Something quite splendid has returned to the once drought-stricken main pond at Agua Caliente Park: water.
The pond, the scenic centerpiece of the park northeast of Tucson, had all but dried up in July 2014 as a result of years of drought and the failure of the hot-water spring that fed the 3.5-acre basin.
Now — thanks mainly to increased pumping from a well and abundant monsoon rains — the pond looks a lot more like the desert oasis treasured by generations of Tucsonans.
“We have stabilized the water levels at about 8.5 inches from the overflow point for the main pond for the past 10 months after last summer’s historic low draw down,” said Kerry Baldwin, manager of Pima County’s Natural Resources Division. The county manages the park northeast of Tucson.
“This is about what the water level and depth was in the past during much of the year,” Baldwin said. “Even five to 10 years ago, when we had a ‘full’ pond, it was always only about 3 to 5 feet deep on the average.”
He said maintaining the current water level requires pumping about 80,000 gallons of well water into the pond daily.
“We repaired a failed well last July to allow more dependability, flexibility and ability to put more water volume into the historic pond as necessary,” Baldwin said.
SPRING WATER SCARCE
“We have unfortunately not seen any real recovery of the natural spring flows,” Baldwin said. “We thought we might see some increase after fall and winter rains and then our wet summer rains — but not yet.”
He said some subsurface water is getting from the spring to the pond.
“But it’s minimal and usually not measurable flow rates,” Baldwin said. “With all the rain we’ve had, many people think the drought is over.
“But this wonderful wet summer can’t change in a few months the impacts of the drought conditions we’ve experienced over 15 of the last 16 years.”
TOO MANY CATTAILS
During the pond’s low-water period, conditions were just right to nurture an “explosive expansion” of cattail plants once the pond was refilled with water, Baldwin said.
“We estimate that we got an increase of about 30 percent cattail surface coverage during the past eight months,” he said. “We hope to do some cattail management in the fall to selectively remove and manage some of that increased growth while maintaining habitat for resident and migratory wildlife. This will also provide more open water surface in the pond.”
