if you're tuning in with us this  morning you already know this   climate change are water challenges this  is these are challenges that are a long   time coming and they're a long-term problem  so laurel is gonna start this video for us   and then we'll we'll come back and chat a  little bit more this month on our land we   talk about the rio grande what's happening  this year but into the future as scientists   learn more and more about what will happen to  the river and its reservoirs and the rest of us   who rely upon this water as temperatures keep  rising and we keep having difficult conditions   the impacts of climate change don't just reflect  one dry year or one bad season they intensify one   another they build on one another we see this  in our forest our rivers all across the state one place where it's plain to see how  warming plays out in our arid state   elephant butte reservoir in southern new mexico it's sad to say that right now we're at about  nine percent capacity this this reservoir can   hold over 2 million 200 000 acre feet of water  and in my tenure with the district i've seen it   spill over the dam and i've seen it as lower than  it is right now so it's an unfortunate thing but   when you're in the west droughts happen and we're  in a mega drought right now the cattle drought   gary eslinger started working here in 1978 for  the elephant butte irrigation district today   he's treasurer and manager responsible for  bringing water to more than 90 000 acres   of pecans alfalfa chili onions and even cotton  through hatch and down to the messiah valley   last fall the district told farmers not to expect  much water from this reservoir on the rio grande   they're anticipating that this  could be the worst season in memory   most of the farmers in this valley are pretty  familiar with where we're located right now   and they come up here and they can see the  same thing so it's not any news to them that   we are short of surface water we've been short  for you know going on 20 some odd years to survive   farmers have to adapt they pump groundwater or  they fallow fields to use what water is available   for higher value crops i'd hate to see  it go away i hate to see agriculture just   diminish especially here because it's it's a great  part of this valley from from here all the way   down to to el paso it flourishes and and you think  about it and it's got a great economic benefit to   this entire state like many dams across the west  elephant butte was built by the u.s bureau of   reclamation dagmar llewellyn is a hydrologist  with the agency but now we do it in a more   what reclamation did from the beginning and is is  charged with is taking what can be an inhospitable   landscape for human activities and finding ways  to make it so that we can thrive here right   that's what we did in the past by building dams  that was the the action that we thought was needed   at that time the agency has evolved though and i  believe that the programs that i work on under the   secure water act are what enable us to do the  same thing now which is to try to find ways to   take what's becoming a more and more challenging  and inhospitable landscape for a lot of human   activities and find ways to make them possible  and to allow us to continue to thrive here   our lives have certainly changed since the early  20th century when elephant butte dam was built   and as we've pumped more greenhouse gases  into the atmosphere we've warmed the climate   there is no new normal we talk about what is the  flow of this river relative to the average to the   normal but the challenge of climate change is  that we're losing the whole concept of normal   for centuries farmers relied upon the  rio grande as a snowmelt driven system   the water you see here predominantly originates in  the mountains of colorado and northern new mexico   and it builds up over the course of the winter as  it snows into a snowpack and that's the primary   place where we actually store our water  some moisture would seep into the forests   some would melt through the spring when farmers  need it to sustain crops until the summer monsoons   but as arid places like new mexico warm they also  dry there so think about how your hair dryer works   right you heat things up so that you  get the moisture to go into the air   it comes out of our soils it comes  out of our tree roots it comes out   and everything that uses water riparian  systems our crops everything all the way down   needs more water just because it's warmer  just because of the way your hair dryer works   eslinger is an optimist in his time here he has  seen droughts and floods and he has faith we   have to trust mankind and trust our our future to  those who will come in here and see new innovative   ways to to help um deal with the situations  whether it's a drought situation or flood   i mean my god if if we had a flood event here  and i've seen those i've seen hatch underwater   it's it's it's terrible it's just terrible a  sight to see is is this empty lake elephant   buttes low levels don't just cause problems  for farmers here under the rio grande compact   until those levels come up and new mexico can send  the water it owes to downstream users we can't   store water in some upstream reservoirs either  and these problems won't disappear anytime soon and we have a river that's  highly variable in its flows   both within the year and between years  and it's just going to get more variable   so everything they call it intensification of  the water cycle everything is just happening   more so the climate of the past that we all came  to rely upon no longer offers a map for the future   and the better we understand that accept that  the better we can know how to face that future for our land and new mexico  infocus i'm laura paskus   thanks for showing that laurel um so dagmar   you are a hydrologist with the u.s bureau of  reclamation we've talked so many times over the   years but i'm wondering if you could just help  the audience help us understand this morning   just briefly describe the work that you do  specifically here in the rio grande basin sure thank you laura it's really a great  pleasure to be here with you all this morning   um as laura said i work for the bureau  of reclamation here in albuquerque   and i have the privilege of of um having my job  be to use science to help us figure out how to do   how to serve the public here better and we do that  by improving the ways that we monitor the system   where all the water comes from and where it goes  and how we um forecast what's going to be coming   in a particular year we study the snowpack so that  we can understand better how much is accumulating   how much actual moisture there is in that um so  we try to understand try to use science tools   to understand better all of the components of the  hydrologic cycle and then use models to see how   those all link together and unders and see if we  have a good understanding of the processes that   link them together so that we can put all those  pieces together and then work with the community   to try to make tr to try to envision what  our future might look like and work together   to to see how those visions might play out over  time without actually having to do the kinds of   changes we can we can we can run them through  our models and see what the implications of   different kinds of actions infrastructure or  policy changes or your community activities   might affect the overall system so one of  the things that i really appreciate about   you dagmar is you're doing the science um  but you're such a great community member   you know you show up to panels like this i've seen  you give countless presentations around new mexico   and so um as you'll see from this very short clip  that laurel is going to play right now um dagmar   is excellent at talking about climate change and  breaking things down into manageable bites of   information so here in this video she explains  very briefly climate change and its challenges   there is no new normal so we talk about  what is the flow of this river relative to   the average to the normal but the challenge of  climate change is that we're losing the whole   concept of normal so as i said our challenges are  basically still the same ones they were before   it's arid it's variable but it's becoming more  so um so the challenge to us is we we built our   cities knowing sort of what a 200-year flood is  and we can keep our houses out of that right or   you know we build we build any of our engineered  infrastructure kind of looking at what the what   the heat's going to be what the floods are going  to be how deep the droughts are going to be and   then add some sort of safety factor and construct  these things it's a lot harder to operate when   you don't have a normal we have this much  snowpack this year what's that relative to   what we expect like you don't have that normal  to fall back on anymore um