E-Currents
 
MARCH
2015

Rachel Conn, 2014
Rachel Conn, Interim & Projects Director



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Shannon Romeling, 2014
Shannon Romeling,  Projects & Communications Coordinator



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Contact Info

Amigos Bravos
P. O. Box 238
105-A Quesnel St.
Taos, NM 87571
575-758-3874



www.amigosbravos.org


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Snowflower, 2015
 Snowflower Romero,
Membership Assistant





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Christian LeJeune
Christian  LeJeune, Urban Waters Coordinator



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Green Shoots
Here comes Spring! 
Otter-Winter

TWO MAJOR VICTORIES FOR AMIGOS BRAVOS & THE PEOPLE AND WATERS OF NEW MEXICO!

LANL buildings

EPA MOVES FORWARD WITH NEW STORM WATER REQUIREMENTS FOR LOS ALAMOS!
     The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 (EPA) has announced that it is making a preliminary determination that storm water discharges from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and urban areas of Los Alamos County are contributing to exceedances in water quality standards, and therefore require a Clean Water Act permit. The decision was made in response to a June 30th, 2014 petition by Amigos Bravos. 
     The petition, the first of it's kind in the nation, outlines connections between storm water discharges from urban areas such as parking lots, buildings, and other developed areas at LANL and in Los Alamos County and water quality standard exceedances in tributaries to the Rio Grande on the Parajito Plateau. The petition called on EPA to officially designate municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s) at LANL and urban portions of Los Alamos county as storm water discharges that require regulation under the Clean Water Act. 
     EPA in their March 5, 2015 response letter to Amigos Bravos' petition stated, "EPA has made a preliminary determination that discharges of storm water from municipal separate storm sewer systems on LANL property and urban portions of Los Alamos County result in or have the potential to result in exceedances of state water quality standards, including impairment of designated uses, or other significant water quality impacts such as habitat and biological impacts." 
White Rock Canyon, below Los Alamos
     "This preliminary decision by EPA is an important first step towards protecting the Rio Grande and tributaries on the Parajito Plateau from contaminants such as gross alpha (a measurement of overall radioactivity), heavy metals, and PCBs," 
explains Rachel Conn, the Projects Director and Interim Executive Director for Amigos Bravos. "Regulation of these discharges will help to ensure that downstream communities receive clean water for drinking, agriculture, and recreation." 
    Two of New Mexico's largest cities - Santa Fe and Albuquerque - divert drinking water downstream of these contaminated storm water discharges. "LANL is located within our Sacred Ancestral Homelands and on top of a major watershed that nourishes our communities," said Marian Naranjo, Director of Honor Our Pueblo Existence and Council Member of Communities for Clean Water, for which Amigos Bravos serves as fiscal sponsor and also participates as a Council Member. "It is paramount that whomever resides there must be responsible for unsafe chemicals and toxins that can harm our watershed and people." 
     The decision has been officially published in the federal register and we are currently in a 30-day comment period, which ends on April 16. Please click  http://amigosbravos.org/take_action/letter/23   to send a comment in support of the preliminary designation. If the designation is finalized, EPA will write a draft discharge permit that will outline steps and deadlines that LANL, Los Alamos County, and the New Mexico Department of Transportation will have to implement in order to ensure that storm water discharges from urban areas in the designated area are not causing water quality violations. The draft permit will be subject to a public comment period and opportunity for public hearing. 

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Four Corners 
WE WON! COURT REJECTS PLAN TO EXPAND NEW MEXICO COAL MINE! 

     A federal district judge in Colorado has rejected a 2012 Office of Surface Mining (OSM) plan to expand coal mining at the 13,000-acre Navajo Mine near the San Juan River in northwestern New Mexico. Navajo and conservation groups, including Amigos Bravos, sued OSM in 2012 over the illegal plan, which would have allowed strip mining of 12.7 million tons of coal. 
    U.S. District Judge John L. Kane held that the OSM environmental assessment approving the 2012 expansion violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by ignoring harms resulting from the mine expansion, including toxic mercury pollution from burning the mined coal at the nearby Four Corners Power Plant, one of the most polluting coal plants in the United States. 
     "With so many of New Mexico's lakes and reservoirs contaminated by mercury and other coal pollution, we are pleased that the court agreed that it is essential to take a serious look at the intertwined impacts of mining and burning coal," says Rachel Conn, Projects Director and Interim Executive Director of Amigos Bravos. 
   
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