Elegy for Del Rio / Forgotten Language

Mixed Media: Found and formed metal, cottonwood and other branches, glass beads formed into Fringed Willow-herb (Epilobium ciliatum), Seep Monkeyflower (Mimulus guttatus), Fragrant Bedstraw (Galium triflorum), and a rare riparian sunflower (Bidens laevis), all historically common at Del Rio Springs.

22” x 28” x 28”

If you look to your right while driving across the grasslands of Chino Valley, you’ll see just past road 4 North, a distant line of skeletal Cottonwoods. They mark the site of Del Rio Springs, a once verdant Cienega where water bubbling to the surface created marshy habitat that nurtured an intricate web of riparian life; from damselflies to Bald Eagles, Yellow Monkeyflowers to frogs and tiny snakes and nesting Herons.

The generous waters of Del Rio Springs supported human life also. In 1863 the first Territorial Capital was established at Del Rio. Homesteaders farmed there, and for decades Santa Fe tank cars hauled its precious gift of water to supply development of Seligman, Ash Fork, Williams, Winslow, and the South Rim of  Grand Canyon. Dairy products from Del Rio Ranch fed the Fred Harvey tourist enterprises along the Santa Fe tracks from Chicago to Los Angeles.

But Del Rio’s beneficence could not keep up with the seemingly insatiable demand for pumped groundwater. Now the depleted springs generate just a fraction of pre-colonial flow. The riparian habitat has unraveled.

Within the lifetimes of our grandparents, Del Rio Spring filled four miles of Little Chino Creek and joined Big Chino Wash to form the headwaters of the Verde River. Because we humans have come too late to the wisdom of restraint – of not taking everything just because we can – the loss of all that was good and green and abundant and beautiful at Del Rio Springs is a glimpse into the future of the Upper Verde River.

With great appreciation to Dr. Larry Stevens, director of the Springs Stewardship Institute and Curator of Ecology at the Museum of Northern Arizona for his help with species information.

I want to tell what the forests were like I will have to speak in a forgotten language

W.S. Merwin, The Rain in the Trees