and so yes if there's   one last thing i'd like to say is um let's get  away from this concept of what's the new normal   because the real challenge for us is finding a way  forward in a system that no longer has a normal so yeah i mean dagmar is so good at explaining  these things here we have her on the side of the   river and she breaks it all down beautifully  um so let's talk a little bit more in depth   about some of these changes and challenges  the rio grande often dries in the stretch   near san antonio new mexico this happens  you know pretty frequently in the summer for   pretty long stretches 10 20 sometimes 30 or  40 miles and last while the rio grande got   very low even in the albuquerque stretch we  were kind of watching that happen in the um   in the fall last year what do you anticipate  we're going to be seeing this year dagmar first first the first thing that i  want to say is that the the rio grande   is a highly engineered system and so what you see  in the river today doesn't necessarily reflect   whether it's a good year or a bad year right um  so this year we're seeing we're seeing quite a   lot of water coming down through albuquerque on  the on the rio grande and uh many of us have been   out recreating on the water this year um it's  really quite lovely out there um but really what   that what that reflects is the fact that um we're  short of water oh my god silence this excuse me my apologies um i thought i wrote to everybody to  keep that from happening um what it reflects this   year is that the uh last year we had a tough  year and um the state of new mexico actually   provided some water that we had in storage  upstream to farmers um rather than running it all   the way down to elephant butte for storage for the  rio grande project the elephant butte reservoir   where um gary esslinger gary esslinger works um  we we evacuated it from the upstream reservoir   because we're anticipating doing some construction  there but we the losses would be too high to bring   it all the way down so this year what we're doing  is running it all the way through the system   and um storing what's needed for the rio grande  project down in the messiah valley las cruces   down to el paso but not storing water upstream  that's going to be used in the middle rio grande   so what we're going to see is quite a bit of  water moving through the system in the spring   and then not a lot left in the summertime and  there is potential that we could even see some   drying in albuquerque we do a lot to prevent that  from happening but we just may not have the water   at all this year to be able to prevent it so  like you mentioned the rio grande is this really   controlled and regulated system and so i'm  curious what are some you mentioned like   the elephant view irrigation district  and farmers in the middle rio grande   kind of what are just some of those considerations  that these different management agencies like   reclamation have to be thinking about  whether it's a good year or a bad year i i'm sorry i'm not quite sure what the question  is so i think you know kind of when we look out   at the river we think oh this was a there was a  good snow pack and there's tons of water coming   down the river or a bad snowpack and not enough  water but like you mentioned the rio grande is   this like very controlled and managed system  so what are some of those considerations that   water managers have to be thinking about in  terms of like turning the various spigots   off of the reservoirs and moving the water it's  not just mother nature right it's definitely not   just mother nature um first and we're seeing  this this year the amount of water that we   have as snowpack upstream does not necessarily  translate to to stream flow downstream so um   as we talked about a little bit earlier there  there is um poor soil moisture from previous   years a lot of really hungry riparian plants along  the way as well as hungry crops up in colorado um   and so there was a near normal snowpack in the san  juan mountains at the headwaters the rio grande   and we only received 40  percent of our average supply   coming into new mexico so that's a product of  those low soil moistures and the structure of   the rio grande compact so there's a physical  component and then there's a legal component   the the legal component says that if the water  supply that actually reaches some index gauges   in colorado is lower than normal then  the proportion that goes on to new mexico   is also lower so we don't even get the same  ratio of that water and the same thing is   true for what we have to deliver from new mexico  down to texas they get a a smaller proportion so   there's there's less making its way downstream um  another thing to consider is that then our primary   storage reservoirs are not on the main stem of  the rio grande they're over on the rio chama   they're also about five days travel time upstream  and so there's it's it's some really complex um   sort of calculations and uses of models in  the water management agencies to figure out   how much to store in those reservoirs and how  much to to send downstream to create flows or   provide water supply to farmers or cities in the  in the um in the in the middle valley based on   you know what they're seeing at a given time is  it going to rain is there going to be more snow   we don't have storage reservoirs along  the main stem of the rio grande we have   upstream of elephant butte we have we have  cochiti reservoir but its primary use is is   um for flood control so each of those reservoirs  has a distinct purpose that congress authorized   and we can only use them for those purposes so  it's a it's a bit of a game trying to figure   out how to maintain flood control space in some  reservoirs store water in other reservoirs and um   and have this long travel time before the water  gets downstream so there's a lot of really   complex thought negotiations between agencies  that's always going on to manage the flows   so somebody recently said to me something  along the lines of um oh boy this year was   a shock really took farmers by surprise that  they're being asked to follow their fields or   consider following fields and honestly dagmar  i wanted to pull my hair out because i thought   this wasn't a surprise the planet has  consistently been warming by degrees   the climate change and its impacts shouldn't  should really not be a surprise to most people um   i realize that climate change as an issue  can be spoken about politically um and people   have various opinions about climate change  but the impacts that we're seeing are not   really a surprise and so i'm curious you  know maybe we get through one bad year   maybe we get through this year um but all of  these impacts compound upon one another so   what do we need to be talking about and thinking  about into the future as we see bad year after bad   year maybe interspersed with a good year but well  first i want to thank everybody who's here today   for taking a saturday over the holiday weekend to  educate themselves about these issues and you know   i will say my experience here in new mexico is  that we do have a fairly educated population about   our water challenges because aguas vita and it's a  it's of concern to all of us um something that you   and i have been discussing recently that i think  is worth bringing up here is the fact that the   water management agencies with all that sort of  you know um complex negotiation and modeling and   and monitoring of different system components  that we do has been effective in preventing   a lot of the um water supply shortages and  and you know problems within the system that   we might have seen otherwise for example a couple  of years ago in 2018 after july 1st there was   no water left in the in the rio grande system  there was no water coming down from colorado   effectively there was some maybe some spring water  coming in there was no storage left of rio grande   water and so at the bureau of reclamation um  we worked with the the albuquerque bernalillo   county water utility authority to access and  basically the federal government purchased   some some water that the uh that had come  in through the san juan chama project   imported from the colorado river basin and stored  at a reservoir up on the chama and and basically   the federal government year of reclamation  purchased that wet water from the city's water   supplies and ran it through albuquerque so that  the people in the city didn't actually see that   we were completely out of water and so you know  that's good in that it preserves the ecosystems   and it provides water supply to farmers and cities  and it's it's useful to do but i've been realizing   lately that it has an impact when we get to the  the sort of the the resilience threshold of her   ability to to take those actions that that um  sort of preserve the system even when we're   really in dire straits um it