Sunday Mornings @ The Travel Bug A Sunday morning gathering of progressing thinkers who explore, through presentations, issues that influence our daily lives and the lives of future generations. We hope these gatherings, through understanding and knowledge of the world around us, will ignite change for the common good and provide a sense of community.
The Santa Fe Watershed Association is dedicated to returning the Santa Fe River to a living river, from the headwaters in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the confluence with the Rio Grande, balancing human uses with natural resource protection. They do this through education, advocacy, restoration and stewardship. (www.santafewatershed.org) Felicity Broennan and Board President Francois-Marie Patorni will elucidate and discuss the sources of Santa Fe’s drinking water and some of the issues we face as a community trying to bring life back to our primary waterway while balancing the needs of a thirsty and growing population. Francois-Marie Patorni, President of the Board, retired from the World Bank 2001, where he was managing the Water Policy Reform Program, helping countries build capacity and make policy choices for sustainable water resources management. His recent volunteer activities include: member of the Board of the Piedmont Environmental Council, dedicated to protecting the natural resources in nine counties of Virginia; co-founder of RappFLOW (Rappahannock Friends and Lovers of our Watershed), a non-profit to protect the Rappahannock river watershed in Virginia; member of the advisory Board of the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education; Past-President of the International Network for Participatory Irrigation Management; member of the American Water Resources Association and of other professional networks promoting better environmental policies. He moved to the Santa Fe area in 2004. Felicity Broennan is a native of Santa Fe. She grew up along the Santa Fe River back when Santa Fe was a small town. Her favorite thing to do on a summer day was ride her horse to Woolworth’s for a fresh Frito Pie. After graduate school she moved to Southwest Colorado where she spent 14 years working with a variety of Social Profits, including starting her own watershed management and protection project in Mancos, 30 miles west of Durango. It was through this project that she became obsessed with western water issues and all things related to healthy watersheds and humans. She has been the Executive Director of the Santa Fe Watershed Association for 18 months.
In closing 25–year loophole, court protects public from hazardous waste sites and could save taxpayers billions. San Francisco, CA – A federal court has ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must close a loophole that has made it easy for mining companies, coal ash dumps, and a host of other polluting industries to skip out on costly cleanups by declaring bankruptcy. The case concerned EPA's failure to issue "financial assurances" standards that ensure that polluting industries will always remain financially able to clean up dangerous spills and other contaminated sites. Amigos Bravos was represented by EarthJustice. Founded in 1988, Amigos Bravos is a well-established nationally recognized state-wide river conservation organization guided by social justice principles and dedicated to preserving and restoring the ecological and cultural integrity of New Mexico’s rivers and watersheds. While rooted in science and the law, our work is inspired by the values and traditional knowledge of New Mexico’s diverse Hispanic and Native American land-based populations, with whom we work. For the latest news on Amigos efforts, please read about their projects, see publications, and tune in to Radio Río, a monthly radio program dedicated to promoting stewardship and activism by building awareness and providing the listener with the means to further river protection and respond to water quality concerns impacting their communities. Help preserve the legend! Join Amigos Bravos! Keep the ríos grand! Questions, comments, suggestions? Contact us: bravos@amigosbravos.org They have a vision of New Mexico’s rivers and streams running so clear and clean that you can bend a knee to the water, cup your hands, and drink without fear. Realizing this vision – which was a reality in northern New Mexico only one lifetime ago – requires the wisdom, knowledge, and participation of all New Mexicans in the effort to address social and political pressures poisoning our waters © 2011 Amigos Bravos, Taos, New Mexico 575-758-3874
"Three local filmmakers got an Emmy for Split Estate (www.splitestate.com), their documentary about the health and environmental consequences of "fracking" — injecting chemicals underground to stimulate natural gas production. Debra Anderson, the producer and director, and the two researchers, Mitchell Marti and Matt Vest, shared the award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research." Anderson, a native of Colorado, went to the University of Colorado, then to graduate school in art at Hunter College in New York, where she began working in the film industry as a production assistant and editor. After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, she moved to New Mexico "to get back to the West," and now lives south of Santa Fe off N.M. 14. Four years ago, Anderson said, she began working on Split Estate — a title referring to the fact that most surface-rights owners do not own the mineral rights beneath their land — after reading about problems fracking created in Garfield County, Colorado, near Glenwood Springs. The documentary, which was financed in part by $19,000 from Gov. Bill Richardson's New Visions awards, was largely filmed near the Colorado towns of Rifle and Silt — where natural gas escaping from the ground as a result of fracking creates bubbles in a stream — and near the New Mexico town of Bloomfield. Eight months after Anderson started working on the film, the story broke that Tecton Energy of Houston was looking into drilling for oil on 60,000 acres around Cerrillos and Galisteo — possibly using fracking techniques. "What happened was sort of a big surprise and coincidence," she said. "I wouldn't have known a year before what (fracking) meant, but I knew exactly what that meant when I heard about it." Fracking involves deep injections of water, sand and chemical compounds called "surfactants" to break up underground rock strata so it releases more natural gas. Anderson said the petroleum industry won't say exactly what's injected, claiming that is proprietary, even though studies indicate these chemicals are harmful to health and the environment. Anderson, who keeps her Emmy statue of a woman holding a globe at her home south of town, has begun working on her second documentary "on the topic of energy, going in a really different direction," she said. "We're not going to stay on oil and gas. We're going to expand significantly."
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