Spring 1999 Bulletin

MEMBERSHIP UPDATES

EVENTS CALENDAR Red River Water Quality Monitoring..............Week of May 10 Watershed Talk (Albuquerque)........................June 10 Hike up Columbine Creek (Questa).................June 12 Paint-a-Thon on the Río Grande (Pilar)...........July 17 River Walk & Talk (TBA)...............................July (TBA) Red River Water Quality Monitoring...............Week of August 9 Annual Dinner...................................................September (TBA) Walk-on-the-Wild-Side and Ride-the Río..........September 25 Red River Water Quality Monitoring................Week of September 20 Día del Río.........................................................October 16   Contact the Amigos Bravos office at 505-758-33874 for details on any of these events.

Paint the River! Our Second Annual Río Grande Paint-a-Thon & Art Auction promises to be the river-art event of the year, and we hope that you will be a part of it! Last year, 33 artists came down to the banks of the Río Grande to paint en pleine aire, and dozens of art buyers turned out for the afternoon cocktail party and art auction at Bareiss Gallery. in Taos, NM. This year, we hope that you will be a part of it! Amigos Bravos, in association with Stables Gallery will host the 1999 River Painting Party on the Río Grande on Sunday, July 17, 1999, to be followed by a cocktail party and auction to benefit river protection. Professional and amateur artists alike are welcome. Participating artists are invited to paint any portion of the river between Orilla Verde and Taos Junction Bridge on Sunday, July 17. Artists will then bring their work to Stables Gallery for the preview of paintings and cocktail party, to be held from 5:00-6:00 pm. The auction will take place from 6:00-7:30. A gift certificate for art supplies will be offered to the "People's Choice Best of Show" painting, based on votes made during the preview. Rain date: July 18, 1999. If you would like to participate in this year's Río Grande Paint-a-Thon & Art Auction, or if you would like more information about the event, please contact Amigos Bravos. We hope that you will join us.

What Your Dollars Do! Last November, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver declined (on the basis of a technicality) to hear Amigos Bravos' 1995 Clean Water Act lawsuit against the Molycorp molybdenum mine, which sought to have the mine's waste rock piles regulated as a non-point source of pollution on the Río Grande. Many of you had made generous donations to fund that lawsuit. What did your dollars do? The generous contributions from our members to support this important legal action achieved a lot for the rivers, despite the suit's defeat. Specifically, your dollars: hired expert technical consultants to help assess the environmental impact of the mine on the Red River. Your donations covered some of the tens of thousands of dollars owed to technical consultants at EnviroSearch, who conducted vital independent hydro-geological assessments of Molycorp's waste rock piles, establishing, for the first time, concrete evidence that Molycorp is polluting the Red River in violation of the Clean Water Act. prompted an independent investigation and report by the US Environmental Protection Agency. EnviroSearch's research, and the public attention garnered by our suit, prompted the US Environmental Protection Agency to initiate its own investigation into the mine's effect on the Red River. In February, 1998, EPA issued its own report, which found a direct hydrological connection between the mine's waste rock and the river and found the mine in violation of the Clean Water Act. bolstered our on-going efforts to stop Molycorp's 30-year pollution of the river. The information garnered for our 1995 Clean Water Act lawsuit forms the basis for our 1999 lawsuit against the EPA, which seeks to press that agency into halting Molycorp's pollution-now. The evidence we have gathered will also be an invaluable asset in the permitting process this year, as Molycorp applies for regulatory permits to discharge pollutants into the Red River. With your help-and generous contributions-we have brought public and official attention to the Red River and Molycorp's impact on it. We could not have done it without you! It is with tremendous gratitude that we acknowledge the following individuals and businesses who have made generous contributions in recent weeks: Chilton and Judith Anderson Blair Brown and Susan Gorman Michael A. Nairn Joyce Mitchell Price Alan Rogers and Jamie Gagan

Geeks Do Good With the generous help of the Environmental Support Center in Washington, DC, and the ingenuity and hard work of the many self-proclaimed geeks-for-good who created ebase, a database specifically designed to facilitate non-profit environmental activism, Amigos Bravos has a terrific new database! In February, computer programmer and ebase designer Jack Noll spent two days at our office in Taos to install and help train our staff in the use of ebase. The new system will not only help us maintain membership records, it will also vastly improve our ability to communicate with members. Best of all, ebase was created to facilitate communication via email, so that we can keep you informed and up-to-date with action alerts that reach you in the blink of an eye. Please send us your email address, if you would like to receive email updates, so we can keep in touch and let you know about breaking news.g

Membership Drive 2/99 Update One month into our spring membership drive, we are delighted to report that more than 203 new members have joined the ranks of Amigos Bravos since March, generously contributing several thousand dollars to support protection of the Río Grande watershed. With growing numbers of our members living in Colorado and Texas, we are increasingly aware of the importance of establishing programs that represent the needs and interests of communities throughout the watershed. Let us know what your concerns are. We welcome your feedback! You too can join this effort, and become an Amigo Bravo today!

Welcome and Thank You to Our Exceptional Volunteer Crew! A pool of generous new volunteers is contributing invaluable time and expertise to help Amigos Bravos with an assortment of tasks, while at the same time providing insight, wisdom, and perspective to our work. After retiring two years ago from a career as a librarian in Massachusetts, Hope Buechler has put her substantial skills to work for us on an ambitious research project. Coming from an extensive background in environmental biology, Gari Hatfield has found time, even while balancing the needs of her two-year old and a new full-time job, to help us set up a vitally needed volunteer directory. Heather Pratt, with a background in riparian ecology, is providing indispensable help sifting through, sorting, and deciphering volumes of technical documents. Amanda Shine has helped us better organize our sometimes chaotic office library, while she continues to work on a degree in biology. And Katy Woodall continues tirelessly to coordinate our monthly volunteer field projects from April through October (see the Events Calender on page 4). Our immense gratitude to you all! Please contact our office if you'd like to lend a hand and learn more about the world of non-profit river advocacy. Volunteer projects range from technical and historic research to myriad office tasks, but they are all equally important in our efforts to keep rivers healthy and communities vibrant throughout the Río Grande watershed.

Please return to Spring 1999 Bulletin Index.