N.M. Political Report – Silvercity Daily Press

Abandoned mine cleanup law headed to U.S. House

N.M. Political Report — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 19:00:43 +0000

By HANNAH GROVER
N.M. Political Report
Nearly nine years after federal contractors triggered a mine spill in southwestern Colorado that turned rivers a mustard orange as far south as Farmington, the U.S. Senate passed legislation last week that will make it easier for communities to clean up abandoned mines.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat from New Mexico, sponsored the legislation along with Sen. Jim Risch, a Republican from Idaho.
The legislation makes it easier for so-called good Samaritans to clean up abandoned mine sites. Those good Samaritans can include state agencies, local governments, nonprofits and other entities. Currently, they could face liabilities if something happens while they are attempting to clean up mine sites. People cleaning up abandoned mines can even be charged as polluters if Clean Water Act standards can’t be achieved. That means people and organizations who take steps to clean up the abandoned sites could find themselves legally responsible for preexisting pollution from the mine even though they had no role in creating that pollution.
“Good Samaritan organizations are ready to help clean up abandoned mines that are threatening our communities and polluting the land, water, fish and wildlife we rely on. I’m proud of the work we have done to advance our common sense, bipartisan legislation to create a path for these groups to clean up sites in New Mexico and across our country,” Heinrich said in a press release. “Efforts to get this done started well before I came to Congress. It’s been an honor to get it across the finish line in the Senate, and I won’t stop working on this until it’s law.”
Like New Mexico, Idaho is no stranger to mining. Gold mining in Idaho took off in the 1860s and there are an estimated 8,800 abandoned mines and prospects in the state.
Mines across the United States closed before responsible mine reclamation policies were adopted. This has led to both public safety and environmental problems.
The Gold King Mine spill of 2015 was one of those examples. When bulkheads were installed in the American Tunnel near Silverton, Colo., the water built up within. Then, in 2015, contractors with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency went to assess the site. While working on that assessment, they inadvertently triggered the mine spill.
But Gold King is not the only example of the problems that abandoned mines pose.
In 2020, a motorcyclist died after inadvertently ending up inside an abandoned mine in Otero County.
There are an estimated 140,000 abandoned hardrock mine features in the country and about 22,500 of those could be environmental hazards.
One group that may be interested in cleaning up mines should the legislation become law is Trout Unlimited. This is because upstream mines can essentially wipe out fish populations. Trout Unlimited was able to assist the U.S. EPA following the Gold King Mine spill by providing historical water quality data.
“Passage of the Good Samaritan legislation is the perfect demonstration of the application of common sense to common problems for the common good, and it validates TU’s approach of bridging divides to care for the lands and waters that sustain our great nation,” Chris Wood, president and CEO of Trout Unlimited, said in a press release.
Mining industry groups say it will also allow them to use their expertise to clean up abandoned sites.
“The mining industry has the desire, the experience, the technology, the expertise and the capital to remediate and reclaim [abandoned mine lands],” Mark Compton, executive director of the American Exploration and Mining Association said in a press release. “For more than two decades, AEMA has collaborated with industry allies and conservation groups on this effort. Today’s bipartisan win marks a monumental step forward. We’re grateful for the strong bipartisan support demonstrated by the original cosponsors in the Senate and House.”
The legislation, which passed the Senate last Wednesday with unanimous support, now heads to the House of Representatives.

This story was originally published by New Mexico Political Report at nmpoliticalreport.com.