might prevent the  you know the people who are paying some attention   but really aren't involved in those background  fuels they're not backroom deals but those uh   um you know complex negotiations from really  seeing how challenging things are getting we've   we've done our best for as long as we can and then  suddenly we get to a year like this one and we say   oh actually it's worse than you thought and we're  gonna you're gonna have to not plant this year   and so i think we can do better with messaging  about um what we're doing behind the scenes to   try to keep the system operating even  when conditions get really challenging   so i wanted to touch base just a little  bit you're also involved in some research   looking at monsoons um and i would love to  hear a little bit more about that because we   you know we we care about our  snowpack we care about our monsoons   so what's the research you're doing and and what  are we looking at into the future do you think this has been this has been real some  really interesting and exciting work um   over the over the course of my you know the time  that i've been working on water management issues   in new mexico so that's the the last 21  years um we've always the national weather   service would officially call the monsoons  the forecast for the monsoons a crap shoot   really just it's it's not something that we've  developed a good ability to forecast and um it's a   key part of our early water management decision so  we're looking at how much water is coming down off   the snow pack and we say well if we have a good  monsoon we can store this much upstream for the   middle rio grande farmers but if we don't get it  then we better have that water in elephant butte   right and so there's these sort of complex  negotiations that happen because of the need for   information about the monsoons early that we just  haven't had um so i'm and i also became interested   as i was learning about the you know the ways  that we project impacts of climate change into   the future that the ways that we did that um one  of the things that we kept doing is as we sort of   bias correct and downscale these big global models  down to the local systems we keep sort of tying   them back to how things were historically and  so if there were going to be changes in extreme   events within our system such as intense monsoons  or even remnant hurricanes they would be masked   by this process and i thought there must be some  way that we can really see first we can start to   forecast the monsoons on an annual basis but then  we can start to figure out how they might change   into the future and whether that's a potential  water supply for us because just logically um   the the monsoons are caused by a contrast in  temperature between the land surface and the   ocean right um and if the oceans are warmer then  the more moisture can be drawn into the air and   then that contrast as the land heats up which  it's doing will suck those thunderstorms in   and that's how we get our monsoons so there  is some thought that that there's a lot of   complex variables in it that have to do with  our topography and where the polar jet is and   expansion of the hadley cells and all these  kinds of things but there is some potential   that we could get maybe more water supply out of  it especially if we could start to forecast it so   i started working on a project with the national  center for atmospheric research looking at that   using some statistical processes and extreme value  theory um just to try to see if those extreme   events and the intensity of monsoon is changing  and then we use this um tool developed by andreas   prine who a researcher up there called weather  typing so the we've been saying that the future   projections can't really capture all the process  intricate processes of the mussoons and their   interactions with the mountains and those kinds  of things but what he's done is he's looked at the   whole continental united states and and looked at  what kind of weather patterns set up in terms of   low-level moisture in the position of the jet  stream and the temperature of the oceans and   all of these kind of large scale phenomena to see  under which of those conditions do we actually get   a monsoon and what some preliminary research he's  done with that has suggested and and the signal   seems to be pretty robust is that our monsoons  are likely to decline until say the mid 2040s   and then actually go upwards in the later part of  the century and we haven't quite figured out why   we're seeing that signal yet it could be something  having to do with the the melting of sea ice in   the arctic it's you know it's something it's a  it's a global phenomenon that's changing these   big parameters that set up that that weather  typing but it does seem to suggest that later   in the century we might get more monsoons and be  able to use that as a water supply to make up for   the fact that we're likely losing our snowpack  so as you were talking about that i was thinking   about there's so much changing and you know we  see in certain places where there's like these   these feedbacks where where one thing happens  and it creates a unanticipated consequence in   some ways and i'm curious like how do scientists  incorporate that uncertainty into their models and   then how is that uncertainty incorporated  into things like on the ground management   yes certainly there's there's a lot of uncertainty  associated with projections of of trends and   future climate conditions the la but the largest  source of uncertainty we have is human behavior we   we really just don't know how humans are going to  live on the earth in the future what their energy   sources and use levels are going to be and so  what we wind up doing with the projections of   future conditions is running a number of  different scenarios so here's what things   might look like if humans get their greenhouse  gas emissions under control really quickly   um versus whether we you know burn down all  the rainforests and use huge amounts of fossil   fuels and and then try to run model scenarios  about how our individual locations will um   sort of experience changes under all of those  different scenarios then at the local level we   basically do the same sort of thing so we'll take  those projections we'll run them through models   with the current development condition  so meaning the current population and the   you know the current irrigated area land  use characteristics those kinds of things   run them through see what the impacts of of  the sort of global changes are going to be   and then we can run that same sort of scenario  planning ourselves so what if the population   you know goes up really high because everybody  realizes they want to live in new mexico versus   what happens if it just gets too hot and we have  some mass migrations out and we can see how our um   how our local system and its water  supply might play out under those   different kinds of conditions so  really what we're trying to do   with all of this uncertainty that primarily  is because of uncertainty about humans   is tell different stories and work with  other water managers and the community to see   how we might respond to those different kinds of  stories right and then think about how we get to   those stories and then what we might wanna what  we might wanna change amongst the human drivers   so we've talked a little bit about farmers and  i'm glad you brought up the idea of migration also   either into the state or out of the state i wanted  to switch gears a little bit away from people   what are we thinking impacts this year and  into the future on endangered species like the   silvery minnow or even you know fairly robust  species like our cottonwoods in the bosque   how do these decisions how does climate change  affect all of these non-human species yes well   certainly um those species those species that  you mentioned are are what we call conservation   reliant species and what we mean by that is that  they probably wouldn't survive without us taking   action on a regular basis to help them survive  and that that's unlikely to change and the reason   for that is that we've fundamentally altered so  these are both you know sort of species that are   that were predominant in the middle rio grande  we fundamentally altered the processes along   the river so that it no longer favors them  relative to other species that have come in   come in later catfish and carp or or whatever  it is um or tamarisk in terms of the in terms of   the riparian species so what we've done is we've  we've capped off the peaks of our hydrograph that   come with the spring snowmelt runoff put that  water when it's available into our reservoirs   and provided a more steady supply through the  middle rio grande that's that sounds like a   great idea it doesn't flood up to fourth street  every spring and everybody's houses get