The Canadian River, largest tributary of the great Arkansas River, originates in the mountains of Colorado, flowing 760 miles to the Lake Meredith impoundment 45 miles northeast of Amarillo. The reservoir supplies eleven communities and 500,000 people with drinking water. Low water levels have shrunk the impoundment by several thousand acres.

Lower water levels in the reservoir reflect lower water levels in the river. One of the prime factors is the tamarisk, or salt cedar, a non-native plant that invades drainages along rivers in Texas and the southwest. A deep-rooted plant, a single specimen can absorb as much as 200 gallons of water from the soil each day—water that normally would have entered the River.

The Arkansas River Shiner, a federally threatened species with habitat in three Texas Counties, depends on a healthy flow of water in the Canadian River. In the 1950s, the plains minnow and the Arkansas River shiner made up more than 90 percent of the fishes in the River; in 1996, each species comprised less than one percent. The U.S.Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) agreed that if a restoration and reclamation plan was in place for the shiner, critical habitat and additional restrictions on landowners with habitat might not be needed.