Advocates: Early child care educator shortage, pay in crisis

N.M. Political Report — Mon, 20 May 2024 19:00:37 +0000

By SUSAN DUNLAP
N.M. Political Report
Kelly’s Learning Center in Las Cruces was one of a few early child care centers in New Mexico that closed last Monday as part of a nationwide protest for early educator pay parity.
A Day Without Childcare is a national day of action organized by Community Change Action, a group advocating for more livable wages and other improvements to early childhood educators. Kelly’s Learning Center held a press conference last Monday as part of the Day Without Childcare event to discuss the problems early child care providers in New Mexico face. Merline Gallegos, the director of Kelly’s Learning Center, said through an interpreter that early child care is in crisis because early childhood educators can go to work in retail stores and make more money.
“They’d rather go to other jobs that pay much better,” Gallegos said.
The Early Childhood Education and Care Department is currently considering a program that would provide supplemental income to infant to toddler teachers. The Legislature provided $5 million to ECECD for a pilot program for the next three fiscal years, and the department is still in the design phase of that program.
But the providers and advocates at the press conference said they are concerned that ECECD will only provide raises to early educators who have degrees in higher education and not consider experience as a reason for improved wages.
ECECD is still considering the program but the agency said through an email that “for too long early childhood educators have been underpaid relative to the importance and impact of their work.”
“These women and men are educating New Mexico’s youngest learners during their most critical and rapid period of brain development, and their compensation and credentials should reflect that. New Mexico has made improving wages and credentials one of its top priorities, implementing a range of programs and initiatives including pay parity for pre-K teachers, wage supplements, enhanced subsidies, free college education, student stipends, and incentives for bilingual educators,” Micah McCoy, public information officer for ECECD, said in an email to N.M. Political Report.
Olga Grays, a licensed provider in Las Cruces, said she has her own children to help with her day care center. Her son, Joel Herrera, said he grew up with his mom taking care of other people’s children, and that when she first started about 10 years ago, she earned $1.25 an hour, even though Grays has a degree. Herrera told N.M. Political Report that now that he is grown, he still works with his mom, but he can only afford to do so because he has another income source.
Isaiah Amaya, a former early child care educator, said he worked for Kelly’s Learning Center prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But, he said, he had to leave the field because the pay was too low.
Lori Martinez, executive director of Ngage New Mexico, a nonprofit in Doña Ana County, said early child care educators support the economy by providing child care so other workers can go to jobs, but early child care educators are often paid just $25,000 a year. Martinez said early child care educators are treated as babysitters but that they deserve to be paid a dignified wage.
A representative from U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich’s office, Sylvia Ulloa, spoke during the press conference to say that Heinrich is in support of early child care workers and that the state needs to build out the infrastructure needed to improve early child care wages. Heinrich’s statement said that the largest impact of early child care falls on women of color. Heinrich is a Democrat who represents New Mexico.
Grays said that she gets up at 4 a.m. to receive her first child of the day, who arrives at 4:30 a.m. because the child’s mother works an early shift.
She said she has kept children overnight as well, but is often not paid for extras like that. She said she does it because of the relationship she has with the children and the families.
Gallegos said she would like to see early educator skill taken into consideration for wage increases.
“This is the most important basis for teaching,” Gallegos said.
Grays said some of the teachers she has learned from the most were the ones who lacked higher education but had long experience with children. She said that having a high turnover of early child care educators is hard on the children, because they build trust with a specific teacher and then have to be reintroduced to a new one frequently.
Angela Amaya, 12, is the daughter of Isaiah Amaya, who was also at the press conference. She told N.M. Political Report that when she attended early child care, she was given an educational foundation and she learned to read while in preschool. She said early child care also helped her bilingual skills.
“It helped with starting school,” she said.
N.M. Political Report is a nonprofit public news outlet providing in-depth and enterprise reporting on people and politics across New Mexico.

Out of the ashes

N.M. Political Report — Mon, 13 May 2024 19:00:15 +0000

(N.M. Political Report Photos by
Hannah Grover)
Above, Doug Hulett and John Pierson use posts to create holes last month to plant willow cuttings along Little Turkey Creek in the Gila Wilderness. At right, Eric Head points to some restoration work that Trout Unlimited oversaw on Little Turkey Creek.

