Keller is protecting ABQ’s public lands

By Tom Solomon

This commentary piece was submitted to City Desk ABQ.
You can submit your own letter to the editor: editor@citydesk.org

I want to thank Mayor Tim Keller for responding to President Donald Trump’s threats to abandon public lands to mining and drilling and to cut off funding for environmental protections.

At Albuquerque’s Earth Day celebration on Sunday April 13th, Keller issued an executive order to protect Albuquerque’s own natural resources and open space.

What does one have to do with the other, you ask? What happens in this state’s abundant national forests, the reservoirs upstream on the Rio Grande, and even in the national parks and monuments affect the quality of life here in Albuquerque. The bosque, the Westside petroglyphs, the foothills and the Rio Grande itself are among Albuquerque’s most precious possessions. They are all affected by pollution upstream, fire on the other side of the mountain, and climate-induced drought creeping North.

That’s how nature works.

The Trump administration’s workforce reductions in the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the defunding of national parks like our own Petroglyph National Monument will have dire effects here.

Remember when the fires up north turned the Rio Grande black, and the smoke was so heavy we couldn’t go outside? Now that 98% of our state is in drought, at elevated wildfire risk, with fewer federal firefighters and weakened regulations to prevent aquifer contamination, both the city and the state will have to fall back on local resources to protect the bosque, the petroglyphs, restore habitat and keep drinking water clean.

The price of being unprepared is high, and Keller is signaling that the City of Albuquerque will do everything in its power, despite Trump, to step in and safeguard sacred spaces and irreplaceable resources, whether they be in the bosque, the mountains, or the arroyos. He is setting an example of stewardship, which does not stop at the city limits.

Tom Solomon is an Albuquerque resident.