Old oil cans, used drug needles and other waste litter parts of Santa Fe's dry arroyos and the often-dry Santa Fe River bed.

Ugly to look at, the human detritus becomes a bigger, uglier problem when waters flow, washing organic and inorganic pollutants downstream, where children and adults wade, play and sometimes fish in the river.

Arroyos and riverbeds around New Mexico suffer the same problem to varying degrees.

Now the state Water Quality Control Commission is seeking public input about revising surface-water quality standards to address pollution sources during a four-day hearing next week at the state Capitol.

Technical experts will testify in the mornings, and the public will have a chance to testify after lunch Dec. 8 and 9 in Room 309 of the Roundhouse and at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 9 at Porter Hall in the Wendell Chino Building of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. The federal Clean Water Act requires states to review and revise water quality standards every three years.

The nonprofit organization Amigos Bravos wants all New Mexico waters — even ephemeral ones, which don't flow all the time — recognized as places where people may swim, fish or take a drink. The group is conducting a survey about how people use the state's waters and encouraging people to attend the public hearing.

"Everyone that uses New Mexico for hiking, backpacking, outdoor recreation — wherever there's a pond or standing water, people like to go play in it," Amigos Bravos executive director Brian Shields said. "If it's the only water around, often they may treat it and use it."

New Mexico's rivers have a slate of challenges from pollutants historic and new. And humans aren't the only creatures affected.

The state Department of Game and Fish filed comments about the revised standards Nov. 6, saying they don't go far enough. While wetlands and riparian areas make up less than 1 percent of New Mexico's landscape, more than 80 percent of the state's wildlife species need those areas at some point in their life cycle. "The department is concerned that existing and proposed water quality criteria may be insufficient to protect sensitive aquatic biota and related wildlife," said a letter from the department's Conservation Division.

The revised standards use models that ignore the impact of pollutants on tiny aquatic creatures like mollusks and crustaceans or plants, all part of the food chain, according to the Game and Fish Department. A contaminated food chain is "a major concern because fish and other aquatic organisms can acquire contaminants through both the food they ingest and the water in which they live," the department said.

A new way to track the biological health of streams is proposed in the revised standards, according to Marcy Leavitt, director of the Water and Waste Management Division of the New Mexico Environment Department. "It just gives us more tools to look at whether a steam is impaired," she said.

The New Mexico Environment Department, along with Santa Fe County and the city of Santa Fe, are concerned about the potential for buried radioactive and nonradioactive waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory to pollute the Rio Grande through groundwater seepage or surface-water runoff. Further downstream, a recent study found pharmaceuticals in irrigation ditches around Albuquerque. Arroyos around the state are favorite dumping grounds for old, leaky refrigerators, oil barrels, dead animals and all manner of other trash people don't want to dump at the landfill, where they have to pay a fee.

Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy think in one respect the revised standards go too far. They asked the state to strike changes that would set standards and allow the state to regulate "source, special nuclear and byproduct materials."

Amigos Bravos, the state Environment Department and the Buckman Direct Diversion board replied, defending the need for the standard. "This is an issue the public wants addressed," Leavitt said. "They want to know what is in the Rio Grande even though it is going to be treated at the river diversion project."

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

ON THE WEB

• For more information, visit www.nmenv.state.nm.us/wqcc/index.html.