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The mission of the La Cienega Valley Citizens for Environmental Safeguards (CES) is to educate, organize and implement community grassroots committees and groups to take action that protects our
environment, watersheds and cultural landscapes. We work to fulfill the public interest and welfare, as a conservation organization whose mission it is, also to conserve imperiled watersheds both in water
quantity and quality issues, habitat, native species and their threatened habitat. Water conservation, green job training and green jobs will be a focus in the coming year to help make a difference in peoples lifestyles and better the community through sustainable economic development.
This mission has evolved to include the oversight of water quality issues pending from the contaminants in particular from Los Alamos National Laboratory, which our community is downwind and downstream. CES has workedin coalition with other small grassroots organizations to stop the military proliferation of the nuclear weapons and mixed waste dumpsites. Consistent with our mission CES has formed committee groups, which represent different aspects of the issues facing our community. These resident / community committees' acts to protect the cultural resources and the public welfare interests in land use issues that affect our traditional and historic communities. Active public participation in this process fulfills our public educational goals to our local residents, community supporters and the general public in the process. In the interest of the public welfare, CES's goal is to protect information and the public input process on environmental issues that would be useful to the preservation of watersheds within the state of New Mexico and elsewhere.
Citizens for Environmental Safeguards (CES) have been working on the efforts and struggles of some community residents date back more than 20 years. The region has experienced water hortages due to drought. This has brought about water right priorities system that is being threatened in an area dating back to 1720. During the 1800's traditional acequias were built for agricultural farming. An acequia is dug water ditch that flows throughout the traditional villages and farming areas which are scattered throughout the Southwest. To this day sustainable farming exists in the Northern New Mexico. The strain of population growth and go-go economic growth has the the County and City of Santa Fe governments is in the process of trying to divert substantial amounts of water that the valley is dependent upon for both domestic and agricultural uses. Everyone has their straws in the Rio Grande including some of the Pueblos. The Los Alamos National Laboratory has made deals with the Santa Clara Pueblo for water and drilling and pumping rights. THe Los Alos National Lab intends to becomes the largest nuclear weapons manufacturing area in the County. This will make New Mexico a national sacrafice zone. The uncontrolled sprawl, poor planning, the reactionary "mob rule politicial landscape" in the the area and the potential of a water grab by these municipality are intent upon drying up the wells of La Cieneguilla and La Cienega. The D.O.E. has had a significant impact on the economy of New Mexico which literally impedes people raising local community exposuret issues that effects the public health, safety and welfare from the operation of the LABS. Our goal is to bring about regional and national support for these concerns.
Over the past few years we have moved our home office to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We are beginning to transition our name, to shorten it, to CES Citizens for Environmental Safeguards(CES). We are grateful to have had the experience and work to support community issues in the La Cienega Valley. |