By HANNAH GROVER
NM Political Report
Eric Head stopped along the banks of Little Turkey Creek in southwestern New Mexico to point to a pool with a log in it that formed naturally after the Whitewater-Baldy Fire of 2012 led to massive runoff that brought debris and sediment flowing down the stream.
Over the past few years, the Gila/Rio Grande Chapter of Trout Unlimited and other organizations including Mesilla Valley Fly Fishers and Amigos Bravos have worked to restore Little Turkey Creek as part of a broader effort to improve habitat in the Willow Creek watershed in the Gila Wilderness that was impacted by the wildfire. Little Turkey Creek is a tributary of Willow Creek. This effort has brought dozens of volunteers to the area.
Head works with Trout Unlimited and is overseeing their efforts to restore streams like Little Turkey Creek and Willow Creek that have been impacted by fires.
He pointed out how similar the naturally formed pool looks to the areas that his crews have restored.
“If we get it right, then nobody will notice,” Head said.
Given time, the stream would naturally form pools instead of deep channels on its own and, Head said, it would “fix itself.”
“What we’re trying to do is speed it up,” he said.
To do that, they work to slow the flow down.
The fire changed the watershed from channels with shallow, meandering sections intermixed with deep pools that slow the flow to one with fewer pools, fewer bends and more rock bars formed by sediment plugs from the fire.
Head said those rock bars create a challenge for restoration because the river wants to cut through it and create a deep channel.
At one such location, he pointed to felled trees and rocks that the crews used to block the water from cutting through and to channel it toward an area with a lesser slope where it will flow slower.
Garrett Hanks with Trout Unlimited said the organization and its partners will continue to do the work to ensure the restoration is successful.
“We’re not in the business of coming in, setting it and walking away,” he said.
That means coming back year after year to monitor and maintain the work that has been done.
The crews have restored about two miles of Little Turkey Creek and hope to add another half mile to that count by the end of the year.
There’s a total of four to four and a half miles of stream that Trout Unlimited hopes to restore.
The project will have broad benefits beyond just paving the way for the Gila trout to return to Little Turkey Creek.
Slowing the flow of the water will prolong the runoff, Hanks said.
That benefits downstream communities who depend upon water from the Willow Creek watershed, including Little Turkey Creek. Willow Creek flows into the Middle Fork of the Gila River.
Hanks said the project helps build wildfire resiliency. Not only is the work mitigating the impacts of a past fire, he said it will help protect against future fires.

A blessing and a curse
While the fire decimated fish habitat, it also brought an opportunity.
The native Gila trout has long faced threats from the German brown trout and the rainbow trout, which is native to the eastern United States. These invasive trout were initially brought into the watershed to provide opportunities for anglers. But the German brown trout will feed on young Gila trout and the rainbow trout will hybridize with the Gila trout.
Those pressures have contributed to the Gila trout becoming among the rarest trout species in the United States.
The Gila trout was first listed as endangered in 1973 but, following successful efforts to save the fish, it was downlisted to threatened in 2006.
Then the fires came.
The Whitewater-Baldy Fire of 2012 wiped out five populations of Gila trout, including some in Willow Creek. Some of the fish died because of the ash that flowed into the water while others died in the mud and debris flows that followed.
It wasn’t just the Gila trout that died. The non-native trout species were also decimated.
But that brought an opportunity to restore the Gila trout in an area free of German brown trout and rainbow trout.
A fish barrier on Willow Creek will prevent invasive trout from moving up and threatening the Gila trout.
After the Whitewater-Baldy Fire swept through, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identified Willow Creek, including its tributary Little Turkey Creek, as a potential place where Gila trout could be restored.
Since the fire, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the Gila National Forest have monitored the Gila trout in Willow Creek and have released Gila trout into Willow Creek.
Willow Creek is considered a dendritic system, which means it has a lot of branches and tributaries. That provided some resiliency and, while five populations were eliminated, Gila trout were not completely wiped out in the watershed.

A natural occurrence
Wildfire is a natural part of the Gila ecosystem, and the Whitewater-Baldy Fire was an example of that natural process. Two lightning strikes started fires in May 2012 that then joined.
The Whitewater-Baldy Fire charred nearly 300,000 acres and destroyed about a dozen cabins located on private land near the wilderness area. At the time, it was the largest fire in state history, and it held that title until 2022 when it was surpassed not only by the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire of northern New Mexico but also by the Black Fire, which burned different parts of the Gila Wilderness.
Historically, large fires may have wiped out populations of Gila trout in headwaters, but the trout would have naturally moved from nearby connected streams into the impacted waterways.
However, the Gila trout populations have become increasingly fragmented and isolated.
This makes the trout population more vulnerable to fires.
Because of this, wildfire is considered one of the biggest threats to the Gila trout alongside grazing and climate change.
And climate change is contributing to larger, more severe wildfires across the western United States due to various factors including hotter temperatures and less available water due to earlier spring runoff and decreased snowpack. Additionally, the warmer air holds more moisture, which leads to more lightning. A 2014 report published in the journal Science indicates that for each degree Celsius of warming that the world experiences, lightning strikes will increase by 12 percent. And a study published last year in the journal Nature Communications found that globally lightning flashes have increased by 43 percent. This is important because lightning is the leading cause of wildfires worldwide.
The 2022 revised recovery plan for the Gila trout states that large-scale, high-intensity wildfires lead to ash flows, sediment slugs and low dissolved oxygen, which in turn can cause the destruction of fish populations. Even after the fires have been extinguished, they can still cause increased sedimentation, higher water temperatures, simplified habitat and reduced insect populations for the fish to eat.
The watershed itself becomes impaired. Water from rains and melting snow runs off faster and doesn’t seep into the ground.
That seepage is needed because it provides storage that is then slowly released back into the streams, leading to cooler, more perennial flows.

