was taken for granted as a trash dump for a long number of years,” said Andy Bertelsen, the county’s director of public works.

This is also the place where the city of Flagstaff has spent the better part of the past decade restoring the Rio de Flag’s path, step by step. The final vision is to extend the Flagstaff Urban Trail System for 3.3 miles along the newly restored riparian area. The trail would connect Doney Park to the existing FUTS trail near the Flagstaff Mall and wind through Picture Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve. (read more…)

AZ Daily Sun • SUZANNE ADAMS-OCKRASSA SUN STAFF REPORTER

The Rio de Flag runs near the library during the snowstorm that hit Flagstaff recently. Photo by Shannon Clark.

The city of Flagstaff is hoping for another $500,000 from the federal government to complete the design of the Rio de Flag Flood Control project.

In a report to Flagstaff City Council, Deputy City Manager Josh Copley detailed the city’s annual lobbying trip to Washington, D.C. This year’s delegation included Copley, Mayor Jerry Nabours and Councilmembers Karla Brewster and Jeff Oravits. At the top of the list of topics to discuss with federal representatives was the Rio de Flag Flood Control project.

The project is designed to channel the water from a 100-year flood away from the city’s center. The city and the federal government have been working on the project since 2000. The original cost of the project was estimated at $24 million. It now has an estimated cost of $106 million. This year the city’s delegation to Washington asked for an additional $500,000 to complete the design of the project.

At Tuesday’s Council meeting, Copley said the trip was a great success. The delegation was able to meet with nearly all of the Congress members and federal staff members it needed to on the topic it wanted to discuss.

Vice Mayor Celia Barotz asked if there was any part of the trip that was disappointing.

Nabours said Rio de Flag project continues to be a source of frustration.

“It just seems like it’s just one issue after another. We just keep pushing it along. I think what we accomplished on that is to keep that project moving,” he said.

Copley said the delegation was able to meet with Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake and Reps. Paul Gosar and Ann Kirkpatrick. All four congressional members agreed to support the project and reach out to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The delegation also met with representatives from the Energy, Science and Water Division of the Office of Management and Budget about possible funding to complete the design phase. The representatives from OMB also said they would contact the Corps of Engineers for more information on the project.

The deputy chief of the South Pacific Division of the Corps of Engineers recommended that the city contact the Corps’ assistant secretary as soon as possible about the funds.

Nabours told the rest of Council that it was important to keep the project at the forefront of the Corps and OMB’s attention. There are probably thousands of similar projects across the nation that are competing for the same pool of money. If the city doesn’t keep on top of the federal government, the project will never be completed.

Nabours also said that the delegation received some good news on another part of the Rio de Flag project concerning the purchase of property from the railroad. Federal laws states that land that was given to the railroad by the federal government must be returned to the government if the railroad no longer has a use for it.

Nabours said the delegation found out that a similar situation has come up before and there is federal precedent for selling federal land owned by the railroad to another entity. It will however, take an act of Congress in order for the sale to go through.

Nabours said he wasn’t too worried about the city getting approval for the sale of the property because the issue is usually not contentious and it had the support of Reps. Gosar and Raul Grijalva and Sen. Flake.

The delegation also met with the Arizona members of Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service on forest health, Copley and Nabours said.

Sens. McCain and Flake have proposed a wildfire protection bill that would focus on preventing wildfires and less on mitigation during and after fires.

According to Copley’s report to Council, the delegation expressed the city’s frustration with how slowly the work with Good Earth and Campbell Group on the Four Forest Initiative was going. They also asked for further funding for federal staff in the Flagstaff area to continue the work on the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project and environmental impact statement and record of decision on the project.

The delegation also planted the seeds of interest in federal help with widening the Fourth Street bridge over Interstate 40 and the Lone Tree Road I-40 interchange, Nabours said.

It also found support for a veterans home in Flagstaff from its congressional members.