May 28 - Every two years New Mexico Tech. organizes a Field Conference for legislators, agency staffers and other policy makers on a topic like hard mock mining, oil and gas exploration or water use. As arcane and technical as these topics sound, I've come to look forward to these outdoor, moveable feasts of knowledge more than almost anything else in public service (although throwing out the first pitch at the North Valley Little League is a tough one to beat, even if I did have to practice).
The two-day conferences are for non-scientists like me who have to help decide, for example, how to balance the uses of water in the Middle Rio Grande between agriculture, drinking water, endangered species, delivery of water to Texas as per our contract obligations, and municipal development. The days went like this: after a hearty breakfast in Socorro, we travel by bus to various stops along the middle-reach of the Rio Grande where geologists, scientists, water officials, farmers, biologists and others each give their five-minute pitch on what's happening. No long speeches. Sometimes great maps and other visual aids that blow away in the wind. Questions and answers. Boat rides. Stops along the bank. One-on-one discussions among river managers, camaraderie on the bus.
This year's keynote was given by naturalist and historian, Bill DeBuys, one of my all-time New Mexico heroes. The author of River of Traps, Enchantment and Exploitation (a History of the Sangre de Cristos) and now The Walk (see below), Bill made us think about whether the river's current troubles result from over engineering since the 1930s, and whether the natural ebb and flow might not have been better for bosque and fish. He, like many others, worries about global warming and drought. We've just left one of the wettest twenty-year periods in New Mexico, he says, and we're headed for prolonged drought. One casualty may be rainbow trout-which probably won't exist in these waters by the end of this century, disappearing like scores of other fish species.
Another may be the river itself. With demands for agriculture, downstream deliveries and swimming pools taking precedence in other Southwestern states, rivers through cities have been replaced by pipelines and dry ditches. Just look for the river Phoenix or Tuscon. There's nothing there. That could be us in seventy years, unless we put on our thinking caps and collaborate. That's what this event was all about.
One of my buddies on this trip, and in the NM Senate, is Sen. Carlos Cisneros,
from Questa. ( See photo) Together, we've pushed for alternative car fuels,
solar energy and protection for aceqias, to name a few of our more successful
causes. In 1998, Carlos and I asked the Attorney General for an opinion on
whether "instream flow" constitutes beneficial use of water in New Mexico. In
other words, is there any intrinsic, legal value to the river just continuing to
flow to provide for the riparian environment, recreation and uses other than
compact delivery, irrigation, etc. The opinion, out of now - Rep. Tom Udall's
shop, was yes, a verdict we'd hoped for but one that didn't make us especially
popular with anti-environmentalists and many other users.
Caption- Up in the Air Junior Birdmen :Sen. Dede Feldman and Sen. Carlos Cisneros, all suited up, tour the upper part of Elephant Butte Reservoir and the channel that allows the Rio Grande to flow into it, despite a never ending battle against silt. The Bureau of Reclamation-along with their Cajun allies who man the amphibian dredging equipment as well as a fleet of air boats that usually ply the bayous-continually clear the channel as it dries, silts up, and floods each season.
Summer Reading Recommendations from the Senator
My ideal summer day is to get up early, take a hike in a beautiful setting,
then, with a feeling that I've accomplished something, come home and read for a
few hours, with a cool drink at my side. Oh come on, I can dream, can't I? Two
of the books that I'm currently reading are about New Mexico themes. They are
purchases I made after meeting the authors at book signings, and falling in
love, so to speak. Yellowcake is a novel by Ann Cummings about two
families, one Navajo and one Anglo, who worked in the uranium mines and mills in
the Shiprock area, when there was little protection against what we now know was
deadly. Another is The Walk, by Bill DeBuys, which is about familiar
natural landscapes and how they interact with one's personal history. His own
walk on land that he has irrigated for 25 years near Las Trampas is the case in
point.
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