ASU honors Friends of the Verde River for efforts to protect a fragile Arizona waterway
A group working to protect and preserve Arizona's Verde River was recognized Thursday by Arizona State University's Knowledge Exchange for Resilience.
Friends of the Verde River received the 2022 Resilience Prize for its work finding and putting to work solutions to ensure the long-term health of the Verde, one of Arizona's few rivers to flow year-round from its headwaters to its confluence with another waterway.
The Cottonwood-based group focuses on restoring habitat, sustaining river flows and bringing the community together for on-the-ground projects aimed at improving the health of the Verde.
In honoring the organization, the ASU center cited efforts to help residents and businesses along the river reduce or offset water use, and to engage community members as "citizen scientists" to widen the information available about water quality and the condition of the habitat.
The work "fosters participants’ connection to the Verde, activating more and more advocates for the river," the ASU center said in its announcement.
The winner of the Resiliency Prize is selected by the Council of Resilience Leaders, which includes representatives of community and government groups, businesses and educational institutions.
The prize is meant to honor "a group or organization in Arizona that has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to building community resilience through data, partnerships and systems change."
Verde River: How an Arizona river became a water conservation success story, for now
Greg Burton, executive editor of The Arizona Republic and a member of the council, presented the prize on Thursday.
“Friends of the Verde River is helping to ensure the resilience and long term viability of homes and businesses throughout the watershed, including metro Phoenix," Burton said. "As megadrought and climate change point toward further reductions to Arizona's share of Colorado River water, the Verde will become even more critical."
The river group began its work in 2007, as a group of volunteers assembled to look for ways to improve conditions along the river. They helped clear invasive plants and restore stretches of river banks, enlisting other volunteers for weekend work outings.
The Friends of the Verde River was formally established in 2011 and has partnered with a number of other organizations to expand its reach along the river. One of those partnerships led to the Verde River Exchange, which works with local homeowners and businesses to find ways to take less water from the river.
In just its first three years, the exchange helped keep nearly 10 million gallons of water in the Verde and the number has continued to grow steadily.
In 2018, the group worked with the Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Forest Service to assess the condition of the watershed and identified a number of issues and concerns that needed attention.
"Finding out that the river has declined as much as it has was kind of eye opening,” said Nancy Steele, Friends of the Verde River’s executive director. River base flows, for example, have decreased nearly 40% since 1990. “So ever since then, what we’ve been working on is projects specifically that will allow us to raise those scores.”
The group has helped restore over 12,000 acres of riverside habitat.
The ASU Knowledge Exchange for Resilience brings together researchers and leaders to address a range of issues "to build community resilience." The exchange has addressed the evictions crisis, the need for cooling centers during the heat season and housing loss across Maricopa County.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Friends of the Verde River honored with 2022 ASU Resilience Prize
