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Mexico is known as The Land of Enchantment, a
name that captures the state’s cultural history and its
beautiful and unique landscape – including its rich and
varied natural resource heritage. New Mexico’s natural
resources are an important foundation for the state’s
scenic natural wonders, tourism and recreation industry,
quality of life, and cultural heritage. |
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The New Mexico Office of Natural
Resources Trustee (ONRT) ensures that natural resources
and the services they provide that are injured or lost because of contamination are restored
for the benefit of the environment and the enjoyment of
the New Mexico residents and visitors now and in the
future.
Mission and Program
ONRT’s Mission: |
Lesser Prairie Chicken
Photo courtesy of
USDA - New Mexico Natural
Resources Conservation Service. |
| ONRT's mission is to return injured natural resources and the services they provide
to the condition that would have existed absent the release of
contamination. |
ONRT's Program: |
The Natural Resources Trustee through the ONRT implements the Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Program. The ONRT assesses injury to natural resources caused by the release of hazardous substances or oil, and then seeks compensation from the potentially responsible parties for restoration of those injured resources. Compensation is used to restore, replace or acquire the equivalent of injured, destroyed or lost natural resources and the services they provide.
ONRT strives to
develop cooperative relationships with
responsible parties to achieve a more efficient
and effective resolution to resource injuries.
ONRT also works in partnership with other state
and federal agencies to get its job done. |
| Benefits |
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resource damage assessment and restoration has many
benefits. |
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Natural
resource restoration is paid for by funds recovered from
parties responsible for the injury, not taxpayer dollars. |
Cactus flower
Photo
courtesy of USDA-New Mexico NRCS. |
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Restoration has proven to be
a means of promoting successful partnerships
among industry, conservation organizations,
community groups, and government agencies. |
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Restoration
activities may accelerate recovery of the injured natural
resources and protect them from further injury. |
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Restoration
contributes to a healthy environment, which is an economic
and cultural asset for New Mexico. |
Planning Restoration
A careful process is
required to plan and implement restoration.
It begins with the
identification of a release of a hazardous substance or
oil and is followed by an assessment of the type and
extent of injury to natural resources. Natural
resource damage assessment can be
time-consuming to (1) understand the
complex ecosystem of which a particular resource is
part, (2) identify the adverse changes to the resources and the services the resources provide,
(3) determine appropriate compensation. |
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Once injury is determined, the next step is to identify
fair compensation for the loss of the resources and the
services they provide from the time the injury occurred
until their full recovery. Compensation is either in the
form of appropriate restoration projects or cash
settlements. The purpose of both restoration projects
and cash settlements is first to restore injured
resources and, if that is not possible, to replace or
acquire equivalent natural resources and the services
that were lost or impaired. |
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Sandia Mountains, Albuquerque
Photo courtesy of USDA-New Mexico NRCS.
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