duck and taos gorge ungoliantschilde.tumblr.com
“What exactly is the function of a rubber duck?" A rubber duck is a Muggle toy, shaped like a duck and used for recreation in a bathtub. They apparently do not exist or are simply uncommon in the wizarding world.
What is a bathtub? A container to hold or gather water in for a specific reason and use, until it is unplugged and sets the water free.
“Quack Quack”, said the Rubber Ducky, “we will buy and privatize your water, and then finance it back to you, to build our vision for your future civilization”.
“How long will it be before the world’s elite feel that almost all the world’s problems could be solved by getting rid of that surplus population.” Arundhati Roy
“Welcome to the reservation.” Russel Means
This Bear has been musing about Water, Earth, Air, Sun and Life, here in the sacred valley of Taos, and have decided to split this post into 4 parts, for the light hearted reader ~ because there is no Life without Water, Earth, Air, and Sunlight.
Part 1
Our responsibility for living in healthy relationship with Earth, is necessary
for human and all life’s existence.
In recent Taos history, there was a 25 year long resistance to the Airport Runway Expansion. By 2016 the EIS that was being used to push the expansion through no longer reflected the increase of residents that would be directly impacted by the expansion. You might think that there would have been more rigorous safety and ecological standards put in place by the County and Town prior to such an expansion. This was not done, despite residential out cry and many now live in an airport “Sacrifice Zone”.
During those 25 years people living in the Upper Las Colonias area, created a neighborhood association to unify their political, water and land use aspirations with El Prado Water and Sanitation District. The wood man, and the Upper Colonias neighborhood association man became county commissioners and Lower Las Colonias, and Lower Blueberry Hill became an invisible ignored orphan in the scheme of things, and the resistance to the Airport Runway Expansion was lost, and won by those who’s “airport expansion” is just one part of the federal and state funded projects for their economic prosperity “plan” connected to the Abeyta Settlement.
Now the wood man is Mayor of the Town that owns the airport, Upper Las Colonias still has has their county commissioner, and EPWSD got the Abeyta Settlement of fed and state $ to mine water, for the next phase of their “plan”. Tarleton, another Upper Las Colonias Neighborhood Association board member, has been diligently polishing up his part of the plan, with professionally marketed eco-language, websites, and pipe dream$ made of mined water to the residents of the county. Have heard that the land is located in a “flood plane” and appropriate for grazing buffalo, cattle and sheep. Let us hope this alone, makes the County think about their liability should they try to approve building there.
Listening over the years to our neighbors, the wood man, the neighborhood association man, the water man, the Abeyta Settlement men.....about their “Plan”.
Why you might ask WHAT would EPWSD need approximately 550 AFY water over and above, the approximately 25 AFY they currently use?
Whom else down, up, and local stream have water needs and or economic expansion plans that need water?
Why would Taos Pueblo tell EPWSD that they need to move further away from their Buffalo Pastures?
And who down steam from this "plan" will become the the water "treatment", sacrifice zone?
All above and below water is interconnected. What happens over here, will affect over there.
The “Plan”, in simplified terms, from what this abuelita has been listening to that has been said, is that this is a “plan” for a HWY 64 to Ski Valley Corridor which needs the Airport expansion for military, personal/private and tourist Ski Valley flights, and the industrial/commercial-casino-hotel-shopping mall-“eco”-housing-tourism-playgrounds for the benefit of tourists and investor-developers, and maybe all the families that have sold the lands and waters off for this “Plan”.
All of this needs Water to develop.
Part 2
Deep Aquifer Drilling to mine Water for the Tarleton Ranch Eco Village development,
the expanded airport to serve a military-tourist-industrial-casino-hotel-housing-shopping mall
HWY 64 corridor “Plan”, and other entertainment play grounds for the rich and famous have ONLY taken a few decades to encroach on the land, water and life-ways of “locals”, whom often say “If you don’t like it, move.” yet it is “locals” whom for whatever reasons, historically, “privatized” the land tracks, so they could be sold off. We now have a wonderful “cosmopolitan” mix of residents, some even stepping up to being participating members of town and county governing bodies.
