“Dude, this is weird.”

Paul Gaytan is an accomplished lawyer who chooses his words carefully. But after paddling 31 miles on the Rio Grande on a day that refused to warm above 45, he did not have many options as we walked through the vacant Los Ebanos Ferry Terminal and U.S. Customs port of entry.

We started paddling at 8:30 a.m. from Rio Grande City and were amazed to find a small waterfall pouring over a limestone shelf less than four miles from the city center. A family of coyotes scampered across the cascade and entered Mexico just as we arrived. It looked like we were in the Hill Country of Central Texas.

Over the next five hours of paddling, the only people we saw were some young men quickly paddling a raft from Mexico to the United States and families fishing.

The only sign of the Border Patrol was a blimp and two helicopters.

Gaytan is used to paddling farther downstream on the Rio Grande where National Guard troops and Texas Department of Public Safety officers share the watch with Border Patrol agents. You can’t go anywhere without seeing someone in uniform.

Pulling out at the ferry terminal, we smiled at the security cameras and wondered where all the people were. We had spent the past hour talking through contingency plans in case customs officials did not believe our story of paddling the river.

Instead, we could not find anyone and walked around the compound.

In 20 minutes, Gaytan’s wife, Claudia Gaytan, picked us up and we were headed to a warm house and a hot meal.

The only weird thing about that was before this trip I had never met the Gaytan family. But because we share a facination for the Rio Grande and like to paddle it felt perfectly normal for us to trust eachother and for me to take over their spare office while the temperatures drop to freezing and the rain comes back.

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What do these numbers mean?

As they travel, Colin and Erich are taking water samples for the following periodic water quality tests. In partnership with The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment’s Texas Stream Team Program at Texas State University, the results will be added to a public database it helps maintain for research and monitoring water quality.

Air/Water Temperature: Temperature impacts everything from the amount of oxygen in the water and the metabolism of aquatic species to how easily compounds dissolve. Most species can tolerate slow seasonal changes but can go into thermal stress or shock when temperatures change by more than one or two degrees Celsius in 24 hours.
pH Level: The pH scale measures water’s acidity and runs on a logarithmic scale from 1.0 to 14.0, with 7.0 considered neutral. Anything below 7 is acidic and anything above is basic. A pH range of 6.5 to 8.2 is optimal for most organisms.
Dissolved Oxygen: Oxygen is just as vital for life below the surface as it is above. The amount needed varies according to species and stage of life, but generally 5.0 to 6.0 milligrams per liter is required for growth and activity. Levels bellow 3.0 mg/L are stressful to most fish species and levels below 2.0 mg/L for an extended period of time will cause fish kills.
Conductivity: Conductivity levels depend mainly on how easily the rocks and soils a stream passes through dissolve. For example, high levels of conductivity are often found with water that passes through limestone and gypsum because it will pick up the calcium, carbonate and sulfate from those rock formations. However, discharges into a water body, such as a failing sewage system, can also raise the conductivity because of the presence of chloride, phosphate and nitrate.
Water Clarity: Turbid water can come from high levels of sediment or plankton. Both will block sunlight to aquatic plants and the sediments can carry pollution such as nutrients and pesticides. Low levels of turbidity may indicate a healthy and well-functioning ecosystem. High levels can be an indicator of runoff from eroding soils or blooms of microscopic plankton due to high levels of nutrients.
E. coli: E. coli bacteria are found in the colon of warm-blooded animals. If the pathogen is found in water it’s an indicator that fecal mater from humans, pets, livestock or wildlife is also present and may pose a public health threat. For drinking water the standard is to have no E. coli. But almost all non-treated water has some E. coli in it and at low levels it does not represent a substantial health threat to those who swim or wade in it. The Environmental Protection Agency has set the water quality standard for these types of activities at 126 colony forming units per 100 mL.
Secchi disk transparency: The Secchi disk is a plain white, circular disk used to measure water transparency in bodies of water. It is lowered into the water of a lake or other water body until it can be no longer seen. This depth of disappearance, called the Secchi disk transparency, is a conventional measure of the transparency of the water.

Check-In	Time of Check-In (CST)	Latitude	Longitude
#1	7:19 a.m.	26.37762	-98.81558
#2	8:27 a.m.	26.36845	-98.80594
#3	9:42 a.m.	26.32782	-98.78243
#4	11:10 a.m.	26.30266	-98.75592
#5	1:13 p.m.	26.26497	-98.69226
#6	1:42 p.m.	26.24414	-98.67816
#7	2:49 p.m.	26.25793	-98.62582
#8	4:02 p.m.	26.24289	-98.58411
#9	4:42 p.m.	26.23945	-98.56482

About

To report on and understand the haphazard irrigation system the Rio Grande has become and the changes it is going through, Colin decided the best approach would be to travel the length of the Rio Grande by foot and small boat.

He knew it would give him a unique perspective on a river that few understand. It did require many long days of moving slowly and camping on muddy riverbanks, but Colin likes that sort of thing.

The benefit was it provided access to people who wanted to share their stories and experiences with the Rio Grande. Via Facebook and chance encounters, Colin made instant friends who opened their homes. They provided help from loaning their trucks to their cell phone contact lists to help tell the story of the Rio Grande.

The trip would not have been possible without their help, along with the dedicated assistance of David Lozano, Jason Jones and Daniel Dibona, who drove thousands of miles to get people and boats in place.

Disappearing Rio Grande

Why Follow the Rio Grande

Jan. 8, 2015

Expectations, Day 203

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Measurements #

What do these numbers mean?

Check-ins #