Arizona Enlists a Beetle in Its Campaign for Water,2014

Arizona Enlists a Beetle in Its Campaign for Water

The New York Times  

LEES FERRY, Ariz. — In this corner of America known for its vast landscapes, rugged mountains and deep river canyons, signs of the havoc created by the minuscule tamarisk beetle are everywhere.

For miles along the banks of the Colorado River, hundreds of once hardy tamarisk trees — also known as salt cedars — are gray and withered. Their parched branches look like victims of fire or drought.

But this is not the story of beloved trees being ravaged by an invasive pest — quite the opposite. Farmers, ranchers and the water authorities here are eager to get rid of the tamarisk trees, which are not native to Arizona and which they say suck too much water.

They have welcomed the beetles, which have made their way from Colorado and Utah over the last decade, and have watched with delight as the centimeter-long workhorses have damaged the trees by eating their spindly leaves. The hope is that the beetles will now rid Arizona of the trees.
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Tamarisk beetles were released in Colorado about a decade ago and have now moved to Arizona, where officials hope they will stop the spread of the tamarisk tree. The tree consumes considerable water. Credit Samantha Sais for



“We view the tamarisk as a pest,” said Joseph Sigg, the government relations director at the Arizona Farm Bureau. “Water is an expensive input, and to the extent that we can lower it, the beetle can help.”

But scientists say that nature is rarely a zero-sum game, and that removing the deep-rooted tamarisks — which the authorities have tried with bulldozers, chain saws and now beetles — will not produce more water. New tamarisks or other trees will replace the fallen ones, the scientists say, and the birds that live in the tamarisks, like the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, will be harmed. Plus, once the beetles are done eating tamarisk leaves, they are likely to feed on other trees.

Better to view replacing the tamarisk as a way to increase biodiversity, not save water, they said.

“It’s one of the paradoxes of the tamarisk: There are worse alternatives,” said Kelly Burke, the executive director of the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, which removed acres of tamarisk along the Colorado River and replaced them with native trees like cottonwoods and willows. “Usually at the core of it is a simplistic equation that public officials and community leaders get in their head.”

The debate about eliminating the tamarisk as a way to save water has thrust the beetle into a wider debate about the unintended consequences of trying to repair an environment that humans have altered dramatically over the years.

Since they first settled the West, Americans have fought a never-ending battle to find and conserve water to support people living in an inhospitable desert, even if the financial and ecological costs were high.

In June, the Central Arizona Project, which manages the 336-mile water system that carries water from the Colorado River to Arizona’s cities, said deliveries to Phoenix and Tucson might be cut by the end of the decade if water consumption was not reduced. Lake Mead, a Colorado River reservoir that is the network’s sole water source, fell this month to a level not seen since the lake was filled in 1938.
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Ruinous droughts and rapid population growth in recent years have strained the state’s vulnerable water supply and heightened the scramble to find new solutions, from desalination to cloud seeding to vegetation management, which includes eliminating the tamarisk.
The tree has been an easy scapegoat.
 

 Tamarisk trees at Glen Canyon in Arizona. The trees consume considerable water, which has made them a target for farmers, ranchers and water authorities.

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