Editor:
As often as I can, I find a river, put together my rod, tie on a fly and cast a line.
You can’t fish without a river, and you can’t have a river without water.
Last September, I drove north to the Valle Vidal in the Carson National Forest, where I met with some of our partners: Spencer from the National Forest Foundation, Toner from Trout Unlimited and Jack from the U.S. Forest Service. Through Intel’s support, these organizations, along with other stakeholders, have been working to restore forest meadows and flow to Comanche Creek — part of the Rio Grande River Basin.
We visited Valle Vidal to view this project and spent the morning checking out the work of beavers and trying to spot Rio Grande cutthroat trout, a big change from my usual routine supporting Intel’s factory in Rio Rancho.
As part of Intel’s commitment to restore 100 percent of the water used at our Rio Rancho site, we funded two projects that restored more than 118 million gallons of water during 2019 — approximately 120 percent of Intel’s water consumption in New Mexico — to the Rio Grande River Basin. We’ve invested in resource conservation and environmental sustainability projects within our factory for years, but this was an opportunity to affect that change outside of our operations — and hence, the change of scenery for me.
Over the last two years, the projects we’ve supported have restored approximately 1 billion gallons of water to our local watersheds in the U.S.
When we put our trust in these nonprofits, there is more water in the river for fish, for sure, but also for the farmers, ranchers and communities that depend on Comanche Creek and the Rio Grande. It’s a testament to their expertise how quickly the environment bounces back.
I didn’t catch any fish that day, but I saw firsthand why more companies here should think outside the box and partner when it comes to sustainability — we can do so much more together. I’ll make it back out there with my fishing gear soon enough.
Erika Edgerly
Intel Public Affairs Director
