Teresa Seamster,
Northern New Mexico Group
There is not much to top spending a day in the late-summer sunshine, wading and checking the waters of some of our northern rivers.
Eric and Nora Patterson are the linchpins of the Taos Water Sentinels. Skilled at all aspects of sampling and monitoring water quality, they keep records on the rivers of Northern New Mexico, train volunteer monitors, team up with Amigos Bravos and Taos High School students to provide vital water measurements for lab analysis and send results to the state Environment Department.
Our state is strapped for funding when it comes to monitoring our many streams and rivers. The Pattersons have secured their reputation with the state with their reliable data ...
By John Buchser,
Rio Grande Chapter Water Chair
The Rio Grande Chapter is helping to protect the aquifers of New Mexico by monitoring quarterly reports from 13 dairies we suspect are polluting our groundwater.
Dairies produce large amounts of waste in the process of keeping their milking facilities clean. This waste includes large quantities of manure, which is ultimately applied to fields as fertilizer for crops. The storage of this waste can be a safe process if the waste pits are lined with impermeable (synthetic) liners. However, in the development of recent regulations, there was industry opposition to these liners, due to the claimed cost. As a result, clay liners are now allowed.
The majority of dairies use plastic ...
By Susan Martin,
Chapter Executive Committee
In August, New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn announced he was stepping down. In September, he was named New Mexico Oil and Gas Association executive director.
A recent Santa Fe New Mexican article about the Martinez administration’s favors to Helena Chemical Co. exposes just how submissive Gov. Susana Martinez and Flynn have been to polluting industries and campaign contributors. But advocates who have defended clean-water safeguards against Flynn’s dismantling efforts already knew that.
Almost any new Environment boss would be an improvement, given Flynn’s plundering of air and water protections at the behest of polluting industries.
The examples of this type of behavior from Flynn’s tenure are numerous. Most egregious was when Flynn discarded his own ...
Below are the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter’s comments on the New Mexico Environment Department’s proposed changes to groundwater regulations.
The Environment Department says the changes will improve the state’s compliance with federal water requirements. But the changes would also allow facilities to permanently skirt water-quality rules and would weaken standards on some contaminants.
The biggest issue: The department is proposing that variances, which temporarily excuse facilities from complying with groundwater rules, become permanent.
Variances are supposed to be temporary exceptions to water-quality rules to be reviewed every five years (with public notice and participation) to give facilities time to come into compliance, not a permanent excuse to ignore the rules. Removing time limits also removes the public’s chance to oppose ...
Below are the New Mexico Environmental Law Center’s objections to the NMED proposed revisions to
the groundwater and surface water regulations, which are available here. Some of the proposed changes are onerous and directly attack public participation, make variances essentially permanent, and take the Kirtland spill “off the books” in terms of regulation
- On page 10, a proposed revision to variances would permit variances to be granted for periods in excess of 5 years. There would be no cap on the duration of a variance. They raise the following question: if a variance is now in perpetuity, is it even a variance? Currently, the proposed revision says that NMED will review the variance every 5 years, along with a discharge permit (DP) renewal; that the existence and nature of a variance shall be ...
