Across the United States, there have been many sightings of water monsters. New York, Vermont, Indiana, Montana, Idaho, California, Arkansas, and New Mexico: each has its own story.
Avanyung lives in a marshy spot between Santa Clara Pueblo and Espanola…or at least it used to. Up until the late 1960s, pueblo people regularly reported sightings of this very large water monster with a horse-like head, horns, and a snake-like body. Then it abandoned its small hollow. The retreat of Avanyung back to Posongeh (the Rio Grande) signaled bad times, the withdrawal of the promise of rain for the land, a possible predictor of our current situation.
Those of us who live here know that the mid Rio Grande watershed has many sites of natural beauty. Unfortunately, it also has sites of severe pollution. There are three Superfund sites in our watershed as well as other equally egregious pollution problems in Albuquerque. It is important to note that 50 years ago when much of the pollution occurred, landfills were not lined and different types of waste were not segregated. Now there are new policies and also new technology for cleanup. We have to make sure these are being utilized without unnecessary delays.
In 1980, Congress passed Superfund legislation and established a trust fund to clean up hazardous waste. Forty thousand sites were identified immediately and 1,600 have been placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) including three in Albuquerque. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was to administer the fund which would rely on parties responsible for the pollution contributing to their own site’s cleanup. A tax on petroleum and chemical producers was to cover the rest but the former contributed little, and in 1995 the tax on polluting industries ended. By 2003 the Superfund was empty. Any additional cleanup of sites came out of the EPA budget. Only eight sites nationally were cleaned up in 2014 and the agency budget since then has been cut by 30%. So what is happening here in the mid Rio Grande watershed?
The East San Jose neighborhood is small; covering only two and a half square miles between Broadway SW and the river, it contains two Superfund sites. These sites also affect the bordering Mountain View neighborhood. In 1979, trichloroethylene (TCE) was found in wells near the General Electric Aviation plant. Ten years passed before any cleanup was ordered by the EPA. The NM Environment Department which delists sites could not be reached for current information.
The second site is on an 89 acre railroad property where lumber fabrication, the creosoting of railroad ties, and other activities left 12 different “contaminants of concern” in both the soil and groundwater. This included oils containing polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB). This site contaminated two city wells to the extent that they had to be shut down. Cleanup actions began in 1990, are ongoing, and have included removal of tons of debris, excavation and removal of soil, back-filling with clean soil, removal of sludge, and construction of lined recovery trenches. There are five recovery pumps working to clean the groundwater. So far, 850 million gallons of groundwater have been extracted and treated.
The third site is the Fruit Avenue Plume. Originating from dry cleaning chemicals, this was listed as a Superfund site in 2014. Pollution in an aquifer is called a plume. The size and shape of plumes is mainly measured by monitoring wells which try to detect the migrating edges of the pollutant as it moves out from its source. Because plumes move according to rock structures beneath them rather than by gradients leading downhill, this plume was moving north toward the Saw Mill Area. It is quite shallow, threatening the groundwater used by domestic wells in its path. An EPA contractor cleaned the soil at this site by vapor extraction, treated the groundwater with activated carbon, and put a reactive barrier in place to clean the plume. It will take another 10 years before full remediation of PCB and TCE levels are reached. Monitoring of groundwater is ongoing. The EPA considers this site a success because so much urban development has occurred since the cleanup process began.
This schematic gives an idea of how a contaminated landfill area might look and how cleanup is handled. The City of Albuquerque is currently monitoring seven landfills.
Pesticide is an overarching term meaning a compound which kills fungus, bacteria, insects, or weeds. Insecticides target insects while herbicides target weeds. In this article, we address two pesticides, glyphosate and neonicotinoids, that have widespread deleterious effects on humans and ecosystems. Manufacturing of these pesticides continues unabated, with profits soaring while plant, animal, and insect life are plummeting. At the end of this article, you’ll find recipes for natural pesticides you can make yourself.
Monsanto brought the herbicide glyphosate (found in Round Up and 750 other products) to market in 1974. In 2015, the World Health Organization commissioned a study of glyphosate. Scientists from eleven countries reviewed a growing body of literature and came to the conclusion that the herbicide was a probable carcinogen with a strong link to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. They also found evidence that it causes DNA and chromosome damage in humans. Now many countries in Europe have banned glyphosate use.
Glyphosate also may be implicated in the global drop in bee populations. Ninety percent of our food crops are pollinated by bees. Bee numbers have decreased in the U.S. by 60% and in Europe by 30%. One of the suspected causes is that glyphosate is toxic to enzymes found in the stomachs of bees. When the microbiome of the bee’s stomach is weakened, the bee becomes more susceptible to disease and premature death.