flooded we   can have our city here there's you know there's  a there's a lot of reasons that that's a good   thing but those species both the silvery minnow  and the cottonwood rely on that disturbance   regime that overbank flooding um to provide places  where they can reproduce so the cottonwoods need   some overbank flooding to bring moisture into  the onto the riparian system where they grow   and a slow gentle recession of that so that their  taproots can follow it the silvery minnow also um   reproduce in sho in slow moving warm side channels  right and those kinds of things form even in the   overbank when it floods and if we stop doing that  then they can only reproduce in the sort of swift   main channel then their their eggs and then the  larvae and fish that ultimately come from them   um will probably get washed downstream say to  elephant butte reservoir and so it's because   we've changed the fundamental operating system  of the river that they're that they're challenged   they're pretty robust species if we if we  continue in that regime but we've altered it   so i know during discussions like this people  always come to me at the end and say what can   we do you know and i think i'm curious  what you have to say about that about   individual actions what we can do in our  homes that are in our farms but also when   talking about this sort of structure that we've  imposed on the river is there is there any hope   for us to change that structure in the future  so paul tashan from audubon just gave a really   interesting talk about this this week i think  you were there um and he was talking about um   el rito grande or el poco grande some name like  that implying that what what we can do if we   put a concerted effort into it is recreate  those same structures um and processes that   have allowed the cottonwood and the silvery  minnow um southwestern willow flycatcher some   of the other species of concern to thrive but do  it on a smaller scale right and so maybe we're not   flooding up to fourth street every year we're  flooding within our levees that protects our   community but we still can sort of release water  from our reservoirs for example in order to mimic   those past processes but allow them to occur on  a smaller scale and so so that is something that   can be that can be that you know when you say  we we as a community can take action towards um   and i know paul is leading a group called the  isleta reach stewardship association where they're   trying to look at the ways that those kinds of  changes in the hydrograph might help to implement   some of those processes within that reach that's  under reclamation funded under reclamation's   cooperative watershed management program and a  lot of watershed groups are being formed to tackle   these kinds of problems through in different  sort of portions of the rio grande throughout   the system from up in the up in the headwaters  up in colorado on the rio chama and um and   then down through through the different portions  different reaches of the rio grande in new mexico   um so in a general sense when people ask me that  question about what we can do um from you know for   related to greenhouse gases or related to the  impacts of those greenhouse gases any of these   questions um my answer always falls along the  lines of build community build community is the   the strongest thing we can do our individual  actions to ride our bikes to work and recycle and   all of those kinds of things have have limited  impact individually but collectively they have   they have more impact and they they set examples  and they give us opportunities to show leaders   of the ways that we can change the system in a in  a larger way i think it's always important to um   have those communities also share resources so you  think about with saving water if we have community   green spaces where we can all go and meet together  outside and safely and all of that um then we have   less need actually to have manicured lawns in  our own yard like humans need these kinds of   lush green environments but we can have them in  collective spaces and therefore have fewer of   them so it's just another reason that we can that  the building community um helps save water it also   helps save resources we can have each other's  backs we don't all have to have our have our   own um you know power tools or you know whatever  resources we think we need we can we can share   them as community and overall have everything  we need have each other's backs and not and not   have quite as much of a need for material  goods through the building of communities   i love that idea of community um especially during  this past year um absolutely just seeking out   one another for company for sustenance and to  envision a better future not just for ourselves   and our human communities but our rivers for  example i really love that idea i live close   to a community farm and i'm not a part of it  but i love going by it every day and seeing   how that has really grown especially over the  past couple of years are there other ways just   we're kind of in the last couple of minutes here  of our discussion are there other ways that you   find hope or excitement for the future that even  though there are all these great challenges for us   maybe to be a friendlier species toward the  rest of the rest that we share the planet   with that we share new mexico with so i work i  work very hard at the bureau of reclamation i'm   always working long hours but every time i'm  offered to an opportunity to teach at the   university of new mexico and i've taught  in civil engineering and geography and   at the law school i take it because i derive that  hope from the youth in our community i just see   so much energy and so many new ideas within  that group of of people and i see i see really   really new and innovative ways of  looking at the ways that we can   thrive here in this challenging environment as  i said on the video um in in those young people   and that's where yeah that's where i derive my  hope and i think there's plenty of them here   today and thank you for for being here and for  and for giving me that hope to cling to right   um so we're gonna switch gears a little bit there  are also you know climate change is a big issue um   drought and dryness and ridification big issues  but but we also need to think about regulations   we had our recent new mexico infocus segment  about the pueblos of laguna and jemez suing the   army corps of engineers in the u.s environmental  protection agency over clean water rules and many   of you are probably familiar with the waters  of the u.s rule an obama era rule that was then   changed quite drastically during the trump  administration and implemented last summer and it   weakens or eliminates protections for um ephemeral  or intermittent waters which in new mexico account   for you know something like 85 or 90 percent  of our waterways so in the segment you're   going to watch right now we're talking um with  chris toyah from the pueblo of jemez and cliff   via at the university of new mexico school  of laws law clinic and they're going to talk   a little bit about clean waters of the u.s rule  why these tiny waterways are important for new   mexico and what this lawsuit from the two pueblos  is all about so i will turn it over to laurel so there's been back and forth for years  now about whether or not to protect small   waterways under the clean water act and  last summer the trump era rule took effect   that essentially the u.s environmental  protection agency and the u.s army corps   of engineers will no longer protect certain  types of waterways under the clean water act   now the pueblos of laguna and jemez have filed  a lawsuit against the two agencies regarding   this rule let's start with you chris toya you're  from jemez pueblo can you talk a little bit about   why these ephemeral and intermittent  waterways are so important to new mexicans because we live in the high  desert southwest 87 percent of our streams are ephemeral meaning that during the  monsoon season or rainy events or snow melt   these arroyos drainages get filled with water  and they are tributaries to the main hamish river   and we use the the water for irrigation of our  crops and then it's a means of food supply as   well we go fishing and the fish that we  catch in the hamish river is what we eat   uh one other important factor is that the  water in the jemis river is used in ceremonies   and uh this is a threat to our way of life cliffia you worked on this lawsuit through the unm  law clinic can you talk a little bit about what   types of pollution what types of threats these  sorts of waterways are under and if successful   what this lawsuit would would do yeah thanks  laura so through the unm school of law clinic   we have worked with a number of tribes and  tribal members for a long time and we listen to   their concerns and we think about how