New Mexico Surface Water Quality Permitting Program Rulemaking ResourcesAmigos Bravos is asking you to please submit public comment in support of strong protections for New Mexico’s waters. Senate Bill 21 (SB 21) created a state permitting program to protect rivers, streams, and wetlands from pollution, but strong implementation rules are needed as federal rollbacks have stripped protections from most of the state’s waters.
Public comments at the June 8–18 hearings will help protect clean water, public health, and New Mexico communities for generations. Comments can be up to 3 minutes in length.
Hearing Details:
A public comment can be given in person or virtually.
Public comment will be heard every day of the hearing, June 8-18, at 1pm.
In person: New Mexico State Capitol, 490 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe – Room 309
Virtually: Webex Meeting Link
If you have trouble joining, or the link isn’t working for you, please go to the state Events Calendar for more information.
Sample Language for Public Comment to New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission: Adopt Strong, Enforceable Rules for SB 21
“I urge the Commission to adopt strong, comprehensive, clear, and enforceable rules that fully implement SB 21 to fully protect New Mexico’s waters from existing and future pollution. SB 21 provides a historic opportunity for New Mexico to establish a strong state permitting system to safeguard rivers, streams, wetlands, and other essential surface waters.
[INCLUDE PERSONAL DETAILS ABOUT THE NEED TO PROTECT WATERS NEAR WHERE YOU LIVE]
The need for action is urgent. New Mexico cannot afford weak protections that jeopardize our limited water resources. Weak rules would leave vulnerable waters, communities, and future generations at risk for years to come.
We urge the Commission to adopt rules that:
- Protect the full breadth of New Mexico’s surface waters — including rivers, streams, wetlands, and the smaller tributaries and drainages that sustain them.
- Be at least as protective as lost federal protections – including incorporating the 404(b)(1) guidelines to ensure that impacts are avoided, minimized, and compensated for.
- Protect Tribal waters to the fullest extent possible.
- Ensure robust public participation so New Mexicans have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting their water.
- Protect Wildlife by requiring meaningful engagement with the New Mexico Department of Wildlife.
New Mexicans deserve clean, safe, and reliable water. I urge the Commission to act accordingly to pass strong clean water protections that ensure a healthy and safe future.”
Additional Talking Points: New Mexico Surface Water Quality Permitting Program Rulemaking
WQCC 25-74(R): Proposed Amendments to 20.6.2 NMAC & 20.6.5 NMAC
Specifically, the rule must include:
Protections for the full breadth of New Mexico’s surface waters: The state program must protect all of New Mexico’s surface waters — including rivers, streams, wetlands, and the smaller tributaries and drainages that sustain them. Efforts to chip away protections and exclude specific types of waters must be rejected.
Requirements that are at least as protective as lost federal requirements: To ensure that we are adequately protecting New Mexico’s waters, the historic clean water protections outlined in the federal Clean Water Act —under which industry, agriculture, and communities thrived — must be a minimum for protections, not a maximum. Specifically the federal requirements for avoiding, minimizing and compensating for impacts from dredging and filling in wetlands and other waters (referred to as the 404(b)(1) guidelines) must be included in the state program.
Meaningful Avoidance-First Rules for Dredge & Fill: Require applicants first demonstrate they are working to avoid damage or destruction to a wetland or waterway before minimization and mitigation is considered for both individual and general permits. To accomplish this, the project purpose must be clearly defined, and applicants must be required to identify and select the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative (LEDPA) before a dredge and fill permit is issued.
Robust Compensatory Mitigation Requirements: Establish a minimum 2:1 mitigation ratio so when wetland or water areas are destroyed, twice as much is created or remediated. This is because remediated areas are usually not as highly functioning as the originals that were destroyed. A 2:1 baseline mitigation ratio tracks what is required by other states and helps prevent a loss of wetland acreage and function. NMED should be required to develop detailed mitigation guidance that includes requirements for comprehensive mitigation plans.
Engagement with the Department of Wildlife: New Mexico’s Department of Wildlife was recently modernized and adequately funded and is ready to support the state’s habitats and wildlife using the best available science. It’s common across many states for state wildlife agencies to play a meaningful advisory role in the surface water permitting process. For a rule that could dramatically impact at-risk wetlands and stream-side habitat, requesting the Department of Wildlife’s expertise is both common sense and essential to long term protections and habitat health.
Meaningful Public Participation on General Permits: NMED should hold a 15-day public comment period on all general permit notices of intent—posted to the department’s website—and allow the public to petition for general permit coverage decision review. This public participation for general permits ensures that New Mexico residents impacted by a proposed permit have a voice in the process.
Tribal Water Protections: Permits should be denied if they could cause or contribute to pollution that exceeds downstream Tribal water quality standards for both individual and general permits. NMED’s definition of Tribal Water Quality Standards must be adopted and not weakened.
General Permit Issuance Standards: Require the secretary to make a written finding before issuing, renewing, or modifying a general permit that:
- Authorized activities will have no more than minimal individual or cumulative adverse effects on the water resource;
- Activities will not violate water quality standards including those meant to deter wetland and water quality degradation;
- Dredge and fill general permits require avoidance and minimization of impacts.
Streamlined Permits for Restoration: Groups restoring and repairing damaged wetlands and streams are not the same as polluting entities looking to clean up their messes. Therefore, the new rule needs to treat these two groups differently. The final rules need a streamlined process for restoration permits, without overly complicated paperwork, so the work to restore surface waters can begin without delays.