U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service courtesy of John West
An egret in the Lake Havasu City area is seen in this undated photo.
Monday, Feb. 5, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Temporary pumps will supply an important wetland habitat between Arizona and California with 5,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water while the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation builds an $8 million pumping station to keep the water level consistent for the long haul, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.
Topock Marsh, a 4,000-acre wetland, is a popular spot for boating, fishing, birding and hunting. It is located along the Colorado River in the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona.
Situated between the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, it is part of a major migratory route and habitat for 318 bird species, including the endangered Yuma Clapper Rail.
“The need for a permanent pump station to send river water into Topock Marsh goes back several years,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement. “A permanent pump station will provide a more reliable means to deliver water to Topock Marsh during low river flows.”
The temporary pumps will deliver water into the Fire Break Canal inlet through February.
The marsh’s elevation fluctuates between about 451 feet during the winter and 455 feet in the summer.
Once complete, the pumping station will keep the marsh at 456 feet, said Tim Dewar, a bureau spokesman. The marsh’s gravity-fed inlet at Fire Break Canal only activates when the river’s water rises high enough, he said.
The bureau began designing the $2 million pump station in 2022. Construction should be completed in January 2026.
Topock Marsh formed a few years after the Bureau of Reclamation constructed Parker Dam, creating Lake Havasu, in the 1930s. It is upstream of the lake, along the Colorado River’s eastern bank near Needles, Calif.
President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order declaring the area a national wildlife refuge in 1941 and placing it under protection of the newly formed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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