we might be  able to use the law to address those concerns one   of the biggest concerns we've heard recently was  concerns about continuing to protect tribal waters   under the clean water act the clean water act  is incredibly broad it basically applies to all   pollutants um you know toxic pollutants hazardous  waste even in some cases things like dirt um   or cow manure and so the threats to new mexico's  waters can come from many different directions but   one of them might be something industrial activity  like mining um including uranium mining uh in   the navajo nation in the grants mine district um  there's pumice mining and in the jemus watershed   um there's sewage raw sewage has been a big  problem across the country for a long time um so   and even things like sediment that might clog  up a channel and prevent waters from reaching   the communities could be an issue and is something  that is regulated under the clean water act   when the clean water act applies that the  problem here is that the trump rule severely   diminished the scope of protection under the clean  water act so the federal administrations have   gone back and forth on these protections and even  states have gone back and forth under the martinez   administration the state of new mexico opposed  these protections cliff let's start with you   can you talk a little bit about why protections  under the clean water act would be controversial   well i think part of the controversy is you  know resistance to federal regulation at all   the clean water act was designed to be to  establish national standards that states   would implement and so there's always been sort of  a state component there i don't think that's been   fully understood but i also think that there's  been a lot of misunderstanding about what the   clean water act does one of my favorite examples  of misunderstanding was there was a rumor that   obama was attempting to promulgate a rule that  would regulate puddles under the clean water act   and so the obama administration actually went  out of its way to write a rule that said this   rule does not apply to literally puddles and  the first thing that the trump administration   claimed um after a trump came in in 2017 was that  obama's rule has been a disaster he used that word   and he said in particular is it is regulating  puddles um when obama went out of its way to say   no the rule doesn't regulate puddles so there's  been a lot of misunderstanding misstatements about   the clean water act um scope really what it's  about is protecting your water and mine waters   in the jemez river waters in the rio grande and  we have so little water in new mexico that we just   don't have any to spare um so maybe there are  some genuine controversies around the edges of   wetlands in in the eastern united states but all  the water in new mexico is needed for purposes   here in new mexico and particularly for the tribal  communities right chris toya clean water just   doesn't seem controversial to me can you talk  a little bit about what you've seen over the   years in terms of you know wanting to protect  these waters and in particular tribal waters   yes throughout the years i've noticed that  you know we're getting more and more people   recreationalists in our hemis mountains you know  the forest service declared an area up here in   the jemez mountains a national recreational  area and we're getting people by the thousands   i think annually this is old data but  they were saying that we get over 1.6   million visitors in our heinous mountains and  the largest bottleneck is the pueblo itself   we're getting so much vehicle traffic on the  highway and it's dangerous for the people but   what people don't realize is that you know they're  trekking on the uh on the roadways on areas that   don't have any paths you know you got vehicle  traffic you got foot traffic and you also got   cattle and so what happens is that you know this  area start getting eroded and we've noticed within   this past few years we're just getting so  much sediment in our irrigation systems   um it's one issue um that we're facing um and you  know we we're farmers and we we use this uh water   from the jemis river to irrigate our fields but  we're getting sediment loads that is unbelievable   um the other issues is that you know we need  this clean water as i stated earlier it's   water is life and you know it's a water is  very crucial in in tribal life especially in   ceremonies we use the water from the jemis river  water from the springs to conduct ceremonies   not only for ourselves but for the whole world  in a sense because we we're uh protecting   and you know praying for the balance of mother  earth and so when that happens you know not   only do tribal members benefit but the whole  world benefits so lots of different groups have   weighed in on this rule on all sides of the issue  chris can you talk a little bit about why this is   this lawsuit is so important for the pueblos in  terms of things like jurisdiction and sovereignty yes you know currently the jemis pueblo  reservation is approximately 90 000 acres   we only claim uh as far as the boundaries go  a fraction of what our ancestors had used at   one time so much of the ancestral homelands are  under the management of the u.s forest service   the department of interior the national  park service bureau of land management   and private property so the watershed the jemez  watershed is uh above the valley of james pueblo   and so the main watershed is in the vice caldera  national preserve and the san pedro uh wilderness   in the nacio mental mountains and so you you have  this different uh land management happening from   different federal agencies and as i stated earlier  we've got many many thousands of recreational   recreationalists enjoying you know the mountains  and you've got your ranchers with cattle   um and uh you know we we need these waters  protected uh not only for ourselves but for   wildlife for all humanity uh if we don't protect  our waters you know we're putting ourselves   in uh in a situation where you know if our  waters are really polluted then you know we'll be   looking back and saying why didn't we do that why  didn't we put the effort in to protect our waters   um it's it's a very important issue that  we're facing today uh tribal tribal people   across the united states and all peoples  you know we seem to uh kind of have missed   uh the point in in being human and  being connected to mother earth uh   i i think today uh our priorities our  business uh and making money but um   you know i i hope that eventually we come to our  senses and start protecting what is important for   for all life right cliff in our final minute  here what happens next with this lawsuit   well there have been a number of similar lawsuits  filed across the country including lawsuit by the   navajo nation um a lawsuit uh involving tribes  near zone and st washington um what we have seen   is that the new biden department of justice  has sought to seek a stay of that litigation   and maybe that's something that that we would  consider as well but we're also very concerned   about protection of water in in new mexico right  now um and we really need to think about how we   we began doing that the bible administration  on day one of the inauguration signaled an   interest in reconsidering and possibly repealing  the trump rule and we would love to see that but   that process takes time um it could take a matter  of years um to go through the formal rulemaking   process so one thing that our litigation is asking  for is uh is just vacate the role just take us   back to where we were before at that point um the  pueblo of jemus the pueblo of laguna can art make   the arguments exactly as chris is saying about  why it's so important to protect their waters   right now we need a new rule and everybody agrees  that we do need a new rule going forward but while   that rule making process is continuing we would  really like to stop the effectiveness of this rule   that just eliminates protection for so much of new  mexico's waters right cliffia chris toya thank you   so much for joining us on new mexico infocus today  thank you laura thank you for the opportunity   it's a reminder to everyone to put your questions  into the chat over at ob so laurel can send those   our way um so we do have a couple of questions  dagmar this one comes from my boss kevin mcdonald   you've been referring to normal in the  discussion of current water management   planning but would it be more  appropriate to say long-term   average or what should what language  should we be using when we talk about this well certainly we started with the video of me  talking about how there is no longer a normal um   but we do in terms of atmospheric climate  science um we do have something we call   average or normal and that is a rolling period of  30 years that that updates every 10 years we just   actually