Day 2: Water Conservation Office,BDD, NMAA, and MASE

Alexandra Lim & Melodi Doganay

On Monday morning, we woke up, nervous about what the day may bring, but excited nonetheless. We scrambled between the rooms of Christ Lutheran Church, gathering all of our things, stuffing breakfast in our face, and rushing out the door to make our first meeting at 9 am. We drove out for about half an hour to a less populated part of Santa Fe and finally arrived at Buckman Direct Diversion (BDD), a government-run water treatment plant. Their office has multiple purposes, including outreach to the community through tours, experimentation of water treatment processes in a lab, conservation education, and purification of water pulled from the Rio Grande. When we got there, we were first generously greeted by an array of complimentary water bottles and then shown a short presentation highlighting the center’s work. During this meeting, we also met with Patricio and Mario from the Water Conservation Office. They talked about the work they did including changing old appliances in Santa Fe to increase efficiency and decrease water waste. They are also implementing water meters in houses and apps in phones for people to track their water usage. The larger portion of our visit was taken up by the tour. The tour was guided by Bernardine, who worked in PR, and Josh, who was an operator at the plant. They walked us through the water treatment process, first showing us a huge outdoor storage unit of water that held millions of gallons pulled from the Rio Grande. The sight was incredible—it is so difficult to even visualize that much water in one’s head, but this really exposed us to the scale at which they operate. I think it’s fair to say we were all thoroughly impressed. They then walked us through the steps of the water purification process, including conventional treatment steps, such as coagulation, flocculation, and sedimentation, as well as advanced treatment steps, such as the ozone pipeline reactor and granulated activated carbon (GAC) contactor. BDD is actually the only water treatment plant in New Mexico—and one of the few in the country—to have these advanced steps! Throughout the entire process, they check the turbidity of the water at every stage, ensuring that it is of the highest quality possible. We were really amazed at the plant and awed by the science behind it. It was a great first step in our education on water justice.

After meeting with BDD, we visited Serafina Lombardi and Toribio Garcia from the New Mexico Acequia Association (NMAA). When we arrived at the office, we sat around in a large circle and introduced ourselves with our names and majors. Serafina started off the discussion by stating the mission of the NMAA—to protect water and acequias, to grow healthy food for their families and communities, and to honor their cultural heritage. To give us a better understanding of the purpose of acequias, she shared a brief history about its origin. We learned that acequias in the past were focused on the idea of community and sharing; however, now it focuses on the idea of individuals and their use of priority to get the water that they need. The acequia communities are currently going through a time of change in terms of the economy, the uses of water, and the demographic of the communities. NMAA is trying to find a way to adapt while still keeping the tradition of the past in the present and the future. We also learned about the idea of wet water vs. paper water, priority of water rights, and the impact of industry and municipalities on Santa Fe’s water. Toribio was raised on an acequia, so we got to hear first-hand experiences about what it was like growing up in these communities. He also talked about NMAA’s outreach programs, including the youth program “Planting Seeds” and the farming training program. We learned that NMAA focuses on involving younger generations to help them learn about the importance of their culture and acequias from a young age. During our discussion, Enrique Romero, the staff attorney, came in for a quick drink of water and began to listen in on our discussion. Thanks to his unexpected visit, we got to learn more about what exactly water rights are and how this related to the issues acequia communities are facing. During our pre-trip meetings, the idea of water rights came up, but none of us really understood how they worked. Talking to Enrique really clarified the process of how one loses their water rights and stressed the importance of “beneficial use." He explained how even many of the community members did not know about their water rights and were therefore at a risk of losing them. Enrique shared how external roadblocks such as oil and gas industries were preventing NMAA from helping individuals keep their water rights. Surprisingly, he shared that there were internal roadblocks as well—of the 600-700 acequia communities in New Mexico, only a quarter to a third of them were invested and active with their water.

Our last meeting of the day was with the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, or MASE. MASE is an organization that spans many different issues but is primarily concerned with uranium mining and its cultural, religious, economic, and environmental impacts. When we arrived at the establishment in Albuquerque, we were first shown a short presentation from Susan Gordon, the MASE Coordinator, on the development of the organization, as well as some of their achievements and current projects. But the vast majority of the meeting was spent in conversation with Susan, Christine, Laura, and Petuuche. The latter three people were all members of the Native American community and were able to reflect on their personal encounters with uranium mining. Though some statistics were shared, I felt that we learned most about the cultural and religious impacts of uranium mining. Christine began by discussing this issue. She described how Native Americans are here as “guardians of the Earth” and are led by Mother Nature. Things changed, however, with colonization and the onset of Christianity, as well as with the start of uranium mining. She said that mining truly changed the cultural landscape of Paguate, and though they fight against further damage, “complete reclamation” is not possible. All three of the speakers went on to discuss a myriad of topics, including the cultural changes and strengthening of patriarchal values brought on by the mining population, the spiritual impact of water contamination, and the importance of intergenerational dependence when approaching these issues. One of the most heart-wrenching moments of the discussion was about deer—how they’ve gotten smaller and more sparse with the dawn of uranium mining. Deer are sacred animals to Pueblo Indians, and so their dwindling numbers are indicative of how spiritually contaminating uranium mining can be. As Christine said, “sacred things cannot survive in an environment that is no longer sacred." The meeting ended with a very clear message. It is not about individual success or the annoyances of daily life; it is about who you are as a human being, and it is about your duty to the world around you. The greatest change you can make is within, and even the smallest changes matter. We all resonated with that message and felt deeply empowered by their stories.

Today was shocking in many ways. For one, we were all pleasantly surprised by the general atmospheres of all the meetings. One of our greatest fears coming into this trip was being perceived as a group of college students partaking in “voluntourism,” excited to do service for a couple days and then never think about it again. We genuinely want to learn more about this issue and take it back to Rice, but it can be difficult to convey that sometimes. Furthermore, we were afraid of being a burden to our community partners, as we know they are incredibly busy people. However, everyone we talked to was so welcoming and excited to talk to us. It definitely relieved a lot of the stress we had been feeling.

It was our first day, and already we were able to learn so much through three unique perspectives. BDD and the Water Conservation Office’s presentation and tour focused a lot on the logistics of their treatment plant, whereas NMAA and MASE focused on the cultural importance of water. Even though all of our community partners had different perspectives on water justice, there was definitely some overlap in the information discussed, like the impact of Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was shocking to hear that New Mexico was still dealing with nuclear waste and radioactive materials from over 60 years ago. Hearing our partners at NMAA and MASE speak about their first-hand experiences of dealing with this issue was very emotional. All in all, today’s meetings really filled in a lot of gaps in our knowledge about water justice, and showed us firsthand the intersectionality of this issue. We ended the day with a lot of new knowledge, yet inspired to learn more!