Our water, our future
Our water at risk
Water is New Mexico’s most precious natural resource, and we squander it every time we allow polluters to dump in our streams and wetlands. We can’t afford to waste a single drop. That is why, this summer, Environment New Mexico is putting a priority on restoring Clean Water Act protections to all the state’s waterways.
A weakened Clean Water Act
For the past 30 years, the monumental Clean Water Act has been chipped away at. Recently, a pair of Supreme Court decisions created a loophole that could be used to legally justify dumping in millions of waterways. This is bad news for New Mexico, a state that can’t afford to lose any of its usable water.
Because of the court’s decision, the smaller streams that flow into the Rio Grande and other major rivers could lose their protection and become vulnerable to industrial pollution. The health of these tributaries is not just important to the health of our larger rivers, but also to the cleanliness of New Mexico’s drinking water.
New Mexico’s water needs help
By writing an estimated 88 percent of New Mexico’s streams out of the law, the Supreme Court has endangered the water supplies for over 200,000 New Mexicans. “Polluters have been given a green light to ignore the Clean Water Act, even when it may destroy a stream or affect our drinking water supplies,” said Jake Horowitz, field associate with Environment New Mexico.
A lot of damage was being done to New Mexico’s water even before the latest blow to the Clean Water Act. According to a report Environment New Mexico released in October, companies documented dumping 26 tons of chemicals into our waterways in 2007 alone.
Environment New Mexico wants to act immediately to protect our rivers and our
drinking water by protecting the streams that flow into them. This summer, we will be talking to New Mexicans around the state about the need to restore the Clean Water Act’s protections and make sure that industrial runoff stays out of New Mexico’s precious drinking water.
