Streams that supply drinking water in danger following 2023 Supreme Court decision that stripped wetlands protections: Report
Streams that supply drinking water in danger following 2023 Supreme Court decision that stripped wetlands protections: Report ABC News
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A Supreme Court Decision Impacts America’s Wetlands and Drinking Water
A Supreme Court decision that stripped protections from America’s wetlands will have reverberating impacts on rivers that supply drinking water all over the U.S., according to a new report.
The Impact of the Supreme Court Decision on New Mexico’s Rivers
The rivers of New Mexico are among the waterways that will be affected most by the May 2023 Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. EPA, which rolled back decades of federal safeguards under the Clean Water Act for about half of the nation’s wetlands and up to four million miles of streams that supply drinking water for up to four million people, according to the report, titled “America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2024.”
The Supreme Court decision cut protections for streams that only run during the rainy season or for periods of the year after snowmelt, which is typical for the arid environment in the Southwest.
“When you look at the most endangered rivers this year, most of them are a result of that,” Tom Kiernan, president and CEO of environmental nonprofit American Rivers, told ABC News about the Supreme Court decision. “Those stretches of small streams that lead into the rivers or wetlands that support these rivers are no longer protected.”
Impacts on New Mexico’s Streams and Downstream Areas
Water from The Little Pee Dee River floods business and washes out part of Rte. 301 on September 17, 2018 in Dillon, S.C.
Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
About 96% of New Mexico’s streams are now vulnerable to pollution due to the lack of protections, with potential harmful downstream impacts in other states in the Southwest along the Rio Grande, Gila, San Juan and Pecos rivers, according to the report.
In Santa Fe, the drinking water depends on strong protections for small streams that feed into the Santa Fe River and the Rio Grande, Anna Hansen, Santa Fe County Commissioner for District 2, said in a statement provided to ABC News.
“The Sackett decision has stripped away those protections and our residents are now at risk,” Hansen said.
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