Act Supported by Governor Richardson Offers Protections
for Surface Waters in New Mexico
(Santa Fe, N.M.)
New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry urged Albuquerque Mayor
Martin Chavez in a letter to support the passage of the Clean Water Restoration
Act that would restore protections for New
Mexico’s vulnerable surface waters.
The letter asks Mayor Chavez to support the act in light of his role
as co-chair of the Mayors’ Water Council of the U.S. Conference of
Mayors.
“The Clean Water Act has been our nation’s main tool in ensuring
the continued protection of the water we drink, enjoy for recreation and that
wildlife communities rely upon,” said New Mexico Environment Department
Secretary Ron Curry. “Unfortunately, the effectiveness of this tool has
been blunted by two recent Supreme Court decisions. That creates an urgency to
support this legislation — I urge Mayor Chavez to do that.”
The Southwest has a limited water supply and that creates a need for
well-defined protections for surface waters under the Clean Water Act. The
aftermath of two recent Supreme Court decisions have the potential to leave
large portions of New Mexico’s surface
waters vulnerable nearly 90 percent of New Mexico’s surface waters could lose
protection if the scope and breadth of the Clean Water Act is not restored.
“Municipalities in New Mexico
also have another important reason to support the Clean Water Restoration Act
(CWRA) — and that reason is money,” Secretary Curry states in the
letter. “For the past three decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency has administered the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
(NPDES) program in New Mexico
at little cost to the state and that would continue under the CWRA. However, if
the act is not implemented and the state must step in to develop its own
surface water quality protection program, implementation costs have been
estimated at $1.9 million in state dollars. A large percentage of these costs
could end up being passed on to municipal permit holders if EPA is not longer
invested in protecting the state’s waters.”
Clarifications in the Clean Water Restoration Act would help remove confusion
created by the two Supreme Court decisions -- 2001 ruling in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 (2001) (SWANCC) and its 2006 ruling Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S., 126 S.Ct. 2208
(Rapanos) -- that
limited waters that receive protection under the Act.
Those decisions potentially limited federal protection in New Mexico for nearly
100,000 miles of non-perennial waters, thousands of playa lakes, headwaters,
springs, cienegas and wetlands. . In addition, closed basins that comprise 20
percent of New Mexico’s
land area are now considered to fall outside the jurisdiction of the Clean
Water Act.
The Supreme Court rulings essentially defined two classes of water, one that is
tied directly to “navigability” and deserves federal protection
from pollution, and a second class that is completely abandoned or must undergo
a case by case "significant nexus" test. That test requires
that tributaries or wetlands would be dropped from protection if the government
cannot directly prove they empty into navigable waters.
Governor Richardson has fought to restore protections to New Mexico’s waters. He has twice
directed Secretary Curry to testify before Congressional committees in Washington, DC
in support of the CWRA. In March 2003, Governor Richardson filed formal
comments with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency petitioning that New Mexico’s
closed basins and other imperiled waters remain protected under the federal
Clean Water Act. He also strongly supported the Clean Water Authority
Restoration Act of 2003, a precursor to this legislation.
More recently, Governor Richardson successfully opposed oil and gas drilling in
the Valle Vidal of Northern New Mexico, and in order to protect its world class
trout streams, he had this area’s streams listed as Outstanding National
Resource Waters. He is also fighting to protect the Salt Basin Aquifer from
energy development at Otero Mesa. In 2007, Governor Richardson also launched a
multi-million dollar effort — the first in state history — to
provide a state funding source for river ecosystem restoration.
For more information, call Marissa Stone at (505) 827-0314 or (505) 231-0475.
