New Mexico has joined the America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge, a national partnership effort to conserve and restore freshwater resources.
President Joe Biden announced the challenge in April as part of the Earth Week celebrations. The goal is to “protect, restore, and reconnect 8 million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of our nation’s rivers and streams by 2030,” according to a press release from April.
White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory explained, during a visit to Albuquerque on Thursday, that New Mexico’s waterways will receive more focus.. A map behind her showed areas of the state where waterways are no longer protected under the Clean Water Act due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Sackett decision. This includes ephemeral waterways as well as places like the Jemez River that run dry before connecting with larger waterways.
The Sackett decision led American Rivers to list New Mexico’s waterways as the “most endangered river” this year. In addition to the impacts of the Sackett decision, New Mexico is one of the states without its own surface water permitting system.
Mallory said that coordinated efforts are key in areas like New Mexico where the impacts of the Sackett decision are so great.
“New Mexico is doing a lot all by itself. But having the ability to get additional focus or sending in additional resources as they’re available, is really going to be a really important part to the success,” she said.
Joining the America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge does not necessarily mean more funding will be available to New Mexico. However, Mallory said it might make New Mexico more competitive in the future as it pursues federal resources. She said that the federal government, knowing that there’s already groundwork being done in New Mexico to restore and protect waters, may see funding projects in the state as having a greater potential impact compared to some other parts of the country.
“We are all working together to make sure we can continue to protect water,” Tanya Trujillo, the deputy state engineer, said.
She said that New Mexico is facing many challenges with water, including both drought and flooding.
“We have to be able to take care and manage our waters during all of the conditions that we may see,” Trujillo said.
The states, local governments, Tribal entities, businesses and nonprofits that have joined the challenge all agree to a set of commitments to restore and connect wetlands and waters.
One of the original members of the partnership was the Navajo Nation.
“To Navajos and all Indigenous people, water is a sacred element,” President Buu Nygren said in a statement in April. “We in the Southwest, and especially Navajos, are aware daily how precious water is to our life, our livestock, our crops, wildlife and the natural world all around us. We are pleased to join the Biden-Harris Administration in this initiative.”
Some of the other partners include Colorado, Amigos Bravos, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Audubon Society, New Mexico Wild, Patagonia, the Rio Grande International Study Center and Trout Unlimited.
“But New Mexico waters are in peril. We are in the eye of a perfect storm. We are in an arid state to begin with. And climate change is hitting us hard. Today 66 percent of our state is in drought conditions,” Tannis Fox with the Western Environmental Law Center said during the event in Albuquerque.
She said that while the majority of waterways in New Mexico do not run year round, they play important roles.
Speakers highlighted how contamination released into ephemeral waterways can jeopardize the water quality in acequias and even in waters that remain protected under the Clean Water Act.
New Mexico’s participation in the challenge complements actions that are outlined in the 50-year water plan unveiled in January.
“We’re going to be able to continue to implement our water quality protection programs, both surface water and groundwater, develop the necessary regulations that it’s going to take to make sure we can do those right and to do things like take care of our watersheds,” Trujillo told NM Political Report.
