WildEarth Guardians

Friday, February 9, 2007
Protect even more N.M. waters

New Mexico needs to quickly and formally protect its best, limited water resources for the future
Contact: Mike Davis WildEarth Guardians

Gov. Bill Richardson has designated 2007 as the Year of Water, and during a Jan. 3 news conference Lt. Gov. Diane Denish stated that this year marks the centennial of "effective management of New Mexico's most precious resource - water."

Later in the month, Denish said in the rotunda of the Roundhouse that she and the governor agree that our state's economy and the well-being of our citizens are tied to "the health of our rivers and streams (and) depend on a continued supply of good, clean water."

In December of 2005, Richardson's office was instrumental in having all the waterways flowing through the Valle Vidal designated as Outstanding National Resource Waters - a seminal success that ensured no degradation to those rivers and streams in perpetuity and a tremendous precursor to Rep. Tom Udall's later legislation that has now successfully guaranteed that there will never be oil and gas exploration there.

Considering the salient nature of clean, abundant water to New Mexico's lifeways, the projected rapid growth of our population and the fact that, at best, New Mexico's precipitation rate is variable, it seems that similar protective measures should be wisely applied to other ecologically sensitive and pristine streams throughout our state.

WildEarth Guardians, using the same methods utilized by Richardson for the Valle Vidal - provisions in the Clean Water Act, citizen input and a petition to the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission - is moving forward with a plan to have the inventoried roadless areas and formal wilderness areas of the headwaters of the Pecos River within the Santa Fe National Forest designated as Outstanding National Resource Waters.

We hope this plan will be approved at the July 2007 meeting of the N.M. Water Quality Control Commission.

Simply put, New Mexico needs to quickly and formally protect its best, limited water resources for the future.

Copyright 2007 Albuquerque Tribune - Reprinted with permission