Rio Grande Valley Broadband • Entered by Susan Ostlie on March 28, 2021
A River’s Plight film – San Pedro Watershed
January 28, 2021
Participants and Hours
| Pre Planning hours | |
| Post Admin hours | 1 |
| Activity Hours | 1.5 |
| Participants | 4 |
| Total Hours | 7 |
Key Issue: Water-related Conservation
Activity Type: Education & Outreach (tabling, films & lectures, regional B-walks/works)
Key Partners: Center for Biologicdal Diversity, Dina Kagen, filmmaker and Ralph Waldt, naturalist and hiker of the Rio San Pedro
Short Description of Activity
Description: The San Pedro River, flowing north from Mexico into Arizona, is the largest undammed river in the Southwest. It provides vital habitat for dozens of endangered species and millions of migratory birds. But the river is at a crossroads: A proposed 28,000-home development would bleed it dry, harming countless wildlife.
Reflection/Evaluation
This was a beautiful film and listening to Ralph Waldt discuss his hikes all along the length of the River. Like the Poole project in ABQ, developers are determined to build a desert community that is sold as a Tuscan green oasis in their sales pitches. It is similar to the mess in Rio Rancho and the west mesa of ABQ, the desert wasteland that runs from Los Lunas to the highway far south of Belen and from the Rio Grande all the way to the very base of the Manzano Mts., much of which was stolen from the land grant communities in that area. My daughter did a photography project of those empty, wasted desert “developments” , and it is amazingly similar – a total rip-off of naive eastern residents looking for a sunbelt home. I found this film and discussion so distressing – I feel like it is almost as ridiculous, terrible for wildlife and exploitive of scarce water resources as the border wall. This would be worth showing for the RGVBB, I think.