Clean Water In the News

    Municipal sewage treatment plants are New Mexico's biggest Clean Water Act violators, according to an analysis published Thursday by the group Environment New Mexico.
    In 2005, 92 of 96 Clean Water Act violations involved poorly treated sewage dumped in the state's rivers, according to federal records released to the group under the Freedom of Information Act.
    Expanding cities, often strapped for cash, are outgrowing their sewage treatment capabilities, said John Horning of Forest Guardians, a Santa Fe environmental group.
    "This is a fairly common trend," said Randall Coleman of Environment New Mexico.
    The problems are not an imminent threat to public health and safety, said Marcy Leavitt, head of the New Mexico Environment Department's Surface Water Quality Bureau. But the most serious problem identified in the report does pose a threat to river ecosystems, Leavitt said.
    The communities of Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs, which share a sewage plant, were the top violators in the state, repeatedly discharging phosphorous into the Ruidoso River in excess of the legal limit.
    The communities realize they have a problem, said Ruidoso Downs City Manager John Waters, and are scrambling to find the money to build a new treatment plant.
    The communities were cited a total of 37 times in 2005 for violating their permit because of phosphorous in their sewage effluent. Phosphorous, found in detergents, is not a direct threat to human health. But it can wreak havoc on an ecosystem, as it has in the Ruidoso River, according to Horning, whose organization sued the communities over their sewage problem.
    Sewage treatment plants are the largest single-point pollution sources here because New Mexico has few factories or other large industrial facilities, according to Jon Goldstein, director of NMED's Water and Waste Management Division.
    Horning noted there are other important sources of pollution not accounted for in the Clean Water Act violations— the small-scale pollution all around us that washes into rivers from streets, driveways, lawns and farms. Called "non-point source" pollution, it can be something as simple as dog poop.
    "The chronic problems in a state like New Mexico are non-point source," Horning said.
    Other communities whose sewage plants violated their Clean Water Act permits in 2005, according to the Environment New Mexico report: Silver City, Los Alamos County, Aztec, Raton, Tucumcari, Albuquerque, Taos, Taos Ski Valley, Bloomfield, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Rio Rancho, Española and Doña Ana County.