Editor,
As of 2007, the Rio Grande was listed as one of 10 endangered rivers by the World Wildlife Fund. Has that changed? I wouldn’t think so.
And have policies with businesses and corruptible government offices changed? Not really. Consider, then, Spaceport America. Why is 33 percent owner/investor Richard Branson offering us a potential nightmare and risk at a historically unpredictable potential drought site?
I’m aware 2,000 jobs are at risk here, but aren’t 2 million or more inhabitants also at risk, especially neighbors to the south of Hot Springs? Has the governor’s office done its homework here? How about the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District? Could we be asking for viable risk, when there need not be? Aren’t farms, food and our southern neighbors as important? Have they been reminded of the potential risk?
I think we as New Mexicans need specific answers before assenting to this large a potential ecologic disaster. Taxes are on the rise, and taxpayers are on the lift to uncontrolled inflation.
Why build it? So they can come? Wasn’t Gov. Bill Richardson under investigation for a pay-to-play scheme? Weren’t some UNM regents also suspected? Could these two coincidences be checked on? Are staff at UNM doctoring the surveys of the Rio Grande for individual gain of the regents? Hasn’t there been a past to this, much like droughts in a desert? What’s next? Richardson found guilty of a poorly planned or flawed MRGCD report to benefit Virgin Galactic? Doubt that.
Let’s call a review on these poorly planned ideas from Santa Fe. Let’s ask if UNM and MRGCD have any play in it. If we don’t prevent and protect our water, will the MRGCD? How about the governor’s office? How about the UNM Board of Regents, and their real estate agents?
I’m a native, not a Greenpeace activist or tree hugger. I’m asking these questions because I worry about all our children in this valley. Yours too. Hatch was a fishing hole for me; now it’s a tourist trap. Can’t we keep the desert deserted for a bit longer?
It doesn’t make sense to bring more people where droughts have often plagued its inhabitants. Growing grass and golf courses are faux pas in New Mexico. Stop it. Think, then act, so that water stays longer. Knowing people from back east, they need to learn water management better. We already know it.
Gilbert Mireles
UNM student
