SIERRA CLUB News:
In response to a petition by the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, District Court Judge Sarah Singleton has ordered New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn and the Water Quality Control Commission to explain the illegal scheduling of a hearing on groundwater-protection rules for the dairy industry.
Although 57 percent of New Mexico dairies have polluted groundwater in excess of health standards, Flynn’s Environment Department has not been enforcing a groundwater-protection rule the commission passed in 2011 specifically for the dairy industry.
The Environment Department and an industry group calling themselves “Dairy Industry Group for a Clean Environment” have been working together – often barring the public from their discussions – to dismantle the 2011 rule’s most important water protections.
The Water Quality Control Commission had scheduled a hearing on these rule changes to be held in Roswell, ignoring the clear direction of New Mexico’s laws, which require a public process and hearing in Santa Fe.
“The Environment Department is pandering to the industrial dairies that want the hearing about dismantling the rule to be held in the most sympathetic locale in the state,” said Rio Grande Chapter Conservation Coordinator Dan Lorimier. “If they are able to quietly get away with gutting the dairy safeguards and allowing the copper-mining industry to write its own groundwater rule, what protections are the 90 percent of New Mexicans who drink groundwater left with?”
Judge Singleton issued a writ (attached) ordering Flynn to conduct a Water Quality Control Commission meeting to reschedule the hearing or to show cause why it should not be rescheduled by Nov. 25.
“Why should any of the parties want to go through the considerable expense and time for this hearing if we know it’s illegal and therefore nonbinding?” Lorimier said.
A typical New Mexico dairy produces thousands of gallons of waste daily — as much as a small city. But cities treat their wastewater, while dairies dump untreated animal feces, urine, and antibiotic-laden waste into gigantic open-air lagoons. The rules agreed upon by all stakeholders – including the dairy-industry group and the Citizens Coalition that the Rio Grande Chapter is part of – required synthetic liners for those lagoons as well as other protections for drinking water. But the Environment Department has yet to enforce that rule, and many dairies are operating in New Mexico without permits.
“We and our allies have been working for common-sense safeguards to keep our families’ drinking water clean,” Lorimier said. “We’re grateful that Judge Singleton is prompting Ryan Flynn, the WQCC and the industry to allow everyone a voice in this process.”
