Pam Zubeck remembers when the Arkansas River flowed every day outside Garden City, Kansas. Zubeck writes of old-timers recounting about a river so wide, you had to board a ferry to cross in the Colorado Springs Independent. High School kids used to pedal their bikes to the river to check fishing lines in the summer.
Now, where there was once a river, there's a dry riverbed- a mecca for dirt bikers and four wheels. It’s also home to water guzzling tamarisks.
Estimates say the bushes between Pueblo, Colorado and the Kansas state line consume enough water to serve 376,000 people annually.
Efforts to eradicate the bush have achieved some success over a long period of time.
The spindly bush originates from Eurasia. It was used by the Army Corps of Engineers in the mid 19th century to stabilize riverbanks against erosion. Farmers deployed it and the invasive Russian olive in windbreaks.
A forecast about the spread of the bush and efforts to get rid of it are available from the Colorado Springs Independent.