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Natural Resources Trustee outlines settlements-funded restoration, highlights Gold King projects
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Summary
Maggie Hartstevens told the Legislative Finance subcommittee that the Office of the Natural Resources Trustee has used settlement dollars to fund 57 restoration projects statewide, including 16 projects in San Juan County funded by the Gold King Mine settlements and $13 million directed to ONRT restoration work.
Maggie Hartstevens, New Mexico's Natural Resources Trustee, told a Legislative Finance subcommittee that the Office of the Natural Resources Trustee (ONRT) uses settlements with polluters to pay for restoration and community compensation projects across the state.
"We sue polluters for natural resource damages," Hartstevens said during her presentation, outlining ONRT's statutory authority under the federal Superfund Act and the New Mexico Natural Resources Trustee Act. She said the office has reached about 15 settlements in the past 25 years that together have brought in "over $45,000,000" for restoration work.
Hartstevens described 57 restoration projects funded statewide and gave detailed examples from San Juan County tied to the 2015 Gold King Mine release. "About $48,000,000 came to the State of New Mexico from those settlements and $13,000,000 of that came to the Natural Resources Trustee for restoration projects," she said, and listed how that money supported a range of projects: drinking- and groundwater improvements, outdoor-recreation facilities, aquatic habitat work and agricultural projects.
Examples Hartstevens highlighted included a farmers market pavilion proposed by Farmington, funding for the San Juan County Extension Service building in Aztec, irrigation-ditch repairs, and a diversion structure in Farmington that includes a fish ladder and a whitewater feature designed to benefit both fish habitat and outdoor recreation. She also described a partnership with the Navajo Nation to build a boat ramp on the San Juan River to improve recreational access and support the Navajo Nation Department of Game and Fish.
Hartstevens said ONRT's work ranges across public, private and tribal lands depending on the settlement terms and that funds are typically spent in the geographic area where the injury occurred. When asked whether the office could support water problems in other areas, such as Socorro or TRC, she said ONRT only has dollars when a settlement has been reached and that the agency conducts outreach to communities when funding becomes available, citing the Gold King Mine process as an example.
Hartstevens offered to follow up in writing with additional details about particular projects and reported there will be a ribbon cutting on the Albuquerque effluent-utilization project on October 23; she said ONRT committed $566,000 to that project and that state capital outlay and other grants increased the project's total value.
The Trustee also clarified legal limits on claims: under federal law she cannot bring claims for releases of refined petroleum products, a constraint she cited when members asked about addressing the Kirtland Air Force Base fuel spill unless other contaminants (for example, PFAS) were implicated and a different legal basis existed.
The subcommittee thanked Hartstevens and indicated members would follow up on specific project details and potential outreach to communities that could benefit from settlement funds.
