From left, Pueblo of Jemez 2nd Lt. Gov. Matthew Gachupin Jr., New Mexico Rep. Anita Gonzales (D-Las Vegas) and U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) said they would keep fighting to ban further mining in the Upper Pecos watershed. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM)
A highway closure Monday morning postponed a scheduled trip to the Pecos for members of New Mexico’s federal delegation, state and tribal officials, who instead gathered at Harry’s Roadhouse to discuss next moves in protecting the fragile Upper Pecos watershed from mining and logging.
Last week, all five members of the all-Democratic federal delegation reintroduced a bill to ban new mining activity in the Upper Pecos watershed, citing Source NM reporting that the new federal administration has reversed its plans to pursue such a ban.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration issued executive orders to increase logging and mining projects across the country. U.S.Sen. Martin Heinrich and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, both of whom had announced plans to be in the Pecos area Monday, condemned the reversal in interviews with media Monday and noted that local and tribal governments, farming, ranching, acequias, conservation, hunting and fishing groups have called for added federal protections.
“When you have a process like this temporary mineral withdrawal just upended because somebody made a decision in Washington without speaking to anyone on the ground, I think that that should make us concerned for more decisions coming down the line,” Heinrich said.
Pueblo of Jemez 2nd Lt. Gov. Matthew Gachupin Jr., joined the delegation on Monday, as his pueblo has cultural ties to the area.
“The Pecos Watershed Protection Act is a tool we need now, it’s the weapon we need to fight this battle,” he said Monday. “We are in full support of this legislation and pray it will be successful.”
That being said, the Republican Party holds majorities in both chambers of Congress and will slow the bill’s progress, Leger Fernández said.
“We can’t tell you exactly when it will get heard,” she said. “What we are telling you is that if there is an opportunity to move it, to bring attention to the legislation, we will.”
Ralph Vigil, an organizer in Pecos for the nonprofit New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, as well as a member of the Stop Terrero Mine Coalition, said the group will continue to host meetings and river cleanups to keep the issue at the front of people’s minds.
“We have to keep getting people more involved in the community so we can really make a stand, if things go backwards,” Vigil said.
Much of the community opposition dates to the 1991 Terrero mining spill, when floodwaters breached a defunct mine and sent tailing sludge downriver, killing thousands of fish and buried Willow Creek. Cleanup remains ongoing and has cost tens of millions of dollars, including state environment officials’ request for $5.7 million from the Legislature this year.
Heinrich praised state efforts including a ban from the New Mexico State Land Commissioner and designating the Upper Pecos watershed a New Mexico “outstanding natural resource water,” which requires the state’s strictest water quality protections and offers some guardrails for the 200-some mining claims already existing in the region.
“When those designations went in place at the state level, they made it so that those mining claims — even if they are developed — do not have a right to put pollution in any of those tributaries,” Heinrich said. “So it really hems in how much damage could be done.”
Claresse Romero, the president of the San Miguel del Bado Land Grant, said the community will fight back harder, and will seek lawyers to fight new claims by Australian company New World Cobalt to do some exploratory drilling in the old Terrero mine and nearby deposits.
“I feel that our very lives are at stake,” Romero said in a phone call with Source NM. “Our health, the health of our community, the health of our ecosystem, the health of the farming communities, the health of our culture; because it ultimately is all under attack by these corporate means.”
Rep. Anita Gonzales (D-Las Vegas) who attended the impromptu gathering at Harry’s Roadhouse, told Source NM the state will work quickly to adopt a state program to take over regulating pollution in New Mexico’s surface waters — including from future mining — which was made possible by a law governor signed last week.
In the meantime, Gonzales said the local groups will lobby for the legislation to pass through Congress.
“We’ve done a good job of getting the support in place from the tribal governments, acequias, land grant governments, city, county and state. The next step is this federal protection,” Gonzales said. “We just have to hold the line long enough to where we’re able to pick up the momentum again, federally.”
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