Hello again - as I begin the submersion into a week 2 field excursion with my "political ecology of the Southwest" course here at Colorado College, I wanted to share a few thoughts about this particular course. We adopted a theme of "nuclear borderlands," an obvious play on
Joseph Masco's (2006) excellent book by the same title, and one of our focus points is the relationship between the
nuclear era and water quality in northern New Mexico. And it's difficult to talk about this region without discussing the role of "the lab" in every day life. I'm referring to
Los Alamos National Laboratories here, and the small (federal company) town of Los Alamos, perched on the Pajarito Plateau.
We are beginning our week with a guided tour of the political ecology of northern New Mexico, hitting on the major historical-geographic discussion points that have to be understood in context, highlighting the cultural diversity of the region. Among the topics we will discuss as we roll in a CC shuttle through the San Luis Valley is the always-present "land grants" issue in southern CO and northern NM. This is a reference to the historic alienation of about 90-95% of the historic Spanish and Mexican land grants that vaporized in a filter of greed, poor law, and questionable land (titling) ethics in the territorial period of New Mexico. Most of that land is now either entirely privately held, not by communities, or in federal and state hands.
The rest of the week (9/13 - 9/17) will be spent understanding how the Cold War era and the presence of federal research labs has irradiated the Southwest. We'll meet with nuclear, local activists, federal employees at Los Alamos, water resouce managers, and concerned NGO operators from the Pueblo perspective. In terms of water, however, the singular focus (as a case study of sorts) is the
Buckman Diversion Dam. Familiar to anyone in northern New Mexico, this is the latest effort to purportedly wean the city of Santa Fe away from declining groundwater resources and towards surface water use of the Rio Grande/Chama. How this links to the 'nuclear' theme is that
the intake point at the old site of Buckman, along the Rio Grande, is right across from many of the most contaminated canyon tributaries that drain the Pajarito Plateau. For almost twenty years, Los Alamos dumped nuclear and hazardous wastes into the nearby canyons, and the diversion dam itself has had to be designed with this in mind. This was before remediation and mitigation were watch-words for the industry, and compliance was weak at best. Now, it's at least a major component of
LANL environmental management programs.
The point of this is to highlight the ecology of "risk" in New Mexico, in terms of water and radiation, but also to get students to grapple with multiple perspectives on the subject. What is the official story-line? Are locals engaging in conspiracy theory, or are there real concerns here to take into account? How can we filter through public relations rhetoric, the contemporary version of "propaganda" that was so common during the Cold War? How does Los Alamos continue to shape the changing ecology and mutating social relations of the Pajarito Plateau and northern New Mexico? How did residents benefit economically, even if environments were affected?
These are difficult, troubling, and admittedly leading questions - but it's the substance of our week.
And it's also the substance that enters our bodies. More later, on this issue of the glow, the calm, the irradiated, and that which enters us directly.
Comments