Rio Arriba ranchers continue to oppose a state clean water proposal, even though its latest draft was diluted to meet their demands.
As much was clear at a public meeting Aug. 17 in Abiquiú, where the proposal’s newest draft got a cold reception. One man in the audience seemed to capture the atmosphere at the meeting when he elicited applause by accusing the proposal of trying to “give our state sovereign waters to the Feds.”
“You’re saying this is because of contamination from sewer plants in urban areas, Albuquerque, Santa Fe,” Michael Nevison told state Water and Wastewater Director Marcy Leavitt at the meeting. “Can you show me where the sewer plants are in the forest?”
Ignored at the meeting were concessions the state Environment Department made while re-drafting the proposal, specifically in response to comments made at similar meetings in El Rito last October and Alcalde this past January.
The proposal calls for designating waters within wilderness areas on federal land as “Outstanding Natural Resouce Waters.”
In general, the rules call for maintaining the water quality in those waters “at or above current levels.” Specifically, they would require the federal Forest Service to seek Department approval before conducting any activity — such as trail maintenance — that could affect the designated waters, Leavitt said. They would also require the oil, gas and mining industries to show their activities will not degrade the waters in order to receive permits, according to the proposal.
Unlike previous drafts, the new proposal specifically exempts grazing.
That change came in response to the criticism levelled at past public meetings, and to political muscle the proposal’s opponents flexed in the legislature. The changes were largely prompted in response to a joint memorial bill sponsored by Rep. Debbie Rodella (D-La Mesilla), which called for Gov. Bill Richardson and his cabinet secretaries to abandon the designation process, Leavitt said.
“That bill was aimed at specific concern’s in last year’s proposal,” she said. “So what we did is we exempted out grazing from the rules to address that. It’s a complete overhaul.”
The new proposal also scales back to exempt inventoried roadless areas, which are lands the Forest Service has slated for conservation, but not yet designated as wilderness areas.
Leavitt said any remaining objections to the proposal based on grazing rights is groundless.
A more stringent version of the proposal has been enacted on the Rio Santa Barbara within the Pecos Wilderness and on surface waters within the Forest Service’s Valle Vidal Special Management Unit. Ranchers continue to graze in those areas, Leavitt said.
“And we haven’t receive a single complaint,” she said. “(The objections) are just misinformed.”
Leavitt pointed out that early into the Aug. 17 meeting she asked how many of the 30-plus attendees had read the newest proposal, and hardly a handful raised their hands.
In fact, none of the proposal’s opponents at the meeting brought up at length any concerns about grazing. Most arguments instead orbited around historic land rights, mistrust of the government’s intentions, or both.
Northern New Mexico Stockmen’s Association President Carlos Salazar, for example, called the public meeting “a formality,” pointing out Leavitt had heard their objections before but still defended her Department’s proposal before a legislative committee.
Some of the proposal’s most vocal opponents later acknowledged the new draft addresses ranchers’ concerns, but said they still disagree with it. Rio Arriba County Manager Lorenzo Valdez, for example, said ranchers have historically wound up on the losing end of government conservation measures, and this one would be no different.
“I’m not in favor of the new rule,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing that winds up drawing the battle lines in court.”
The Department’s Water Quality Bureau will accept public comments on the designation through Aug. 31, after which it will be presented to the state Water Quality Board for approval,.
Comments can be submitted by e-mail to onrw.comments@state.nm.us or by mail to the New Mexico Environment Department, Attn: Marcy Leavitt, 1190 S. St. Francie Drive N2210, P.O. Box 5469, Santa Fe, NM 87502-5469. Copies of the draft proposal are available in hard copy by writing to the same address, or at http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/SWQB/onrw/index.html.