When I look at the Rio Grand Gorge and the HWY 64 to the Ski Valley corridor Plan, I see the same kind of interests wanting to exploit this Sacred Taos Valley, as the Escalade Developers of the Grand Canyon, and wonder if the People will rise up as they have in the past and recognize that the Milagro Bean Field War, is not over. In fact bean fields and farming may become a hobby, rather than a way of life. https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/stopping-grand-canyon-escalade
Tarleton Ranch “Eco-Village” Development
is not in alignment with the 30% water rights agreed upon in the Abeyta Settlement.
"30% water rights” for 30,000 plus local residents, for this abuelita, means that
un-checked expansion and development for a 200 - 400 2nd or 3rd home ownerships, and
90 “unknown-types” of commercial developments is not feasible, is not healthy, during this time of drought. Nor does this abuelita think that we need another alcohol vendor…in the likes of a 500 person capacity building to distill and serve whisky.
30% water rights, means that this side of the “cattle guard” needs to live within the 30% of what Taos Watershed will naturally provide. To exceed this, will also affect Taos Pueblo and All future generations to come, because all water is inter-connected. However, the Abeyta Settlement
benefactor, El Prado Water and Sanitation District (EPWSD), has the answer:
Mine Water for expansion and?
And thus was awarded an increase in water “rights”, am sure by hard won “negotiations” for the “Plan”.
The mining of water for the increase of water consumption by EPWSD from approx. 25 AFY to 575 AFY for development that’s primary purpose is to serve private or corporate investor-developer interests? To have every home near and far hooked up to piped, chlorinated water? Why not move to Santa Fe or Albuquerque for that? Their “Plan” and economic model based on tourism, and housing sub-divisions for 2nd and 3rd home owners, is not sustainable. Nor are commercial industries with high water usage.
An economic model with roots in the vitality of water, food, energy and locally made goods and services, is “sustainable”.
Now is the time to invest in the life, land, foods and culture of the local peoples.
Tourists will come and go, entertainment will come and go, what is in fashion will come and go, oil and gas has come and is going, and one day, as has happened before, the truck will not come to feed our children.
To be truly “sustainable” a community must be able to feed the people. Taos Pueblo and the neighboring villages, were once able to do that. We can do that again, however to do this, means that
dependance and addiction to unsustainable lifestyles, need to change, or
at the very least, get healing for our addictions.
Part 3
Our responsibility for living in healthy relationship with the Earth, is necessary
for human and all life’s existence.
Our first priority needs to be in implementing solutions for water conservation, water catchments, aquifer and watershed-replenishment-agri-cultural methods, solar, recycling, composting, compostable potties, and locally “owned” production of goods and services for the cultural health and vitality of the current population, and future generations.
Development that does not recognize or acknowledge the impact on water, the watershed, residents, animal habitat and migration patterns, nature, existing culture, and night skies, beyond 500 to 1000 feet from it’s boundaries is not sustainable in this region. We are all inter-connected.
Why build and who really benefits from another “housing and business complex” when there are a plethora of vacant commercial spaces, rents are too high for locals, and portions of the county are under or totally un-represented by the county commissioners?
Part 4
Some say “If we build it, they will come”. What has been built and what do we have?
To name a few:
We live in the Sacred Taos Valley of a World Heritage site of the Taos Pueblo Peoples.
The Rio Grande del Norte National Monument is the main water artery of our region, home of the famous Gorge Bridge and Gorge Bridge Vendors.
We have the internationally famous Greater World Eco-Village, that truly is an “eco- village” that does not need wells, or piped water to exist.
We have expanded the airport to accommodate the military, personal-private commuter planes and tourist flights, regardless of the adverse affects it has on Elk migration, coyotes, the bee, bird, bat and butterfly, etc… populations…oh but, I guess developers would not know about that because they don’t actually live in the Sacrifice Zone, that at one time had lots of sheep and horses.
We have a Taos Golf Course and Country Club, and astroturf high altitude olympic training and soccer field.
We have about a dozen radio stations that include KVOT, KKIT, the World Famous Solar Radio Station and bar, Cultural Energy Radio and KNCE- the Taos Stream.
We have annual Fiestas, Rodeo,Taos Pueblo Pow Wow, Circus, Taos Art Tour, the Wool Festival and a variety of art venues and fairs.
