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An excavator piles debris alongside the Gallinas River on Aug. 9, 2022, in Gallinas, N.M. Brittany Peterson\/AP<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n This story was originally published by High Country News<\/a> and\u00a0is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0Climate Desk<\/a>\u00a0collaboration.<\/p>\n First came the drought. After three years without significant rain, northern New Mexico\u2019s dense forests of spruce, fir and ponderosa pines were baked to a crisp. Then came the spark\u2014a prescribed burn lit by the US Forest Service in April 2022. It was supposed to reduce wildfire risk but instead got out of control, eventually becoming the\u00a0largest<\/a>\u00a0wildfire in state history.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the prescribed burn escaped its perimeter, it was dubbed the Hermit\u2019s Peak Fire. Then it merged with the Calf Canyon Fire, a \u201csleeper\u201d fire from January pile burns, in the hills above Las Vegas, New Mexico. (This is rare: Prescribed burns evade control and\u00a0turn into wildfires only about 1 percent of the time<\/a>, according to the Forest Service.) \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like I\u2019m running a restaurant through the apocalypse.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In June, rain finally fell\u2014not enough to douse the flames, but enough to send rivers of soot, ash, and mud racing into downstream communities and homes. That put drinking water sources at risk, including private wells and a water treatment plant that was unable to turn the sludgy, contaminated water into anything safe to drink.<\/p>\n Firefighters\u00a0contained<\/a>\u00a0the 340,000-acre fire in August. Now, three years later, people living in the burn scar and the roughly 13,000 residents of Las Vegas, less than 10 miles from the edge of the burn, still intermittently have trouble accessing\u00a0clean<\/a>\u00a0drinking water. The ongoing problems expose how local, state and federal systems aren\u2019t set up to deal with the long recovery times for increasingly large and destructive wildfires.<\/p>\n Las Vegas will remain vulnerable to flooding and drinking water will be at risk for at least the next five to 10 years, until shrubs regrow enough to help stabilize sloppy hillsides and scorched soil can hold moisture again. Now everyone holds their breath when summer monsoon season rolls around.<\/p>\n That June 2022 flood wasn\u2019t the only disastrous deluge the community experienced even as the fire was still burning. In July, at\u00a0least<\/a>\u00a02-4 inches of rain fell on ashy, water-repellant soil in just a few hours. A torrent of water raced downstream, surging into steep canyons and filling the Gallinas River with a chocolaty sludge of burned trees, dirt, and pine needles. \u00a0<\/p>\n Flash flooding killed\u00a0three<\/a>\u00a0people, washed out roads, and overpowered the city\u2019s water treatment plant, which was not designed to handle post-wildfire conditions. Whenever floods pour dirt and ash into the river that feeds the city\u2019s three reservoirs, the plant automatically shuts off to prevent permanent damage.<\/p>\n Then, last summer, it\u00a0happened<\/a>\u00a0again: Heavy monsoonal rainstorms triggered more flooding, causing debris flows that left the water treatment plant\u00a0unusable for roughly two weeks.<\/a>\u00a0It was intermittently shut down for months afterward, forcing city officials to close all nonessential businesses before the busiest weekend of the year, the annual Fourth of July Fiesta, which was cancelled.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0turbidity<\/a>\u00a0in some water samples\u2014a measure of their clarity\u2014was 200 times higher than federal drinking water\u00a0standards.<\/a>\u00a0Locals were asked to\u00a0limit<\/a>\u00a0their water use; businesses faced penalties if they didn\u2019t comply. \u201cIt feels like I\u2019m running a restaurant through the apocalypse,\u201d said Isaac Sandoval, a Las Vegas local and owner of The Skillet restaurant. \u201cIt\u2019s just one thing after another.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are asking, \u2018Is it safe to live here?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The solution is a new facility that can handle muddy, debris-filled water, and will cost over $100 million. But disaster recovery moves slowly. Despite\u00a0$4 billion in congressionally approved fire relief<\/a>\u00a0and additional FEMA funding, design delays mean a new plant won\u2019t open for at least four to six more years, according to Mayor David Romero.