Friends of the Verde River present 2025 watershed report card; monitoring shows mixed results

David Gresley of Friends of the Verde River presented the 2025 Verde River watershed report card to the Clarkdale Town Council on April 14, describing regional trends in water quantity, quality, habitat and community engagement.

Gresley said the report card — the second produced on a five‑year cycle — found a modest overall score increase (about 58%, up 1% from 2020). He attributed the increase primarily to better monitoring coverage: the program now includes roughly 67 monitoring locations, which raised the certainty of the water‑quality assessment even as new impairments were documented in sections of the Middle Verde.

‘‘The water quality certainty went up, and the water quality itself went down,’’ Gresley said, adding that the finding reflects better measurement rather than necessarily a sudden decline in conditions. He urged continued emphasis on water‑quality monitoring and noted data gaps, particularly for macroinvertebrates, that limit full habitat assessment.

Gresley said habitat metrics showed improvement — riparian and upland scores rose as invasive species removal allowed native plants and bird populations to rebound — but native fish remain a challenge. He flagged sedimentation as a major concern and said Bartlett Reservoir is roughly 25% silted, which could contribute to calls for reservoir enlargement that would inundate several miles of river if not addressed.

Council members thanked Gresley and discussed how the town’s wastewater and water‑use planning might interact with watershed objectives. Town staff and councilors framed the report card as a tool for targeting conservation and monitoring investments.

Gresley and councilors noted that the Verde River provides a significant share of water for the Phoenix metro area and described the river as one of the Southwest’s most intact native‑vegetation river corridors that merits continued protection.