We have 4 Ski Resorts in the area, Taos Pueblo Casino, Ojo Caliente Hot Springs Resort, an Artist Colony, 2 health and tennis spas with swimming pools, the village plazas for shopping, Breweries, the Hempstress and Wumanity, Taos Film Auditorium, a new Park Concert Sound stage, Taos Town Plaza Music concerts,Yoga, Martial Arts and Dance studios, River Rafting, Eco-petro-glyph hiking tours, Balloon rides, Equestrian rides, Unicorn School Supply, print and copy shops, more than 100 restaurants and a plethora of hotels,
We have some of the best locally grown foods in the world, the Farmer’s and Red Willow Markets, great grocery stores, fair trade coffee shops and the Taos Food Co-op,
and numerous bars, liquor, dollar, outlet and wal-mart type stores.
And let us not forget the Mayor’s annual pig roast dinner, pancake breakfast, and 130K Christmas lights on the plaza.
Many of these serve both local and tourist entertainment, and yet…what are we lacking investment in? What more could we possibly need to be happy, besides turquoise skies, the sweet illumination of the cosmos, the still quiet music of nature, and savory green chile?
It is not “sustainable” to be unable to feed the current population from what we grow, ranch, gather, hunt and trade, though this is still possible to do, if we chose to “invest” in true “sustainability”.
What will you do when the truck doesn’t come to feed our children? Have you seen the bare shelves in the grocery stores when the truck hasn’t come for a day or two?
To transition from dependance on externally driven markets to nourishing our local and regional needs, we are told, is harder to do, and not as financially lucrative, enticing for “investors” or “there aren’t any federal and state dollars out there for that”. Well, isn’t it the JOB of the governing representatives to work for the People? or is it only to work for those that commute to work in their private planes ? oh, wait, I forgot, our government in part runs on taxing the people, land, and goods and services and the Town has now invested in the entertainment industry.
Locally made products and services may or may not flourish without investing partners. However, there is the local thousands of years old indigenous knowledge and
life ways, that has lived “sustainably” since before “civilization” came here.
Is time to think like Zapatistas.
To name only a few dreams I dream of….community owned, yes i said it….
“community owned and operated”, grainery-bakery and nix-mal ( fresh locally grown corn masa) tortillaria facility, a canning facility for a “Taos feeds Taos” locally grown food and seed bank, a hemp, wool and fabric facility, a health products facility, a “solar oven” factory, a solar panel and compostable potty retro-fit your home and car facility, hemp bio-fuel facility, a few small fields for high density herb, berry and specific types of medicinal trees and a processing facility to process the medicinals, and groups of youth taking care of old folks by putting in drip lines and water catchments for small gardens, and remember the trash sorting facility we were promised ?, well how about one of those big box buildings to store the glass until we have enough to sell, instead of crushing it up and spreading it on the earth? ….
I dream of collaborations between aging family farmers and young farmers, and old orchards gently retiring and giving birth to younger trees….I dream of enough community centers to serve the under and non-represented areas of this county, and the ones under lock and key would open up for the use of the communities they are supposed to serve…. I dream of affordable homes for those that need homes.
I dream that the community will begin to have the necessary conversations about what “sustainability” looks, feels, and tastes like, and what the relationship with water, earth, air and sun have to do with this, and make a collective “plan” and choose to live it.
What are your dreams?
Maybe a Conference Center? What kind of conference would you like to participate in here?
Water is First Medicine?
A Community Resolution for the Right of Water, the Watershed and Earth?
After all is said and done, let us please be honest about the worldwide war on water, earth, air, energy, and human beings being free. Let us be honest about our own addiction to the convenience, of more is better.
What easier way to enslave, remove or eliminate a “surplus” population, than to take the water ?
What we need, dare I say it? Yes.
The Earth needs to be given back to the Children of Earth.
When a Billion-Millionaire comes here and says, “here am giving this back to you, so yous may live.I’m giving this back to you because I already have enough for myself and my heirs for the next 7 generations, am giving this back to you because you belong to this sacred place before I got here”….That is when hope will float, green washing carbon foot prints will be understood for what they are and the financially rich will deeply understand that they can not live the lifestyles they live, without exploiting the earth, employing servants, and building on the backs of people who grow the food that feeds them from
the breasts of the Earth’s watershed.
Now is the time to rise and live, speak and give action for the Love of Life.
Thank you for listening to my tale ~
BearSense