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the meantime, maintaining the existing plant has cost Las Vegas $1 million over the last six months. And the city\u2019s water still isn\u2019t always clean. The New Mexico Environment Department\u2019s Drinking Water Bureau has\u00a0cited<\/a>\u00a0the city for violating state drinking water standards almost 60 times since 2023. \u00a0<\/p>\n The effects of all this ripple throughout the community. Water shortages stress city firefighters. Closed businesses require more police patrols. Paper plates\u2014dishwashing isn\u2019t possible without clean water\u2014and an estimated 1.2 million plastic water bottles burden the city\u2019s garbage disposal system.<\/p>\n Other communities could face similar problems. More than\u00a060 million<\/a>\u00a0people in the United States get their drinking water from streams that flow from the nation\u2019s 193 million acres of national forests.\u00a0Proactive<\/a>\u00a0thinning is underway in high-risk watersheds, including the one supplying Butte, Montana, as\u00a0HCN\u00a0reported last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n And some rural areas, like Lake Madrone, California, have already paid the price. The 2020 North Complex Fire contaminated water pipes with toxic VOCs and trihalomethanes. More than four years later, residents of the 60 or so houses that didn\u2019t burn down are still drinking from water tanks in their yards, dependent on truck deliveries for refills.\u00a0FEMA denied<\/a>\u00a0the Lake Madrone Water District\u2019s $8 million request to rebuild its water system, and the community can\u2019t afford to replace the piping on its own.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chaos at FEMA\u2014in June, President Donald Trump\u00a0said he wanted to phase out the agency<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cgive out less money\u201d for disaster relief\u2014will hurt the next community ravaged by a similar catastrophe. (So far, the Hermit\u2019s Peak\/Calf Canyon fire recovery funds have not been cut.) \u201cIt is unacceptable that the Trump administration is attempting to gut FEMA\u2014making us less prepared for the next crisis,\u201d New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n said in an emailed statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cyn Palmer and I stepped over the sandbags that still line the front door of her small townhome in Rociada, New Mexico, in April. Rociada is in the foothills about 30 minutes northwest of Las Vegas, due north of Hermit\u2019s Peak and flanked by a horseshoe-shaped ridgeline. Snow blanketed the ground and the thousands of burnt trees that ring the valley resembled charred toothpicks. Many of her neighbors and friends lost their houses, and the community center and bar where Palmer, a retired wildlife manager, once picked up shifts burned down as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n Palmer\u2019s house has been through the wringer: Soot damage is still visible on its white walls despite cleaning, and repeated flooding has left mold in its wake. But one of her primary concerns is water. The rural communities scattered north of Las Vegas lack municipal water treatment plants; instead, residents rely on wells, either individual wells or community wells that serve a cluster of homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Floods\u00a0can<\/a>\u00a0loosen well hardware and erode pump components. They can also ferry\u00a0toxic runoff<\/a>\u00a0from burned areas into well water,\u00a0contaminating<\/a>\u00a0it with chemicals, bacteria or microorganisms that require disinfection and flushing. \u201cPeople are asking, \u2018Is it safe to live here?\u2019\u201d Palmer said. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t fully trust this water. I don\u2019t trust the water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Palmer\u2019s tap water comes from a community well owned and operated by the Pendaries Village Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association. The association assured Palmer that, after\u00a0repairs<\/a>, its wells were safe and uncontaminated by flooding, but it refused to share immediate test results with her. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so concerned about the water,\u201d Pacheco said. \u201cHow toxic is it?\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n When Palmer tried to take advantage of free water quality testing from the New Mexico Environment Department, she recalls being told that her sample had been tossed out because the community well had already been tested by the association. (Department spokesperson Muna Habib said some testing events only focus on private or public, not always community, wells.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Palmer also worries that the pipes that carry water from the well across the valley floor to her house were superheated during the fire. Radiant heat can cause plastic pipes to\u00a0leach<\/a>\u00a0benzene and other toxic volatile organic compounds into water.