Owen Lammers, Glen Canyon Action Network

Owen Lammers is the executive director of Glen Canyon Action Network, a one-year-old Colorado River advocacy organization based in Moab, Utah. In the 12 years before he co-founded GCAN, Owen was the executive director and vice president of International Rivers Network, based in Berkeley, Calif.

The tour continued in Albuquerque yesterday as we gathered at City Hall to call on the city to give back 1 percent of its contracted water from the San Juan River and assist in restoring the dying Colorado River delta. A light rain set in at noon as the program commenced with presentations by leaders of the Dine Medicineman's Association. Thomas Morris, Jr., and Phillip Bluehouse addressed the crowd in both the Navajo language and English about the importance of water and about healing the damage that has been done to our rivers.

Bill Guerra Addington, a leader of the Albuquerque-based Water Information Network and a resident of the Rio Grande Valley in Sierra Blanca, Texas, spoke about the need for restoring the Rio Grande area, where the river sometimes runs dry due to upstream diversions. The cities of Albuquerque, Ciudad Juarez, and El Paso, and large farms in the valley, take water out of the streambed, imperiling river-dependent species such as the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. Addington said that where he lives, the river is a meager trickle compared to the healthy flows of years past.

John Horning of Forest Guardians, based in Santa Fe, N.M., addressed the crowd on the current ecological crisis on the Rio Grande, where dewatering of the river in recent summers has pushed fish species to the brink of extinction. One of the prime culprits is the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, which withdraws up to four times more water from the river than the next largest user. The MRGCD provides irrigation water primarily for growing alfalfa and other cattle-feed crops. Horning said that because the MRGCD has never perfected its water rights with the state engineer's office, it is operating in violation of New Mexico water laws.

John Weisheit, president of Glen Canyon Action Network, spoke about the diversion of water to the Rio Grande from the San Juan River basin through the San Juan-Chama (SJ-C) Project tunnel in northern New Mexico. This tunnel takes water out of the Colorado River basin to irrigate cattle-feed crops in the Rio Grande valley. Albuquerque's city government has more than 50,000 acre-feet of SJ-C water under contract, and has expressed its intent to build an expensive water treatment plant to use SJ-C water as the primary municipal supply. Weisheit will present our letter on behalf of 121 organizations in the U.S. and Mexico, asking Albuquerque Mayor Jim Baca to join our "1 Percent for the Delta" effort and reallocate some of the city's contracted water to restoration.

Next, local activist and singer Peter Neils performed his original music to commemorate the exquisite beauty and environmental tragedy of the Rio Grande River. The program finished with the Peace & Dignity Spirit Runners performing traditional Native American music. The runners from that group, Moe Gonzalez and Jesus Figueroa, will be traveling with us the entire journey and are helping us plan a Spirit Run that will celebrate the river.

Following our city hall rally, we drove out to the banks of the Rio Grande River along the old Route 66, where we had a brief ceremony with Albuquerque activists and medicine people. We saw a river lined with large, old cottonwood trees and some newly planted trees that are part of a community restoration program. From the river's banks, we drove a short distance to visit with new friends at the Southwest Network for Environmental & Economic Justice, a group of community activists working primarily on environmental justice issues in the Albuquerque area. SNEEJ has been particularly effective at raising awareness of the impact the local Intel microchip plant has had on the local environment and social fabric of the community. Intel is one of the largest industrial water users in the Rio Grande valley.

Later, we joined our friends, Tom and Lynn Rymsza, from KP Vision Paper for a spicy New Mexican dinner. They are the founders of the kenaf paper industry in the United States, and have their headquarters here in Albuquerque. We discussed the promise of a growing shift to alternative fiber papers, and the prospects for developing a larger kenaf industry to relieve pressure on our forests. The production of kenaf paper uses no chlorine and half the amount of water used in typical tree-based paper pulping. The conversation turned to the question of when U.S. environmental groups will abandon tree-fiber paper for the environmentally preferable kenaf fiber paper. Although it currently costs about twice as much as tree-fiber paper, GCAN and a growing number of smaller groups use kenaf paper in an effort to protect forests and create a viable market for the fiber. By building demand for kenaf, we help to bring the price down. We encourage all environmental groups to join us in demonstrating that paper needs can be met without destroying forests and watersheds.

From Albuquerque, we are heading south on Interstate 25, following the course of the Rio Grande River to the town of Belen and home office of the MRGCD, where we will present our letter. Our next stop will be the Elephant Butte Reservoir near Truth or Consequences, N.M. This reservoir was formed by one of the first concrete dams constructed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, early in the 20th century. Our next rally will be tomorrow morning in downtown Phoenix, Ariz., at the State Department of Agriculture building.