NM WRRI Hosts 2023 Animas and San Juan Watersheds Conference

By Mark Sheely, NM WRRI Program Specialist

The Animas and San Juan Watersheds Conference returned to Farmington, New Mexico, with two days of conference events and a simultaneous Zoom option for virtual attendees, building on the success of last year’s hybrid conference format. Over 160 in-person and virtual attendees learned about the variety of water research, restoration, and management efforts taking place across the Animas and San Juan Watersheds, including restoration and remediation efforts related to the 2015 Gold King Mine release.

On the first day, the conference program highlighted restoration, remediation, and water quality studies, as well as spatial assessments and modeling of dust-on-snow events taking place within the watersheds. Day two focused on the voices of farmers and researchers exploring resilience strategies for agriculture in the region, in addition to the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act and its efforts in monitoring water quality in the watersheds. Apart from oral presentations, a poster session reception on Wednesday afternoon and a field trip to restoration sites along the Lower Animas River on Thursday allowed participants to further engage with water-related work being done in the basin. Permissible presentation slides, posters, and videos will be available on the conference website. You can view those already posted by clicking here.

To begin conference presentations on Wednesday, June 21, Sara Gerlitz Peck of the New Mexico Office of the Natural Resources Trustee (ONRT) shared an overview of the restoration projects approved by the ONRT to receive funding made available through settlement money received by the State of New Mexico for damages caused by the Gold King Mine release. Steven Fry of Amigos Bravos presented details of their San Juan Wetland Jewels project, which incorporates restoration, along with wetland mapping, and land planning to promote climate resiliency. Also that morning, Peter Butler from the Bonita Peak Mining District Community Advisory Group shared an update on activities within the district, including the beginning of construction by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the Mayflower Tailings Impoundment, to serve as a permanent repository for the waste sludge generated from the treatment of discharge from the Gold King Mine. Presentations throughout the first day also highlighted the tourism potential of the region’s water resources, as well as the water lease agreement between the State of New Mexico, Jicarilla Apache Nation, and The Nature Conservancy on the San Juan River for fish habitat improvement. The U.S. Geological Survey concluded the day’s oral presentations by giving back-to back presentations about groundwater quality and flow studies at Chaco Cultural National Historic Park. The day ended with a poster session and reception featuring five poster presenters.

On Thursday, Kate Sullivan of the U.S. EPA shared information about the monitoring of metals and nutrients in the two rivers since 2018. Shelly Lemon, Surface Water Quality Bureau Chief at the New Mexico Environment Department, provided details of a new jurisdiction-led water quality monitoring program, now that the U.S. EPA-led sampling plan has concluded. Ranalda Tsosie of New Mexico Tech detailed the innovation in water treatment technologies as part of the Navajo Technical University-New Mexico Tech Navajo Nation Water Purification Project.

During the final portion of the conference program, Serafina Lombardi of the New Mexico Acequia Association, Connie Maxwell of NM WRRI, and Kevin Lombard of the NMSU Agricultural Science Center at Farmington shared details of two research projects being launched with study areas in the San Juan River Basin. “Building Resilience through Organic and Traditional Approaches,” funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, aims to identify pathways to agricultural and water resilience for arid and semi-arid small farms, and synthesize these understandings into an organic systems planning toolkit. The second research project, the “Acequia Drought Resiliency Project” received funding from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART program, and uses a community-stakeholder-acequia-led process to facilitate the creation and implementation of flexible water sharing and resilience strategies focused on the Northern Rio Grande and San Juan Basins in New Mexico. This session also hosted a panel of acequia leaders from local ditches to share their experiences of water management and farming in the region. Attendees were encouraged to attend a post-conference planning session to further discuss acequia water and agriculture resilience strategies and dream big for the future of these two projects.

Following morning presentations and a break for lunch, attendees had the option of joining a field trip to visit two restoration sites along the lower Animas River implemented by the San Juan Soil and Water Conservation District, and showcasing river bank stabilization and floodplain restoration along the river.

NM WRRI thanks the planning committee members, presenters, and all the attendees who helped make this year’s conference a success, and looks forward to welcoming participants again at next year’s Animas and San Juan Watersheds Conference.