had an update so that we dropped  the really wet 1980s and added the 2010s   so actually now that average normal  that we compare to is more affected   by the eridification climate change impacts  that we've seen um in the basin so far right so i don't know what the right term is a really good  question um because we're so i mean everything   that we do is so designed on this concept of  normal we've had a very very stable climate   for the last 8 000 years and um so when we have  real drought periods or real flood periods we   have a sense that we're going to return to some  central tendency that say that stays steady   and that's what we're losing but we still need  you know there still are some fundamental ways   that the climate in new mexico is different  from the climate in massachusetts right   so we want to be able to tie back to those  long-term trends like how things like   how long does it take us to go get you know into  the the depth of a drought and how long does   it take us to come out there's there's certain  aspects of the past that we still carry forward   um just because of the way large-scale patterns  set up on the globe now they're changing too   but not they have a little bit more inertia to  that change than some of the other processes   do and so we're still trying to carry forward  some understanding about what we know about how   our system functions while acknowledging that  it's changing all the time and i don't know the   right word for that yeah i'm so struck you know i  often am thinking about what's happening right now   and looking into the future um and and gosh you  just kind of stopped me in your tracks when you   noted that for the past 8 000 years you know  we had it really good as a species we have this   this perfect system basically for us to really  flourish and function and we kind of really messed   up well the way i look at this and and i i think  you've seen some of the talks where i show the   the temperature and carbon dioxide history um  you know through the pleistocene um growth and   retreat of of ice that sort of thing from  ice cores in greenland in antarctica and you   the pleistocene is crazy up and down swings  and then about 8 000 years ago we see this   incredible stability and it's both sides of  the planet are showing that same thing and um   it's been postulated and evidence seems to support  that that change was due to humans that was due   to humans putting greenhouse gases into the  atmosphere that kind of kicked us off that in   and out of ice age cycle that we'd been living in  and has kept our sort of our populations low and   prevented the kind of growth in human population  and society that we have today because we're   always trying to survive in this ever-changing  condition um and so the way i tend to look at it   is like a like a high protein diet has done a lot  for humans we can get a lot of protein if they're   plant or animal source proteins we tend to grow  bigger and stronger but there's a point where we   get too much and then we get gout right and so  so i tend to look at this as kind of the gout   phase of humans impact on greenhouse gases on and  the environment early on what we were doing helped   us to stabilize the client the climate into this  this very stable period we've had for the last 8   000 years but now we're putting so much into the  atmosphere that that we're kicking ourselves back   out of that period into of stability into  something that's more that's warmer than but more   like the rest of the plasticine in that conditions  are always changing and changing rapidly   so we just got this great question which was kind  of along the lines of something i was going to ask   you anyway so i'm just going to read this question  directly what does new mexico look like at the   end of one of these 12 to 30 year old 30 year  droughts that showed up in the last 1500 years   and what does it look like if there's a  repeat of the drought that started in 1200 a.d   what goes away and what survives that's  a big question that's a very big question   um well certainly if we look at the if we look  at the drought of the 1200s and you go around to   the the the heel equip cliff dwellings or  tachaco those sorts of things what goes away   is humans right and we talked a little bit  earlier about about migrations um but humans   are mobile creatures and we are able to move  towards places that are more hospitable to us   so certainly that's one of the things that changes  but um there are changes in our ecosystems that   you know if it of a particular kind of condition  even if it's constantly changing but something   like drought goes on for a long period of time  you know we're seeing this throughout the west and   down in australia last year it was terrible what  we see is we lose our forests right our forests   are sort of stable structures that are adapted  to particular temperatures and moisture levels   and um what we're seeing is they're burning um  now there's there's reasons that they're burning   that have to do with our past management and  allowing them to get too dense that kind of thing   but even without that there's you know we've been  working the rio grande water fund has been working   hard and you know reclamation's a member of that  to to um try to thin the forests so they're not   as prone to that real catastrophic kind of  wildfire but there it it does the literature   shows that there's a limit to that somewhere  maybe mid to late century where even with that   we're going to be losing our our forests to  um bark beetles and spruce budworm and the   fires themselves right and so uh you know dave  gotzler at unm gave a presentation where it was   one of those things where you say well in 50 years  your city is going to be more like some other city   saying albuquerque is going to be more like el  paso um and what's the really striking difference   when you look at those two cities well it's  that our sandia mountains are covered in forest   and the franklin mountains down in in  the el paso area are not um and it's not   it's not a pretty vision to think about how we get  from a forested landscape to it to a not forested   landscape um so i those those efforts at thinning  are critically important they put off that point   but if we continue down that path of extreme  warming then we will probably lose our forests so   that's something that will be a real fundamental  change in our landscape and on our ecosystems   and in our ability to store um our snowpack in  the mountains right because because it changes   the processes of how much water reaches the ground  versus how much sunlight gets in and heats them in   the springtime right so it changes those water  supply processes as well that just that leads   to a lot of fundamental change so that you know  it's another area where we're doing a lot of work   in our planning group at reclamation is trying  to understand these these forest and watershed   processes how that affects the forest how that  affects the snowpack how that affects how if it   burns how that affects the potential to be able  to even convey water in our river systems um   and to maintain the infrastructure that we use  say to divert the san juan chamber project water   um where if if we lose our fo  our forests catastrophically   then we've got nothing to hold the sediment  together a lot of it might wash down and it might   bury our infrastructure and that would mean in one  fell swoop we lose our ability to get what is the   um predominant water supply for central  new mexico drinking water right so   you know what's what's important to think about  is that any change or any event such as a fire   has immediate implications for that system but  they cascade all through the system and as we as   we look at how our systems are changing  we have to think about things like how   when when the jemez mountains burned um  in the lost conscious fire that led to   washing of well manhattan project waste  into the rio grande and into sediment   slips and landslides that actually  blocked the rio grande and we   had reclamation a number of other agencies had  to get out with big yellow machines to clear that   out ash that washed down in subsequent rainstorms  then blocked the oxygen transport and and killed   a lot of fish also blocked the ability of our  santa fe and albuquerque drinking water projects   to pull water from the river because we we know  how to treat out sinking um contaminants in that   water supply so that we can get a clean water out  to the people but we're not so good at floating   like um floating particulates like ash and so it  was you know it's better just to turn that water   off and rely on another source in the meantime  so there's any change in our system cascades   right through and it's important to think  about all of those kinds of consequences   yeah i've been spending you know the 10-year  anniversary of the last conscious fires coming