New Mexico’s rivers had been just lately named most endangered rivers within the nation, however Audubon Southwest is working with companions to assist enhance the well being and water in our rivers.
The nationwide non-governmental group American Rivers has been listing endangered rivers annually for years in a approach to spotlight precedence actions wanted to handle the well being of our nation’s most imperiled rivers. New Mexico rivers have been highlighted lately together with the Rio Gallinas (2023), Pecos River (2021) and Gila River (2019, 2014). This 12 months New Mexico holds the primary spot, and it’s not only for a single river, slightly all our rivers. That is the primary time American Rivers has listed a whole state’s rivers as being “most endangered,” and it highlights the vulnerability of our rivers to air pollution and dewatering as the results of the Could 2023 U.S. Supreme Court docket opinion within the case of Sackett v. Environmental Safety Company.
Sackett v. Environmental Safety Company
The “Sackett” case reintroduced the query of what constitutes protected “waters of the U.S.,” defining these as “a comparatively everlasting physique of water related to conventional interstate navigable waters.” This definition leaves desert streams and wetlands susceptible.
Audubon Southwest partnerships to guard the rivers
A primary spot within the American River’s endangered rivers listing is a wakeup name for our rivers. By our partnerships with different non-profits equivalent to Amigos Bravos, we advocate for the event of a state-base floor water-quality allowing program that may assist buffer the safety of our streams from air pollution and dewatering that can end result from lax federal requirements.
Audubon Southwest is concentrated on actions that enhance the well being and water in our rivers—an exercise that was direly wanted even earlier than the latest Sackett ruling. We deal with each policy initiatives and on-the-ground projects to guard our lovely but susceptible rivers. For instance, now we have been defining and defending the water wants of the Rio Grande in New Mexico together with a collective of different environmental non-governmental organizations in help of the Rio Grande Basin Examine in New Mexico (Basin Examine). A scientifically defensible framework for outlining and defending environmental movement targets within the Rio Grande of New Mexico is lengthy overdue. Aridification (much less precipitation) is rising throughout the American West, exacerbating current water administration challenges, and rising battle amongst competing water makes use of as water availability diminishes. The Basin Examine was initiated on January 24, 2023.
The Basin Examine is a WaterSMART-funded initiative led by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Center Rio Grande Conservancy District, with the participation of greater than 36 signatories representing a number of sectors and areas of experience. The Basin Examine goals to develop administration resiliency methods for the Rio Grande in New Mexico below local weather warming situations. As a part of this effort, water-use “sectors” are quantifying water wants that can be positioned into tradeoff fashions and instruments. The non-governmental organizations (NGO) Sectoral Committee of the Basin Examine, co-led by Audubon Southwest and New Mexico Wild, is comprised of 12 nationwide, regional, and statewide environmental organizations in addition to related companions. The NGO Sectoral Committee is embracing this chance to quantify environmental movement wants and related possible targets for the Rio Grande in New Mexico.
By this NGO collective, we’re defining how a lot water the Rio Grande wants in six reaches of Rio Grande and Rio Chama in New Mexico. These movement targets are being in contrast towards present circumstances and future predicted circumstances to grasp how a lot water is required in every attain and when this water is required most.
The understanding of these “environmental flow deficits” is getting used to compile examined methods and develop new methods to maintain our Rio Grande By the engagement of our NGO companions, now we have collectively developed a community of knowledgeable and ready-to-fix-it environmental movement practitioners. Many of those teams are straight engaged with on-the-ground activities which can be bettering river flows as you learn this. This community is paired with an identical coalition that’s centered on coverage fixes to enhance the stream movement of our rivers.
Within the face of grim local weather predictions and unfavorable courtroom rulings, our New Mexican river-protector group has by no means been so engaged with discovering on-the-ground options in addition to coverage fixes. It’s via these deep-reaching partnerships that I maintain hope for the way forward for New Mexico’s rivers.