<\/p>\n To this day, the water she drinks and brushes her teeth with comes from a ceramic dispenser on her kitchen counter or bottles of water. She refills 3-to-5-gallon jugs in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, where she also receives medical care for an anemia autoimmune disorder that developed after the fire. \u201cThere\u2019s no point in taking a chance on this water, when you think about all the toxins that went into the watershed,\u201d Palmer said. She\u2019s tripped over sandbags repeatedly, once hurting herself and another time breaking a water jug.<\/p>\n The scope of the private well problem is not fully known, but the roughly 75-100 households who live in and around Rociada get their water from wells. \u201cI worry about people that haven\u2019t gotten sick yet,\u201d Palmer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n A few miles up the road from Palmer, Laura and Luis Silva live with six family members and run a small herd of cattle. Both sides of their families have lived here for five-plus generations. Manuelitas Creek, which runs through the Silvas\u2019 property, is usually only a few feet wide. Since July 2022, however, it occasionally swells up to 75 feet wide and 12 feet deep, washing out driveways, damaging septic tanks, stock ponds and culverts, and pinning logs and other debris on fences.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Silvas believe that chemicals from burned homes and fire retardant, which contain toxic\u00a0heavy metals<\/a>, ended up in the floodwaters that their cattle drank. It\u2019s difficult to know how much fire retardant was released overall during the months-long fire, but\u00a028,000 gallons were dropped on one day in May 2022.<\/a>\u00a0That year, several calves were born prematurely, small and without any fur. \u201cWe\u2019ve never seen that before,\u201d Laura Silva said. The calves didn\u2019t survive.\u00a0<\/p>\n It cost the family $575 to have their well tested for a variety of contaminants in March 2023, which they said FEMA didn\u2019t reimburse. \u201cPeople haven\u2019t had their wells tested because they can\u2019t afford it,\u201d Laura Silva said. (In a statement attributed to Jay Mitchell, director of operations, FEMA disputed this and said private well testing was eligible for reimbursement before the fire claims reimbursement deadline of March 14.) \u00a0<\/p>\n They\u2019re concerned a septic tank damaged by flooding may be contaminating their water, an even more expensive problem to fix without FEMA\u2019s help. So for now, they drink their water and hope there\u2019s nothing wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some 40 miles south, in the mountains south of Hermit\u2019s Peak, Michael Pacheco lives on 100 acres that were once covered with pi\u00f1on pines, cedars and juniper trees. Most of them burned, and now, when it rains, water runs right off the soil, rather than soaking in. Pacheco, who is a minimalist, has never had running water at his trailer. But he used to draw as much water as he wanted from a nearby well. Now, it runs out after 30 gallons.\u00a0<\/p>\n When we met for an afternoon lemonade in Las Vegas, Pacheco pulled up in an old turquoise truck. There was a 300-gallon plastic tank strapped in the back, and he planned to fill it with potable water before heading back to the hills. \u201cI\u2019m so concerned about the water,\u201d Pacheco said. \u201cHow toxic is it?\u201d The 2024 summer flooding kept Pacheco, who\u2019s cut off from town by Tecolote Creek, from turning in water quality samples to the New Mexico Environment Department for free testing on time.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Though Pacheco lives dozens of miles away from Palmer and the Silvas, they share similar concerns: lingering chemical contamination from fire retardant and the lack of testing of private wells and surrounding waterways. Pacheco has fought environmental battles in the past, protesting and organizing against fracking and mining efforts in the region. \u201cI\u2019ve been an activist since I was a little boy,\u201d he said. Now, safe drinking water is his next fight. He\u2019s started pestering the city, the state, and the federal government to help fund testing and any cleanup necessary to ensure clean water. \u201cIt\u2019s time to heal,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to help turn this all around.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An excavator piles debris alongside the Gallinas River on Aug. 9, 2022, in Gallinas, N.M. Brittany Peterson\/AP Get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-260755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114844210500734491","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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