A new report has found that New Mexico’s rivers, which include the Rio Grande, Gila, San Juan and Pecos, are America’s most threatened waterways.
According to the report, this is largely due to a 2023 US supreme court decision that left more than 90% of the state’s surface waters without federal protections from industrial pollution.
“Virtually all the rivers in New Mexico are losing clean water protections,” Matt Rice, the south-west regional director of American Rivers, the conservation group that publishes the annual list said. “It has the most to lose, and the threat is particularly acute there.”
Available reports suggest that New Mexico, New Hampshire and Massachusetts are the only states without permitting power to regulate how much pollution is in their surface water, making them dependent on federal protections from mining activities, wastewater, agricultural runoff and industrial pollution.
An agency official was quoted as saying that the Sackett v Environmental Protection Agency decision issued by the supreme court last May could affect more than half of the nation’s wetlands and up to 4.9m miles of streams.
In a landmark ruling, the court found that only “relatively permanent” streams, and wetlands with a “continuous surface connection”, are subject to Clean Water Act protections under the guidance of the EPA. In arid New Mexico, many of the state’s waterways only run during the rainy season or during snowmelt periods.
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“This ruling, and lifting protections for half of the country’s wetlands, is a real, immediate threat to everything from the quality of our water, to the price of our water, to whether our communities can thrive and ecosystems can exist,” said Heather Taylor-Miesle, senior vice-president of advocacy and regional conservation for American Rivers. “A lot of places in the country that enjoy Clean Water Act protections have seen the rug pulled out for them, and as a result, we’re going to be dealing with a lot more pollution.”
New Mexico’s more than 100,000 miles of rivers and streams provide drinking water for the majority of the state’s population, including 23 sovereign pueblo and tribal governments, according to the report.
“Water is part of who we are as New Mexicans,” said Rachel Conn, deputy director of conservation organization Amigos Bravos. “Water is critical for our many tribal communities here in New Mexico, for sacred ceremonies, and for the health of tribal communities.”
In the wake of the Sackett ruling, New Mexico state lawmakers introduced legislation that would safeguard the vulnerable rivers, streams and lakes in the absence of federal protections. In March, the state appropriated $7.6m to improve monitoring of groundwater, and to establish a permitting program that would regulate pollution discharge into surface water.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
