Isleta Pueblo & Aoetearoa: Indigenous Nations’ Actions to Protect their River’s Personhood - Water Back Op-Ed

By Danielle Lucero

Danielle Lucero is a member of the Pueblo of Isleta and is also Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. She received her master degrees in social work and public health at the University of Washington. Danielle’s work is focused on building tribal public health capacity, community-based public health strategies, and resiliency.

During her time as a student at UW, she interned for the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute. After graduating she joined the Got Green Climate Justice Committee. In 2018, Danielle was selected as a National Congress of American Indian Graduate Health Fellow, which focuses on strengthening the next generation of tribal public health leaders. 

My community is the Pueblo of Isleta, a tribal nation 15 miles south of Albuquerque, along the Rio Grande. For thousands of years, the river has protected and nurtured our community, and in return, we protect her. When I was in high school, my dad would take me on drives along the ditch banks to clear out trash from the water. That year, one of his roles in the community was to take care of the irrigation systems, which included removing items washed down from Albuquerque. While riding along to the sounds of Eddie Rabbitt, we'd spot everything from basketballs to shoes to plastic bags. I couldn't help but think about how these ditches were once my swimming pools. They were my refuge during the hot summers when the swamp coolers couldn't keep up, and the ice cups weren't doing enough. I never minded doing this with my dad. He taught me that water is connected to our prayers, our crops, and our animals. My dad and I would carefully remove these items so that the water could flow and continue to provide for our community in all these ways.

Danielle cleaning irrigation ditches with her dad.

Unfortunately, shoes and plastic bags are not the only pollutants that enter our river. Sewage and harmful chemicals are also released by the cities and companies to the North of us, putting my community and culture at risk. The City of Albuquerque has a history of polluting the river as the city's Water Utility sits upstream from my community and is constantly releasing treated effluent back into the main tributary. In 2015, KUNM reported that Albuquerque's wastewater treatment plant spilled nearly 6 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the Rio Grande after an equipment failure at one of the plant's pumping facilities. They failed to notify the tribe of this incident promptly, and E.Coli numbers were "off the charts," according to a tribal member who took samples of the water. This incident is particularly concerning because of our relationship with the water. In an interview responding to the event, Verna Teller, a member of the Pueblo of Isleta, said, "Our ceremonies and our religious culture here in our community are of utmost importance to us. That's what's kept us who we are as a people. And so when there's any threat to that, it's very frightening for our people. It's a threat to our existence as far as we're concerned."

The river heading into Isleta Pueblo.

In the 90s, Isleta's ceremonial use of the river was challenged in court when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved our tribe's request to lower the allowable level of arsenic in our river. The EPA amended the Clean Water Act in 1992, which granted certain tribes, including Isleta, the ability to declare their own water quality standards and be given the federal designation called "Treatment as State." When approved by the EPA, a tribe's water quality standards would have legal jurisdiction on a federal level to enforce their standards. By approving Isleta's request, the City of Albuquerque would be required to enhance its wastewater treatment facility. Albuquerque filed against the EPA and lost. The court upheld the decision to reduce arsenic levels, which helped protect our river, our culture, and our people's health. In her book,  Environmental Justice in New Mexico: Counting Coup, Valerie Rangel wrote that this court case inspired seven other tribes in New Mexico to develop their water quality standards. 

In the U.S., corporations have the right to engage in high water use, deforestation, mining, agriculture, oil extraction, and manufacture and transport products to consumers worldwide, regardless of their impact on the land or the environment. The role of water in Indigenous communities is not driven by commercial interests but by its sacred nature. 

Danielle’s family’s farm.

Indigenous communities worldwide are working to protect their rivers, waters, and ways of life. In 2017, the New Zealand government and the iwi (Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa present day New Zealand) protected the Whanganui River by granting the river the same legal rights as a human through national legislation. The Whanganui River now has two representatives who serve as Te Pou Tupua (the face of the river), one from the iwi and one from the government. New Zealand's approach is quite different from the current policy in New Mexico. In New Mexico, the Governor holds power to appoint individuals to the Interstate Stream Commission. This state institution oversees the waters of New Mexico and determines water rights and their beneficial use. According to the Office of the State Engineer, this commission of eight unsalaried members can investigate, protect, conserve, and develop New Mexico's waters, including interstate and intrastate stream systems. Of those appointed, only one commissioner is a tribal member. By state law, one tribal member is the minimum representation. New Zealand's monumental national legislation recognizes the spiritual connection between Indigenous peoples and the river, honors Indigenous sovereignty, and respects the people's inherent rights, animals, and the environment. Their work can serve as inspiration for other communities in the U.S.

International conversations on this topic are essential, which is why Aleena Kawe, CEO of Red Star International, Inc., and a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, hosted an exchange between Tribal leaders from Arizona and Water Guardians in New Zealand. In early 2020, she created space for dialogue about personhood, a concept that is part of Pueblo Beliefs and is expanded on in the Pueblo Action Alliance's Water Back Manifesto. 

The river in Isleta Pueblo.

I hope my future drives and walks along the ditch bank are different. I hope to see young children finding refuge by the ditch banks when the sun is too much, the swamp cooler still struggles, and the ice cups aren't enough. I imagine a future where Pueblo peoples have the full capacity to take care of our water, and as a result, we drink from the river again, water our crops without fear, and continue to practice our culture. 

You can read Pueblo Action Alliance’s Water Back Manifesto today and become part of the movement to restore Indigenous feminist water management strategies: https://www.puebloactionalliance.org/water-back.

References

Chamberlain, K. (2019). Meet the new members of the Interstate Stream Commission. The NM Political Report.

Dwyer, Colin. (2017).  A New Zealand river now has the legal right of a human. National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/16/520414763/a-new-zealand-river-now-has-the-legal-rights-of-a-human>

Lenderman, J. (1998). A tiny tribe wins big on clean water. https://www.hcn.org/issues/123/3922

New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (2020). About the interstate stream commission. https://www.ose.state.nm.us/ISC/

NoiseCat, J.B. (2017). The western idea of private property is flawed. Indigenous peoples have it right. The Guardian, International Edition. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/27/western-idea-private-property-flawed-indigenous-peoples-have-it-right

Rangel, V. (2019). Environmental justice in New Mexico: Counting coup. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press.

Williams, E. (2015). Power surge sends sewage into rio grande. https://www.kunm.org/post/power-surge-sends-sewage-rio-grande

Williams, E. (2015) Small Tribe, Big river: Isleta eyes pollution in the rio grande. https://www.kunm.org/post/small-tribe-big-river-isleta-eyes-pollution-rio-grande