Throughout most of its 52-mile length, from the Mexicali Valley in Baja California to southern California’s Salton Sea, the Alamo River is mostly a weed-choked gulley. Fed in large part by farm runoff, the river carries with it a safe-eating advisory from the state of California because of the stew of contaminants it contains. One small farming community, billing itself as the carrot capital of the world, recently completed a project designed to help rid the river of some of its pollutants and provide homes for threatened and endangered birds and wildlife, including the Yuma clapper rail. The 31-acre Holtville Alamo River Wetlands Project, a partnership that includes the Imperial Irrigation District, Imperial County, the Salton Sea Authority and Desert Wildlife Unlimited, was awarded $4.6 million in federal funding with $1.6 million coming from the Bureau of Reclamation’s Salton Sea Program budget.