Endangered Rivers cited in new report

A new report on America’s most endangered rivers does not include any in Oklahoma but it contends climate change is the top threat to the rivers and water supplies.

The group American Rivers is out with its annual Most Endangered Rivers report stating that New Mexico’s Gila River is the No. 1 “most endangered” in the country because of the lack of water blamed on a hotter and drier climate.

The Gila is described as New Mexico’s last free-flowing river. Located in southwest New Mexico, it is also one of the few remaining wild rivers in the Colorado River Basin. But the report maintains that the river is also threatened by diversion dams.

Supporters of the river want New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to withdraw from a federal project to divert water for deliver of water to users in Arizona.

Ranked number 8 on the national report is the Buffalo National River in Arkansas. The report contends massive hog feedlots along the river in northwest Arkansas are the main pollution threat. It cites the spraying of liquid hog waste onto pastures and fields around the river.

The Arkansas Department of environmental Quality is in the middle of a fight with one feedlot operator.