Natural Capitalism: Compost

Founded in 1999 Citizens for Environmental Safeguards in Santa Fe New Mexico has been the brainchild of Director, Elaine Cimino who was worked as an environmental educator and community advocate on land use issues, water quality and quantity and environmental justice issues in Northern New Mexico. Before her work in New Mexico, Elaine Cimino worked with Costanoan Indian Research in Hollister, CA, on California Indian water sovereignty issues and tobacco use. With her first experience being speaking out against the construction of the Las Padres Dam in Carmel, California, and working in community to stop the project. 

At CES she has worked for oversight of Los Alamos National Laboratory on the severe long-term water poisoning of ground water in the region; worked to successfully stall the Blackhawk military base at the Santa Fe airport, successfully organizing a communities outreach program with the help of TEWA Women United to the Pueblos and traditional Hispanic communities of the region on an EPA funded Environmental Justice project on the Perceptions of Contaminants from LANL.

This year the Espanola Basin Sole source Aquifer Designation was successfully culminated on Jan 10, 2008, after working 8 years on the project that the EPA designated 3,000 square miles of a protected aquifer resource area. Elaine Cimino and Zane Spiegel Ph.D. worked together for years on the EBSSA; Zane Spiegel- a world-renowned hydrologist, Fulbright scholar and was her mentor for 10 years. In 2001 when Anti-SLAPP legislative bill passed in the New Mexico Legislature to insure citizen civil suit rights and the right to speak against a corporation/development she organizing statewide grassroots support via the Internet with former Yale Law Professor and NM Attorney Frederick Rowe. Her travels have taken her Mexico, Canada and Italy to interview water activists and advised on water issues facing communities.  Helen Caldecott supported Elaine’s attendance at the New Nuclear Danger seminar, Washington DC, Elaine has advocated for environmental issues lobbied Capital Hill, Washington, DC. <www.environmentalsafeguards.org>

She served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union, Santa Fe, NM Chapter for two years and wrote a white paper of the Civil Rights Complaints involving LANL contaminants to the Civil Rights Commission in Washington DC, which is now part of a class action lawsuit from environmental justice groups in the State of Washington.

            Her presentations include Environmental Justice Listening Session sponsored by U.S. Justice Department, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the NM Environment Department, speaking on LANL contaminant impacts on communities of color. Presented information to the New Mexico State Legislature LANL which passed memorials on an Interim Committee on LANL Contaminants for 3 years. She was a guest panelist on the Indigenous Environmental Network “LANL Contaminant Impacts from Cerro Grande Fire.” Guest on radio program “Native America Calling”; KSFR Public Radio Santa Fe various programs on water, environmental justice issues and climate change facing an impacting local communities.

            Elaine as Director of CES, it board and its membership has worked with the Los Alamos Study Group, TEWA Women United, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Santa Fe Against Oil Drilling, Common Ground United, the New Energy Consortium, Zapatista Solidarity Coalition, New Mexico Acequia Association, the Seed and Sustainability Project, the League of Women Voters, Stop the War Machine, the Chemical Weapons Working Groups, Santa Fe Basin Water Users, Union of Concerned Scientists, Indigenous Environmental Network, the Daniel Pennock Democracy School, Citizens Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the Santa Fe Neighborhood Network, the Sierra Club, Tampa Bay, Santa Fe and San Francisco, Costanoan Indian Research, the Governmental Accountability Project, Western Environmental Law Center, New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Public Citizen, Citizens for Judicial Reform, Polaris Institute, and National Wildlife Foundation.

            Her outreach for her book included (not mentioned above)  the Water Alliance, the Food and Water Network, Felton FLOW, the Stockton Coalition, Sierra Club Tampa Bay, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation of Florida and Georgia, the University of Hawaii Dr Pengchen “Patrick” Fu, University of New Hampshire, University of California Berkeley College of Journalism, Viola Bryansk, Russia, NGO, Algae at Work,  the Wisconsin Water Coalition, San Diego Coast keepers, the Blue Ridge Environmental Network, Greenlaw, Tom Hayden, Alice Slater, Amy Goodman Democracy Now, Save the Manatee.org, Sierra Club California, , Arroyo Seco Foundation, the Metropolitan Water Board Los Angeles, Tampa Bay Water, the California Climate Change Action  Group, the David Suzuki Foundation, 350.org, The Georgia State Environmental Department, the State of Florida Environmental Protection Department, Jim Hansen Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and NASA Goddard Space Center Climatologist, Susanne Moser at Institute for the study of  Society and the Environment at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, World Social Forum, Ecoversity, EarthShare Oregon, John horning of WildGuardians, Sam Hitt of Wild Watersheds,  Republic of Cascadia Bioregional Cooperative Commonwealth, Betsy Herbert, Ph.D. Environmental Analyst San Lorenzo Valley Water District,  Worldwatch Institute, Pacific Institute, Jason Grudak, Doug McCada and Virginia (Ginny) L. McGuire all Hydrologists U.S. Geological Survey, Angus Kinnaird, Co-Director of the Water Stewardship Initiative in Australia, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren’s Design Services, The Sculpture Ranch.org, the Global Marshall Plan HRH Prince Hassan Talal of Jordan, the UN Millennium Goals Project, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute.

            A writer on Op-Ed articles for Albuquerque Journal, the Sun News and the Santa Fe New Mexican.  She currently is advocating for a new grassroots social movement on climate change. Elaine Cimino is a painter, photographer and art educator who has exhibited in Canada, Mexico and Italy and several exhibitions over the years within the United States. <www.artistactivista.com>