Arizona’s Santa Cruz River is currently imperiled. Stretching for 180 miles through major cities like Tucson and into the Sonoran desert, the Santa Cruz River is in danger of drying up because of human factors like climate change and irresponsible wastewater disposal. Yet even though sewage is not the stuff of romance and legend, the same gross stuff that has helped imperil the Santa Cruz River may help save it.
Wastewater is filled with human feces, garbage and other gross gunk that carries dangerous disease, and is piped away from our civilization for that reason. Yet according to a recent study in the journal Restoration Ecology, effluent — or sewage that has been dumped into a body of water, like a river or ocean — can be used to help the environment, at least if used strategically.
The scientists decided to address the loss of freshwater biodiversity in urban areas, where rivers continue to be dewatered, channeled and dried up due to climate change. In Arizona’s Santa Cruz River, where effluent has restored the flow more than 100 years after the river dried up, the researchers discovered over a two year period that large invertebrates flourished after the initial flow was restored and channels were dredged. Importantly, these population growths were sustained up to two years later.