Nevada’s natural resources at risk of being diminished

By Rebekah May Stetson

Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017 | 2 a.m.

I remember my first hunting trip to Paradise Valley. I reveled in the morning blue sky, the still air and warm sun. Distant coyote calls heightened the excitement as we embarked on our hike.

As a sportswoman and mother of three, I want the same memories for my children. However, I fear the president’s slash-to-the-bone budget for the Environmental Protection Agency could keep that dream from becoming a reality.

Targeting the EPA is not OK. For sportsmen and women like me, the EPA protects our health, our connection to nature and our hobby.

First, the EPA protects the air we breathe. That’s important — we’re outside a lot. Our kids are, too. Cutting the EPA will undermine existing pollution standards, impair enforcement and impede the agency’s ability to develop new protections. That’s dangerous; the American Lung Association ranked the greater Reno area 10th worst in the nation for certain types of pollution.

Second, the EPA protects our water. In Nevada, our water is precious. Lake Tahoe, beloved by those who seek nature’s beauty, saw its famously clear water grow cloudy in the 20th century. However, the EPA has spent $47 million in the last 20 years and coordinated with state and local officials to help restore the grand and vital lake. Today, it’s getting back to its pristine blue. Cutting the EPA could interrupt this progress.

It’s not just Lake Tahoe, either. Waterways across Nevada need restoration. The Carson River has so much mercury pollution that anglers can’t eat their catch. Meanwhile, studies have found that nearly 80 percent of the wells near the Anaconda mine in Lyon County have toxic levels of chemicals.

Finally, and importantly, the EPA protects our climate. President Donald Trump doesn’t believe in the science of climate change, calling it a “hoax,” and has taken steps to end the EPA’s climate change research and adaption programs.

Average temperatures in Nevada have already risen 2 degrees; Lake Tahoe is warming at alarming rates; water reservoirs are shrinking.

Washington politicians may ignore climate change, but Nevada sportsmen and women can’t.

Rising global temperatures could push 30 percent of all plant and wildlife species toward extinction. For example, worsening wildfires and droughts in Nevada are threatening the pronghorn, a gazelle-like mammal. It’s the fastest land animal in North America and a prize for local hunters as well as a beautiful creature to be observed by all.

Climate change endangers our loved ones, triggering more asthma attacks and increasing tick and mosquito-borne illnesses like West Nile and Lyme disease.

It’s simple: Undermining the EPA is bad for hunters and anglers. It’s bad for politicians, too. A recent poll found that 75 percent of American sportsmen and women consider cuts in funding for parks, habitat and water quality to be a serious threat.

Our elected officials should oppose any cuts to the EPA, in particular, our own Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev. He champions himself as a friend of hunters and anglers. We appreciate this sentiment, but it must be backed with conviction. Nevada sportsmen and women don’t want to see the EPA gutted. We want our kids to hunt and fish, not hack and wheeze.

Like much of Nevada, Paradise Valley has endured droughts, wildfires and rising temperatures. It’s already changed since my husband brought me all those years ago.

I urge Sen. Heller and his Nevada colleagues to oppose any cuts to the EPA’s budget. As sportsmen and women, we want our kids and grandkids to go hunting where our parents and grandparents once took us. A fully funded EPA will help ensure this legacy.

Rebekah May Stetson is the grassroots climate outreach consultant in Nevada for the National Wildlife Federation Her career has spanned from corporate banking to organic farming. She is a mother to three and a passionate lover of the wild, striving to nurture the beauty that surrounds us.