Restoration efforts
In 2017, Trout Unlimited reached out to Natural Channel Design out of Flagstaff, Ariz. They began the process of planning the restoration work in Little Turkey Creek.
The first few years of the project were primarily focused on planning the restoration.
Then, a little more than two years ago, they began work on Little Turkey Creek. Twice a year, crews head out to move rocks and boulders into the stream to slow the flow of the water and to plant willows along the banks to reduce erosion and shade the water. The willows will also provide food for the beavers, which play a key role in creating healthy riparian ecosystems. Currently, Little Turkey Creek does not have any beavers. But beavers have been seen at its confluence with Willow Creek.
Because their work is occurring within the boundaries of the Gila Wilderness, everything has to be done by hand. If rocks need to be moved, they are carried or rolled into the stream. Mules provided by Jim Brooks with JEB Outfitters carry in the bundles of willows to plant along the banks. Then the crews use poles that they pound into the ground to create holes for the willow cuttings. A slurry is added to the hole around the cutting.
Head estimates they have planted 5,000 willows, though not all of those trees have survived due to grazing animals like elk and cattle. Still, the vast majority of the willows — about 90 percent — have survived.
The work they have done is beginning to pay off in noticeable ways. Head pointed to places where rock barriers the crews have installed have caught sediment and caused the stream to fill in a bit. This makes the water spread out over the flood plain and soak into the ground where it is stored in the subsurface and then released back into the creek.
He can see places where that is occurring.

Federal funding
But this work requires a bit of funding and restoring the watersheds in the Gila Wilderness is a multimillion-dollar endeavor. This funding comes from private and public sources, including the federal Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
On a national scale, Trout Unlimited entered into a $40 million agreement with the U.S. Forest Service in 2022 funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The five-year agreement is focused on improving watersheds. Some of that funding is going to the restoration of Little Turkey Creek.
Hanks said Trout Unlimited has about $1.6 million of Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding through national and local agreements to spend in the Gila area.
The restoration in Little Turkey Creek is just one of the projects Trout Unlimited is working on in the Gila area and each of those projects takes years to develop before work even begins on the ground.

State funding,
other projects
The Little Turkey Creek project also received state funding from agencies like the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and the New Mexico Environment Department.
The Department of Game and Fish also performed restoration work in the area where Little Turkey Creek joins Willow Creek. This work is outside of the wilderness area, which means machines can be used. A sign at the Willow Creek Campground boasts that the restoration work is made possible by the Habitat Stamp Program and that the improvements were paid for through a fee that is collected from hunters and anglers.
The Willow Creek project received Habitat Stamp Program funding in November 2021 when the New Mexico Game Commission approved spending $2.5 million on about half a dozen projects to benefit fish. Willow Creek was a priority project with an estimated budget of $1 million, though the final cost of the project was around $1.3 million.
Additionally, the New Mexico Environment Department provided Trout Unlimited with $133,000 of River Stewardship Program funds for work on Little Turkey Creek. This was one of a dozen projects that received River Stewardship Program funding through a request for proposals issued in 2021.
Little Turkey Creek was not the only Gila area project to receive funding through NMED’s River Stewardship Program in 2021. Bat Conservation International received about $207,000 for work to improve riparian habitat Black Canyon Creek in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness and the Gila National Forest.
The 2023 River Stewardship Program funding also included several projects in the Gila area. The San Francisco Soil and Water Conservation District received nearly $600,000 in River Stewardship Program funding for work on Willow Creek watershed restoration and Bat Conservation International received nearly $300,000 for riparian restoration in the Stone Creek area of the Gila National Forest.
The River Stewardship Program receives annual allocations from the state Legislature and is now able to receive funding through the newly established Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund.
N.M. Political Report is a nonprofit public news outlet providing in-depth and enterprise reporting on the people and politics across New Mexico.