Since 2006, Amigos Bravos has been working with the Sierra Club’s Water Sentinels to train volunteers and gather water quality data from dozens of sites on five Taos rivers – the Rio Fernando de Taos, the Rio Pueblo de Taos, the Rio Grande, Red River, and Rio Hondo – many of which consistently show evidence of either E. coli, conductivity or temperature. We test these sites three times a year and each year, we perform a public training and coordinate volunteers to collect data. This data is sent to the New Mexico Environment Department to update our Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) for use in the development of the state’s list of impaired waters (303d list) and has resulted in several new impairments being recognized and listed. In 2021, we will continue to lead these efforts and will host a water quality sampling training for volunteers in April or May and will conduct water quality sampling from May through September.
You may read our Water Quality Sampling Reports here.