up   next month um and i've been spending a bunch of  time up in the various parts of the burn scar   recently and um and we have a show coming  up in june about forests and climate change   so everybody should tune in for that but um  you know one of the things that since i've   been going up to the burn scar on the east  side of the jemez like near cochiti canyon   that i'm continually struck by and it's  interesting that you mentioned dave getzler   and the future forests and what the city will  look like is you know standing on that east flank   of the jemez there which was once a dense conifer  forest and too dense you know because of our fire   suppression um issues but now you stand there and  you are looking straight down into the rio grande   valley straight down into cochiti reservoir you  can see the drones like not just the the sandias   and the manzanos but you can see all the way  to the drones down there like it is no longer   a forest and um i know you talk about these  cascading effects of of fire and sort of all   the downstream all the long-term impacts including  the fact that you know in our warming world many   of these species that have been eliminated due to  fire it's too warm for them now um and so we also   kind of in thinking about these  these different impacts it's it's um we're really good often times in in  forums like this and talking about   the different ecological impacts and how these how we talk about adaptation moving forward how do we get better at talking about why  this is happening and how we need to mitigate   say reduction of greenhouse gases how  do we do a better job of connecting   greenhouse gas emissions with what we're seeing  on the ground here with our water challenges so you know i'm a scientist and i do a lot  of public outreach um and scientists have   a particular way of communicating with each other  that it seems it doesn't work for everybody we're   we're all trained to convey and receive  information in this particular way which isn't   how we communicate the rest of the time right  so so what i've learned is to talk in stories   everybody understands and relates to stories  and then um in the last several years i've   become really intrigued in the the power of art  um and you and i were both participating in the   unm art museums there must be other names for the  river program um just this week um there as many   hopefully many on this call know um they did an  art piece looking taking the actual data from the   rio grande hydrograph over time and having artists  sing it um there was some also the unm resilience   institute um had a now we didn't have one last  year but the year before had our last annual forum   and um i came up with the idea and one of the you  know even as a scientist one of the things i'm   most proud of of pairing up the the students who  are giving poster presentations of their research   with artists in the community and having the  artists convey what the real meaning to all of us   of this of this research should be so so there was  a one one phd student who was doing his work on   after the conscious fire how the streams are  impacted and then how what processes they go to   to rebuild and um the artist  that he paired with says   oh like trauma and recovery i'm all over trauma  and recovery i think i can i think i can do some   some art around this and they created this  multimedia display with with guitar music   and spoken word poetry and videos across the four  walls of an enclosed room that was so powerful and   amazing and i think conveyed that that the sort  of the meaning of the changes that are underway   in the jemez mountains in a much more profound  way than than i can ever do by talking   and so i just now i'm just seeing a question  that somebody had that laurel sent over for me um   about being concerned that discussions rarely  focused on what the ipcc has told us in terms of   reducing greenhouse gas emissions um  and stopping fossil fuel burning and the   person asked how can we have this discussion  without emphasizing what new mexico can do   um regarding mitigation toward this end  and i think that that's a great question   um not just for this panel but that that we should  all be having in new mexico um all the time in   every context in my personal opinion just um from  covering these various issues and you know new   mexico we're in this really interesting situation  where we are seeing the impacts of climate change   um and have been for quite some time but we  also benefit as a state from um the oil and   gas industry and so i don't necessarily think we  have time for that discussion today but it is it   is an incredibly important discussion that new  mexicans should be having all the time all the   time so i'm glad um that question was brought  up it's it's it it can feel a little fatalist   to just say here's the changes that are underway  and we just have to adapt to them right um   and what we we we do also need to be considering  how we can change the trajectory we're on and   it new mexico is a high impact state but it's  also a high greenhouse gas emission state   primarily related to methane and the ways that  we handle methane but you also bring up another   point which is new mexico supports the oil and  gas industry in that that's where we get a lot of   our state budget um and so there's also efforts  underway and there was a lot of discussion in   the state legislature this past year about  ways to that we can start and need to start   diversifying our economy so that we can we can  gain um you know well life life-saving um and   and community managing funds from other sources  and begin that begin that transition ourselves   for it's it benefits our own understanding of  our role in the in the globe and our own survival   yeah one of the things that i think about a  lot is um dr jonathan overpeck who we've had   on the show before who i'm sure lots of people  are familiar with you know climate change is   this sort of gloom and doomy um topic but this  this in many ways is a very hopeful moment in   history i think because as overpack and lots of  scientists point out we know what the problem is   we know why these things are happening and we  know how to slow warming we know how to mitigate   you know we have the knowledge it's a matter  of political will it's a matter of community   decisions um so i always think of that when i  get a little bit discouraged about how how big   this topic is i'm like oh wait but we have the  knowledge and the tools we can't do things we do   we need to we need to come together and we  need to to find the will to do it um i think   that there's a lot of parallels to and a lot  of things we have learned from this pandemic   that can relate to the ways that we can pull  together to find you know i'm not going to   say a solution but paths forward in this um in  this changing climate and finding ways to work   together to change the trajectory that we're on in  the pandemic we found we found some some community   will and we found a lot of new technological  tools um we found a lot of things that we can do   to help ourselves get through this and decrease  the decrease the catastrophic loss of life that   we've been experiencing um it's you know it's  a it's been a very severe situation but we're   we're finding ways out of it and we we can learn  from that and apply what we've learned from that   to this climate change both the medication  and the adaptation side of it because   necessarily our response to the changes  that are underway need to include both so speaking of economic diversification somebody  was asking about concerns about water usage in   light of the coming legalization and adult use  cannabis i'm curious what kinds of conversations   are happening in the water management community  about legalization and growing cannabis in new   mexico i haven't heard any discussions about that  yet um cannabis is still federally illegal and so   we at the bureau of reclamation where i work my  understanding is that even if growing cannabis   is legal in new mexico um any of it i mean hemp  can be um grown within the the projects that   reclamation provides water to but i believe that  marijuana cannot use reclamation's water resources   in order to in order to grow it that's my that's  my latest understanding of the situation um   so it it we're not expecting that particular legal  legalization to really change anything within   reclamation's projects and that was how it played  out in colorado after their cannabis legalization   now hemp is different without the thc um you  know that's been actually supported at a federal   level through the farm bill and so so that's all  that's all right but the the actual t thc cannabis   cannot be grown within the federal projects  and that's a lot of new mexico's farmlands   that is so interesting and i just want to  mention for everybody online that um new   mexico pbs has an awesome