Restoring Salt River’s Ecosystem
Working with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Stanley Consultants designed a plan to restore Arizona’s Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community lands to its natural beauty and wildlife habitat.
This USACE ecosystem restoration project takes place on Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) lands, between the diversion dam at Granite Reef (where the entire river is channeled into irrigation canals on the north and south sides of the river) and the Tempe Town Lake. This dry reach of the river has lost nearly all of its former flora and fauna, and has been altered by gravel mining, road crossings, solid waste disposal, and other human activities.
The area's natural beauty and wildlife habitat had been lost and Stanley Consultants' plan was to restore the area to its former glory. The design included grading and reshaping the river to create a new low-flow channel that will meander through the stream bed, nourishing some 2,000 acres of new Cottonwood-Willow, Mesquite, Wetlands, and Sonoran Desert Scrub habitat. An interpretive trail, with trailhead, parking and restroom facilities was part of the design, as well as remotely monitored and operated pump stations, wells, irrigation, access roads and trails, as well as design of the braided low-flow channel with islands, scour protection, and grade control structures.