Pesticides with neonicotinoids were first marketed by Bayer in the 1990s; today, neonicotinoids are the most widely used class of insecticides world-wide. They are also having a devastating effect on bees and other beneficial insects. When sprayed on plants, neonicotinoids are absorbed by the plant and then contaminate the pollen and nectar. Harmful levels can remain in the environment for months. Neonicotinoids cause queen bees to be infertile and also causes difficulties in flight and brain function. The European Union banned the use of three neonicotinoids and are monitoring beehive numbers and health. In the U.S., Fish and Wildlife banned their use in Wildlife Refuges, but this ban was rolled back by the previous administration. During the 2021 New Mexico legislative session, Senator Mimi Stewart introduced a bill which would have provided some protections from exposure to neonicotinoids, but the bill did not pass.
Tomato hornworm (Manduca sexta). Photo by Scot Nelson. Flikr Commons
Most insects have a beneficial role in nature, especially pollination, and most plants are beautiful or edible. We want both insects and plants; their survivals are intertwined with our needs. An example of the insect/plant relationship in our watershed is the tomato worm, the hawk moth, and the Sacred Datura plant. In one night, the big, green, juicy caterpillar can denude four or five branches of a tomato plant. This larvae stage metamorphosizes into pupae and then the hawk moth. With a nearly four-inch wingspan, this giant moth is the only pollinator for the Sacred Datura, also called Jimson or Loco Weed. The latter is used globally for medicines and purposefully cultivated in Germany, France, and parts of South America to treat various illnesses such as asthma, hallucinations, toothaches, and even dandruff. If you discover a tomato worm and there are white spikes coming out of its body, a parasitic wasp will have already laid its eggs, and soon the worm will be eaten by the wasp larvae. No need to do anything! In fact, the soon-to-hatch wasps will clear out the rest of your tomato worms. However, if the tomato worm doesn’t have white spikes, you might want to kill the caterpillar; after it finishes your tomatoes, it will move on to your eggplants and peppers.
Bats probably originated in North America and have lived in the mid Rio Grande watershed for millennia. Half the species of bats found in the United States make New Mexico their home either for the summer or year-round.
Since bats are nocturnal, we humans don’t often see these mammal neighbors. They are busy sleeping the day away in caves, under the eaves of our homes, in rock crevices, and even in tree cavities. At night, thousands emerge, searching for flower nectar (especially agave) and insects. A bat can eat 3-5,000 insects each night, making them very helpful to our ecosystem.
Photo: Hans Veth/Unsplash
Evening or vesper bats are a large family of bats; the ones found here are commonly called little brown bats or simple nosed bats. As they make their way through the night sky, they use echolocation, emitting signals from their mouths to judge distance to insects or objects. Other species of bats emit the sounds through their long noses.
The movies portray bats as vicious and scary, causing people to develop chiroptophobia (fear of bats). Since bats are peculiar looking, many with big ears, teeth, and long noses, it is hard to convince the public that they are a very peaceful species of animals. Indeed, a mother bat has maternal instincts and will nurse her young for two months. While an occasional bat in New Mexico has been found to have rabies, it is rather rare considering millions of bats are estimated to live here. The population of bats however is being threatened by a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome which recently showed up in caves in southern New Mexico.
Bees have a special place in my heart. I have apprenticed myself to their wonder and magic for over 10 years. It’s time to hear a word from the bees who I have been sitting shiva with for many years as they have been dying in great numbers.
Around the world, bee species are in decline at the rate of 40%. This should sound the alarm for us as humans, since bees contribute to 1 in 3 bites of our favorite foods and pollinate 85% of all flowers, fruits, nuts and seeds in our eco systems. They have been called keystone species because their survival is linked to the survival of all species— including humans.
Some have called me a bee whisperer. But, I am quite sure that it is the bees that whisper their secrets to me. So what do the bees tell me these days??
The bees tell me that they have already suffered their COVID 19 pandemic. In 2006 the honeybees mysteriously began to die. It was dubbed “colony collapse,” due to the agricultural importing of the Varroa mite. This menace clings onto the bee’s fat body, deforming and sucking out its life juices. Mites eventually destroy the hive’s immune system over time. But the bees have learned how to adapt and evolve new ways of bee-ing in a world with Varroa mites. They teach us that we need to strengthen Mother Earth’s immune system, and preserve boundaries between human and nature, if we are to survive the viruses yet to come. We must quell our need to exploit every living system. Leave the wild alone and enhance healthy zones of nature in our cities and towns and they tell me more…..
Collaborators – Sue Brown, Sherri Burr, Kathy Chilton, Donna Detweiler, Rosie Dudley. Ken Gingerich, Adrienne Jones, Santiago Maestas, Doug Meikeljohn, George Muedeking, Deb Scott, MJ Zimmerman
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