podcast growing  forward with megan camerick and andy lyman   talk about all sorts of cannabis related issues  and i believe they're going to be talking about   water in their coming seasons so stay tuned for  that um i love this question from one of the   audience members how can we make it a requirement  that all developers and city planners watch this   presentation and explicitly refer to it as they  make their decisions i mean how do we get local   local planners local city officials county  officials how do we get them to pay more   attention to water and the intersection of  water and land use planning and development you know i think we've i think there's been a lot  of interaction we did a um a climate change study   um you know that i was involved in with mr cog the  mid-region council of governments looking at imp   impacts on climate change on on transportation and  land use planning we of course worked very closely   with with the albuquerque bernalillo  county water utility authority and   the um the water utility for santa fe city and  county so it's very very close relationships and   i think that there there is understanding there of  the of the limitations of the supply and how that   will affect development now there's also political  pressures on any kind of government entity um and   so they'll be sort of a balance in the direction  that they go but i've i've seen these you know   much as we you know you hear about things that  maybe any community member might not like i've   seen those entities make some some really wise  growth decisions or that consider water as well so i kind of have one last question  from me that i'm curious about   because you and i have talked for years  and years about these issues and um   you know one of the things that we've talked  about is that we as a society need to make some   decisions and some choices and like the way that  i think of it for me personally is is i would like   for us to think more about for example how  we treat our rivers do we see them just as   as something that serves human needs do  we think of them as as something that have   their own rights and the rights to their own  water um how do we how do we come together   to kind of make these decisions and choices  and then how do we implement them do you think i think i think that's what we're doing right here  right now right um and i i've talked about the the   power of art to to bring people together i there's  going there are going to be a lot of trade-offs   in terms of our water use in the future and i  don't see any path forward that doesn't involve   a community conversation about what those  trade-offs are going to be um and new mexico isn't the kind of place you know i know from  living here where we say well let's just lay   the fair let the let the market decide what  we want the future of our community and our   landscape to look to look like that's not what i  see um in the people of new mexico i see people   being being very active about it and  participating in community dialogues   visioning what our future might look like  and i see that i see that interaction   um from from young people from tribes from people  from throughout our community participating in   that dialogue and i think that's a i think that's  a really healthy thing at reclamation we're   just kicking off what's known as the the rio  grande basin study lobotos to elephant butte   um and the philosophy that the middle earth  grand a conservancy district expressed when they   when they first proposed to do to partner with  reclamation on this work is that that this process   needs to bring in all of the different voices  from this basin so the people can talk about   their their values and what they envision as  a path forward together and the very first   exercise that we're asking all of the different  sectors and parts of the community to do is to   is to come up with descriptions of their values  and then also from a technical perspective   parameters that can be used to measure how well  we meet those values right um whether those are   enough water for farming or for ceremonial uses or  for you know city landscaping or or whatever it is   um what are the parameters that say are we  are we meeting those values can we can we   get there because that's the language then that  that allows the community to actually discuss   those trade-offs and if we don't go through that  exercise then we'll then we might be talking past   each other and so we think that that's a really  important way to start this process that values   discussion in a large community ensemble of  people who care about this issue the future of   our water supply the future of our rivers and  ecosystems and the forests that support them so i know everybody this is all really heavy  stuff and i don't want to leave you overwhelmed   um thank you to dagmar for joining me this  morning and thank you to all my colleagues   at new mexico pbs and thank you all  for spending your morning with us um   but i don't want to leave you  feeling overwhelmed last fall   the our land crew made um the episode we're  going to show now kind of as a love letter to   the bosque and to our audience going through  a pandemic going through climate change like   we just needed we needed something and so um a  huge thank you um for this episode in particular   about all of our episodes to the production crew  this show that you're going to watch right now um   worked on by kevin maestas benjamin yazza anthony  lostetter and a big thank you as always to my   colleagues kevin mcdonald and matt grubs and so i  will pass it on to laurel to start our final video in the bosque along the rio grande  throughout the spring and the summer   we seek out the cottonwoods  for shade rely on the river for   sustenance to water our fields or to  cool our bodies from the noonday sun and the autumn we celebrate the  brilliance of the cottonwoods   when their canopies fire  the riverbanks with yellow but by late october especially as  night starts falling earlier it's   easy to take the bosque for granted or to  stop blocking beneath its canopy altogether but i think it's the best time of year to be here as the trees drop their leaves it's easier to spot  porcupines napping in cottonwoods and elm trees   or gnawing on bark or finding  the seeds of russian olives   in the sands along the bank you can see where  beavers have lugged branches dropped into the   current of the river or excavated holes to  reach the tasty roots of tamarisk seedlings   beavers themselves are hard to spot but there  are signs of their industriousness everywhere coyotes call out earlier in the  evening celebrating their hunt   or maybe just singing to the night massive mobs of crows that winter in the middle  rio grande valley their numbers too big to even   calm murders roost at night in the bosque they  spend their days spread out across the city   feeding and then return to the bosque at night  hundreds of them settling into the trees walk   through their ranks and they'll yell at you  drop nuts and small branches on your head too   and of course late fall is when the sandhill  cranes return to the valley for winter today we appreciate their primordial calls and the clunky grace of  their landings in the river   where they shelter for the  night away from predators they've migrated here for thousands and thousands  and thousands of generations their habits as clear   as the layers of limestone in the sandia mountains  their patterns tied inextricably to the sway   of seasons today watching the cranes along the  river it's something to imagine the blessing they   must have been to the people who lived alongside  the rio grande for centuries to think of their   mass arrival along with snow geese precisely as  the weather turned cold and harvest season past   like new mexicans the bosque the rio grande they  are resilient this river has flowed for millennia   these cottonwoods have stood since  the 1940s the forest the wildlife   have all survived the press of more  and more people more and more demands   but as the region warms as the region dries  and everyone and everything demands more water   we also need to demand more for the river more  for the bosque and remember this too is our home for new mexico in focus and  our land i'm laura paskus thanks everybody for joining us for this  morning science cafe i so appreciate laura   pasquez for making all these um videos for being  our environmental correspondent and thank you also   to dagmar for joining us this morning this was an  awesome science cafe i appreciate you guys so much   thank you and we also want to thank the audience  for joining us this was great to see everybody   have a great weekend you guys happy  memorial day don't forget to join us   for our screening on memorial day morning if  you're interested in dance as a way of dealing   with ptsd i love what dagmar said about the  arts by the way goodbye everybody happy weekend