Oil and Gas Activity Returns to Santa Fe County - Rio Grande Chapter

Info for Activists & a Word from Your Chapter
Political Contact Information
President George Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
202/456-1111 • fax 202/456-2461
president@whitehouse.gov
Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne
1849 C Street
Washington, DC 20240
202/208-3100 • fax 202/452-5124
dirk_kempthorne@ios.doi.gov
New Mexico
U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman
703 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
202/224-5521 • fax 202/224-2852
senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov
119 East Marcy, Suite 101
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505/988-6647
U.S. Senator Pete Domenici
328 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
202/224-6621 • fax 202/228-3261
senator_domenici@domenici.senate.gov
1205 South Federal Place, Suite 104
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505/988-6511
U.S. Representative Tom Udall
1414 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202/225-6190 • fax 202/226-1331
www.house.gov/tomudall/
811 St. Michaels Drive, Suite 104
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505/984-8950 • fax 505/986-5047
U.S. Representative Heather Wilson
318 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202/225-6316 • fax 202/225-4975
www.house.gov/wilson/
20 First Plaza NW, Suite 603
Albuquerque, NM 87102
505/346-6781 • fax 505/346-6723
U.S. Representative Steve Pearce
1408 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202/225-2365 • fax 202/225-9599
400 North Telshore, Suite E
Las Cruces, NM 88011
505/522-2219 • fax 505/522-3099
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson
State Capitol, Room 400
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505/827-3000
www.governor.state.nm.us/contact.php
New Mexico State Legislature
Legislative Council Service • 505/986-4600
New Mexico State Senators
Senate Chief Clerk’s Office • 505/986-4714
New Mexico State Representatives
House Chief Clerk’s Office • 505/986-4751
Texas – El Paso
U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes
2433 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202/225-4831 • fax 202/225-2016
www.house.gov/reyes/
A Note from the Conservation Chair
My wife and I recently returned from a
wondrous trip to Cambodia. A constant
companion, one that likely staved off
many a tropical disease, was bottled water. In a world
where open sewers are ubiquitous and running water
is a luxury, everyone who can afford it utterly relies
on bottled water. That and cell phones, of course.
Bottled water is even more ubiquitous back home,
so much so that many Americans use hands-free cell
phones to free up one hand to hold the plastic bottle.
But one wonders whether all this convenience comes
with the touted health benefits, or whether the disappearance
of public water fountains is a sign of a lack
of trust in our public water systems.
The truth is that throughout New Mexico we
spend millions a year so we can have world-class water
safe from debilitating diseases. Tap water is much
more highly regulated than bottled water and tested
way more often for contaminants, except for lead. By
contrast, there are no regulations on words put on
bottled water labels. And when it comes to taste, tap
water often beats out bottled water in blind tests.
The Sierra Club has found that Americans annually
consume over 8 billion gallons of bottled water yet
toss out 90% of the 25 billion plastic water bottles.
Making these bottles releasing toxics such as benzene
and ethylene oxide into the environment. Most
bottles once used, and used once, end up in landfills.
Welcome, Shrayas Jatkar
Shrayas Jatkar has accepted the position as
the Sierra Club’s newest BEC Conservation
Organizer in Albuquerque. Shrayas is a graduate
of the Elliott School of International Affairs at
the George Washington University in Washington,
DC where he majored in International Politics and
minored in Sociology. He recently completed a stint
at Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping
(CARD) where he participated in the ongoing
campaign to oppose nuclear waste reprocessing just
outside of Roswell; he continues to volunteer in that
effort. Prior to CARD, he was with the Center for
Economic Justice in Albuquerque where he gained
experience with the World Bank Bonds Boycott
among many other things. Shrayas also served as
a canvasser for Clean Water Action. On the labor
front, Shrayas has worked as an organizer with the
Campaign for Labor Rights in Washington, DC and
interned with the Service Employees International
Union in Los Angeles.
In between working at CARD and the Center for
Economic Justice, Shrayas lived in India, where he
observed and documented village-level watershed
development projects. He hopes to begin sharing the
knowledge about sustainable water management in
India with interested communities in New Mexico in
his free time. In addition to Marathi (the predominant
language in the state of Maharashtra, India),
Shrayas also speaks German.
Shrayas has found working with communities of
color and with young people to be especially rewarding.
He has developed strong working relationships
with social and environmental justice organizations in
the few years that he has lived in Albuquerque.
Outside of work, Shrayas has a particular passion
for theater and advocates the use of acting and theater
in learning and education. He is part of the cooperative
that runs Out ch’Yonda Live Artz Studio in
Albuquerque’s Barelas neighborhood, which serves as
Then there’s the cost. Tap water is probably too low,
at .0015 cents per gallon. Filtered water is 13 cents. For
bottled water, it’s a whopping $1.27 a gallon, according
to the American Water Works Assocation. In 2002,
Americans paid $7.7 billion for bottled water. When
it costs 1,000 times more for bottled water than tap,
no wonder firms such as Nestle, Coke, and Pepsi are
making a fortune on bottled water, with the latter two
bottling tap water with some additional treatment.
The Sierra Club asks that you get off the bottle:
• Use pitchers of water at work and events.
• Use containers, preferably steel-lined, that you
can refill with tap water when you are away from
home.
• If there is a problem with water quality in your
community, use a good-quality water filter.
• Advocate for adequate funding and good public
management of municipal water systems.
• Monitor unusual land purchases near natural
springs.
• Talk with your solid-waste authority to find out
how plastic bottles are disposed of. If the bottles
are recycled, can you track where they actually go
What use is being made out of the recycled plastic
bottles
For more information, visit the Sierra Club website
(www.sierraclub.org/cac/water).
—Ken Hughes
a space primarily for artists of color. Shrayas often acts
in plays produced by OmniRootz, the resident theater
company of Out ch’Yonda.
Shrayas’s started his new job on May 21. Shrayas’s
BEC work will be focused on our Smart Energy and
Global Warming campaign in the Albuquerque area.
His own personal contribution to the effort is not owning
a motor vehicle and making good use of Albuquerque’s
transit system. He can be reached at shrayas
.jatkar@sierrclub.org.
—Lawson Legate
Rio Grande Chapter Quarterly Meetings
The Chapter’s Conservation and Executive
Committee meetings will be held in September.
Location to be determined. Contact
Conservation Chair Ken Hughes or Chapter
Chair Susan Martin (see masthead page 2) for
more information. Carpooling is encouraged.
Chapter Candidates Invited
If you would like to be considered to run for
the Executive Committee of the Rio Grande
Chapter, you are invited to contact your group
representative on the election committee: Central
Group – Eva Thaddeus; El Paso Group
– Ted Mertig; Northern Group – Richard Kristin;
Pajarito Group – Ilse Bleck; and Southern
Group – Glenn Landers. (See Group pages for
contact information.)
Please send your representative a written
statement explaining your qualifications and
plans for the Chapter’s work. Include your contact
information. The deadline is for receipt of
proposed candidates is August 10.
July/August 2007 rio Grande Sierran