TexasHornshell_HighandDry_Miller_Tom_LaredoTX_12January2024_Reel4185.mp3

Tom Miller [00:00:01] Big Bend was always known.

Tom Miller [00:00:02] I mean, it was one of the last explored areas of our country. It didn't get totally paddled until, I think, it was an Army engineer went through in the late 1800s, finally, and went through all those canyons.

Tom Miller [00:00:16] And, I mean, it must have been a tremendous, incredible wild river, wild water up there.

Tom Miller [00:00:22] But the mussels were thriving, and they had found their refuges, cracks in the boulders that were up in that area.

Tom Miller [00:00:30] But, you know, and all that water was mainly coming from, at a certain time, up until, you know, 1910, from the upper Rio Grande in the Rocky Mountains.

Tom Miller [00:00:41] But then it was cut off to just the Conchos.

Tom Miller [00:00:43] And then as NAFTA created these agricultural opportunities, seven reservoirs are now on the Conchos. And so the flow - for fifty years, Mexico gave us more than they ever had to. But for the last twenty, they've had a hard time giving it to us.

Tom Miller [00:01:00] And so that water level slowly has gone down.

Tom Miller [00:01:05] I know in my first time at Big Bend, I expected to raft the river. But instead, the guy had to paddle us through.

Tom Miller [00:01:13] And as we went back later on with the researchers, what I personally found I would investigate above where the river is, and I would find these ancient and huge hornshells that had been left without water.

Tom Miller [00:01:31] And so, you've got to have the water for mussels to thrive.

Tom Miller [00:01:35] And with our demand, people ask me, "What's going to be the problem of the future?" I say, look, "It's water demand. Are we going to be able to have enough for us, and the flora and fauna that live in these rivers?"

Tom Miller [00:01:48] So that, those are concerns.