In the 1970's
the US government commissioned a group of 100 freelance photographers to document life
in the US. With a particular focus on the environment. And on the pollution and waste
that ended up in our rivers and streams and lakes. These photos captured the unregulated
dumping of industrial waste into these waters, marring
their natural beauty. It helped the public see what a serious problem water
had become in the US. And show why one of the country's first environmental laws
in 1972 was the Clean Water Act, a law that gave federal protection to
US waterways from pollution from industries like mining, oil and gas extraction, real-
estate developers, municipal waste agencies and agriculture. But the US has millions of
miles of waterways and which specific
waterways get this protection has been a major source of disagreement between
the past two Presidents. And nowhere is this disagreement
felt more, than in the state of New Mexico.
We need everything we have in our power to protect our water, for drinking, for habitat
and really for growing food
And as we say here in New Mexico "El agua es vida." "Water is life."
This is a map of the rivers that run through New Mexico.
The Rio Grande Valley is the main artery of New Mexico. Many people depend on it for drinking
water, for irrigation, for recreation and
for spiritual values.
Behind me is the Rio Fernando.
It starts in the Carson National Forest
and it comes down all the way through the town of Taos and it continues through the
valleys where food is grown and it meets up with the Rio Pueblo, which then eventually
spills into the Rio Grande. It's an important river for birding, for habitat, for irrigation,
for our farms and for drinking water, too. For the town of Taos. We are sitting alongside
the Santa Fe River in the city of Santa Fe. Santa Fe River is basically the lifeblood
of northern New Mexico, especially the county of Santa Fe, and it is a source of drinking
water for over 80,000 people. On a map, these rivers all look like blue lines but in
real life, they have some major differences. Some are perennial, meaning they flow year-round,
all the time. That describes the Rio Grande river. Some are ephemeral, meaning they flow
as the result of precipitation; or intermittent meaning they only flow for part of the year.
The Santa Fe river and the Rio Fernando are both combinations of these two types.
Most major rivers in the US are perennial. But some regions, like the arid American West,
have a lot more ephemeral and intermittent water sources, than perennial.
A lot of our river flow is dependent on snowmelt
and to a lesser degree, our monsoon rains that that come in the summer. These
water types are basic ecological markers that help scientists classify streams and rivers.
But over the past several years, they've become a political distinction that determines
what gets protected and what doesn't. After the Clean Water Act went into effect
in 1972, the assumption was that waters of the United States, although vague,
meant all types of water would be protected. And it made it a
prosecutable offense for industries to pollute or degrade waterways unless they got explicit
permission through a permit. But a pair of Supreme court cases in 2001 and 2006, brought
by real estate developers and municipal waste agencies
started making exceptions for which water bodies could be protected, like
some wetlands and ponds. This stripping of
protections prompted the Obama administration, in 2015, to release this massive,
400-page report, based on 1,200 peer-reviewed studies on how watersheds work. The report
laid out something important about how these types of water sources interact with each
other. In a watershed, like this. Where a perennial water source may be a primary waterway.
But ephemeral and intermittent streams and rivers feed into it. And surrounding wetlands
are either connected on the surface through flooding, or under the surface, through groundwater.
This whole watershed acts like a sponge, expanding and contracting with the volume of water,
and sharing organisms, nutrients and pollutants. Basically the different types of waterways
are all connected. And if you dump pollution in one part of
the system, it will eventually make its way to other parts.
This report informed the Obama Administration's Clean Water Rule, which established that all
of these waters should be protected under the Clean Water Act, because they promote
the health of all water. But in 2020, to appease industry
leaders, the Trump administration finalized
a rule that reversed Obama's Clean Water Rule, and excluded
intermittent, ephemeral, and isolated wetlands from federal protection.
The dirty water rule. It's so much easier to call it that because it is taking away
90 percent of the protections in New Mexico.
Trump's ruling means that there's no more federal protection
for more than 2 million miles of US rivers
and streams, which ultimately flow into other water bodies. As well as more than half
of all remaining wetlands in the country, roughly 56 million acres, water bodies that
help prevent
flooding and serve as a wildlife habitat for migrating birds. And because
there's no penalty for polluters in these waters,
it means that the cost of cleaning up pollution
will now fall on local and state governments. This is an affront to every single county
commissioner throughout the United States...who has to clean their water. The more money they
have to spend on cleaning their water, the more taxes they have to raise to take care
of their constituents... Some states lose more protection than
others, like in northern New Mexico, where a
watershed like this one,
lost protection on more than 55% of its wetland acres, and 63%
of its protection of streams and rivers. And across the state, up to 90% of waterways lost
protection because of this new rule.
So when those federal protections are taken away we do not have a state structure or regulation
in place to fill that gap. And that leaves our waters really at risk to unregulated dumping
in the wake of this rule.
Lots and lots of threatened and endangered birds live
here on this property and all up and down the Rio Fernando.
It's a devastating impact to our community, to New Mexico.
The fate of which waterways get protection under the Clean Water Act now lies with the
Biden administration, Which is likely to overturn the Trump administration rule, and revert
back to the stricter protections from the Obama era, based on
the science of the 2015 water report. But that won't be without a legal fight from
the industries that have a lot to gain from looser protections.
The dirty water rule was supported by polluters... And I imagine that they're going to fight
to ensure that this rule makes it into the next administration's priorities. We worked
so hard since the 1970's to clean up our rivers, it's just shame to take these steps
backwards in protecting our nation's waters.