New Mexico State Senator Dede Feldman's Blog

The Race between Patricia Madrid and Healther Wilson Is Heating Up

The race between Patricia Madrid and Heather Wilson is heating up with the TV airwaves buzzing. Meanwhile, Patricia Madrid has been quietly doing a great job on the environmental front. With the federal agencies controlled by conservatives who often were industry executives and Congress slacking on oversight-- many of our landmark environmental protections are at risk.

Attorney General Madrid has joined with other states to protect us against further global warming with a lawsuit charging that EPA's failure to regulate power plant emissions of carbon dioxide violates the Clean Air Act. She has also challenged the EPA's rules weakening mercury emission standards for most coal plants and challenged the highway administration's failure to improve fuel economy standards for SUVs and light trucks. I'm glad somebody is not just complaining.

This kind of thing doesn't hit the airwaves, but it might just be indicative of what a great Congressperson she'd make.

Electronic Waste Disposal Day Huge Success...Demonstrates that New Mexico Needs Systematic Approach to Electronic Waste Disposal

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(Click to enlarge)

Dede talks to James Wylie of Hewlet Packard on Intel's e-waste collection day (left). Dede at the e-waste collection day on the west side (right)

Everyday in the U.S. 3,000 tons of computers and other electronic waste hit the landfill.  And more and more outdated TVs, DVDs, fax machines, and telephones go there everyday.  That wouldn't be a problem but they contain mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and PCBs, which are headed for the groundwater in the long run. And, they are dangerous to our health.

I've been working on this problem since 2004 when I sponsored a memorial which set up a task force to look at various disposal alternatives.

Intel and Hewlet Packard sponsored an electronic recycling day last Saturday (Aug. 19) at Cottonwood Mall, and the response was overwhelming. People came from as far away as DesMoines, NM to drop off their electronics, and by around 11 a.m. the traffic was so intense that the police and fire departments shut down the event. In the four or five hour period that it was accepting waste, Intel and friends collected 15 huge truckloads of the stuff, three or four times what it collected last year, which was about 95,000 lbs.

I had my own bag of electronic goodies to dispose of, which I ended up taking home with me. But a funny thing happened.  As I was walking up to the site carrying my bag, a long-ago-disconnected telephone began to ring.  Weird.  I'm taking it as a wake up call that we need a more systematic, statewide approach which will build on the good intentions of people to dispose of these things, as well as the responsibilities of the manufacturers and dealers. Other states are doing more than these programs, which are greatly needed, but woefully inadequate given the size of the problem.

Stay tuned and give me your feedback.

Silvery Minnow Rescuers Do a Muddy, Southwestern Two-Step

            
by Dede Feldman

Note: I wrote this article recently for a newsletter I edit called The Big Picture which is about events and issues surrounding the Middle Rio Grande Bosque.  Call Cyndie at 761-4738 to get a copy of the quarterly publication.

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Click on pictures to enlarge

By the end of the day they are covered with mud and their canvas boots and jeans are soaking wet.  But they emerge from the Rio Grande with precious cargo—plastic bags filled with endangered silvery minnows. The fish eggs will be taken to hatcheries at the Albuquerque Bio Park or to Dexter, NM.  Others will be taken upstream and released where conditions are more hospitable for the once omnipresent fish.

The sodden rescue crews, dispatched out of Albuquerque at 5 a.m. every morning from March through October, will have done their jobs. This year, the crews, led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, have had as many as 18-20 members.  And they’re not even the early birds.  Before they leave, crew members get a report from scouts (who rise even earlier) along the river who look out for dry patches and relay weather conditions.

These scouts are from the Bureau of Reclamation and the Interstate Stream Commission, two other partners in the rescue efforts. The rescue efforts have been going on since 1996 when 30 miles of the river south of Albuquerque dried up, sparking a confrontation between farmers, environmentalists and government agencies.  “As of the end of July, we’ve rescued 65,165 minnows,” says Mike Hatch, the US Fish and Wildlife’s Rio Grande Silvery Minnow Rescue Coordinator. He says “Not all of them will survive, but on the whole, they’re pretty resilient.”

Hatch says that this year’s drought really stressed the minnow population, but, luckily, the July rains came just in time to re-wet some critical areas about to dry out.  “The rains were just in the nick of time,” he says.

Although there was little snowpack this winter; hence, little run-off this spring, Hatch says there was indeed a small spawn from mid-April to mid-July.  “There were very few babies,” he says, “Their survival will depend on what the weather will be this winter. We’re all praying for a good snowpack.”

Once upon a time, when the Europeans arrived in the area, the silvery minnow was one of the most common species in the Rio Grande, swimming along with 27 other species. Of those 27 species, 13 are now gone, with 11 “extirpated”, or gone elsewhere, and two (the Phantom Shiner and the Rio Grande Blunt nose shiner) now extinct.  The numbers of silvery minnow, as well as other native fish, have been decimated first by the introduction of exotic species in the late 1800s and later by the construction of upstream dams by the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers.
“The minnows,” explains Hatch, “like to swim upstream to feed and to spawn”.

Declining numbers of minnows prompted the USFW Service to declare the minnow an endangered species in 1994.  Since that time, there has been lots of cooperative activity to maintain adequate water flow for the fish, to improve habitat (including the bosque) and to build riverside structures to give the minnow extra help in maintaining their numbers.

A Rio Grande Silvery Minnow Sanctuary is now under construction on the east side of the Rio Grande about a mile south of Bridge Blvd.  The sanctuary, which will be connected to the river by a side channel, is a joint project of the Bureau of Reclamation, the City of Albuquerque, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the MRGCD.  Another refugia, or refuge, has been completed at Albuquerque’s Biopark and the city is including a fish passageway at its diversion dam near Alameda Blvd. in the North Valley.  The dam is part of the San Juan diversion project which will supply Albuquerque with drinking water for the next few decades. The passageway will allow fish to swim upstream to better breeding grounds.

Despite the heroic efforts the weather and the prospect of a prolonged drought is still the biggest factor affecting the future of the silvery minnow. With a big snowpack and run-off, 2005 was a banner year for the little fish.  But this year, it’s been dicey, rescuers say. “This is a southwestern two-step,” says Mike Hatch, who, as a fisheries biologist, has been at it for 34 years. “Recently, we’ve had two steps forward and one step back. ”But Hatch will take the zig-zag steps as progress. 

“Philosophically, we’re beginning to cross the divide and everyone—farmers and environmentalists—is beginning to contemplate life with finite resources.  “We’re beginning to talk about sustainable rural economies and water conservation.  The minnow was a place to start this discussion and we have come a long way. People are beginning to see that if we don’t all win this together, we will all loose.”