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Article: After several centuries of human abuse, it's time to save the historic Rio Grande.(Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- June 12, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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LAS CRUCES, N.M. _ When senior U.S. and Mexican officials meet along the border June 14 to talk about the Rio Grande, the agenda will have nothing to do with immigration, drug interdiction or even water rights.
As pressing as such problems are, there is another that dwarfs them all: Saving the river itself. The Rio Grande, simply put, is dying. It has been dammed, drained, diverted and polluted for so long that it is very nearly the riverine equivalent of a desiccated longhorn lying in the desert, its sun-bleached bones the only evidence of its former life.
Although in a few places it still harbors extraordinary bio-diversity, in most others there is ...