Arizona Rivers (part 3) – Santa Cruz River

By: Claudia Kirscher

Liberty Wildlife Volunteer

[This article was originally published in the November 2011 edition of Nature News]

“A long time ago – no one knows just when – people paused beside the running water of the desert river. Their pause became a short stay. A short stay became a home. A home became many homes and these became a village. Watercourses were their highways. Permanent water is the magnet that draws life. Animals to hunt and plants to gather were plentiful. Farming and crops of corn, teparies, squashes, and other native foods were a good possibility. And thus it was that life evolved along the river.” By Bernard L. Fontana writing of the Rio de la Santa Cruz at Bac [sic].

The River of the Holy Cross was named by Fr. Kino in the 1690s using it as the primary avenue for expansion to the north. It has also been called: Rio de Santa Maria del Pilar, Rio de Santa Maria de Suamca, Rio de Tubac, and San Lucas.

The headwaters are in the San Rafael Valley, south of the town of Patagonia, east of the Harshaw Mtns. The San Rafael Valley is an important wintering area for grassland birds and overwintering raptors such as Ferruginous and Red-tailed Hawk, Merlin, Golden Eagle, the occasional Bald Eagle from Parker Canyon Lake, and Northern Harriers. Its pristine native grasslands support pronghorn year-round. The length of the Santa Cruz is an important bird flyway and staging rest stop for migration.

For roughly 32 miles, it flows south into Mexico to San Lazaro and then turns back north re-entering the US, 5 miles east of Nogales. It will continue north/northwest passing Tubac, Tucson, and Casa Grande, finally joining the Gila River southwest of Phoenix.

The major tributaries begin in the SR Valley at Bog Hole cienega, seeping springs above Vaca Ranch, Canelo Hills, the Huachuca and Patagonia Mountains. As it continues north it receives drainage from the various mountain ranges from the Santa Ritas north to the Catalinas. Except in flood, it has historically been a dry river bed, with occasional cienegas and marshes from seeps. However, its subterranean reservoir has been used faster than replenished.  The river is now mainly underground except along those areas supplied by treated effluent near Nogales and Tucson or during storm flooding.

Current threats are overuse of groundwater for urban areas, agriculture, overgrazing, ongoing drought, and severe erosion. The dry river bed is used as a dumping ground for trash. How sad to see stretches of my favorite river littered with tires, refrigerators, bottles, plastic, and the debris of our material world.

The drop in water tables has led to the loss of native cottonwood, alders, and willows along its banks. Early explorers described the river as crystal clear and full of fish, turtles, beaver, and muskrat. Early settlers also encountered black and grizzly bears, wolves, mountain lions and bobcats. In the 1930s, there was still a bosque of large cottonwoods, mesquite, and riparian areas near San Xavier Mission.

The cities and towns along the course of the Santa Cruz River continue their efforts at preservation and restoration of this unique and valuable resource. The ranchers in the San Rafael Valley practice conservative grazing management which has resulted in a healthy grassland system.

I encourage you to become informed and actively involved in nurturing and maintaining the health of our Arizona rivers.

Interesting fact: Movies filmed in the San Rafael Valley include “Tom Horn, Monte Walsh, and Oklahoma”. The Cameron Ranch headquarters in San Rafael Valley was used as the ranch house in “Oklahoma”.  ear the old border crossing at the town of Lochiel, SW corner of the Valley, corn was painstakingly grown to simulate Oklahoma landscape. Every morning, residents of Lochiel and film crews tied wax peaches on barren trees for filming lush spring and summer scenes, taking them down again at nightfall. More filming was done in the grasslands near Elgin. The biggest benefit from Hollywood was the underground electricity and phone lines that the locals insisted be done prior to filming, rather than unsightly utility poles. A far-thinking move that has kept the Valley with pristine grassland vistas.

Sources and quotes:  Where Water Flows – The Rivers of Arizona, by Lawrence Clark Powell. and Changing Rivers:  How People Have Affected The Rivers – Water Resources Research Center, College of Agriculture, The University of Arizona, March 1997 plus internet searches including Wikipedia and google books. 

MAKE IT PERSONAL AND BE PART OF THE SOLUTION !