B. Nieves I. Vázquez joined Bayou City Waterkeeper as a Water Policy Research Fellow in February 2024. They were born and raised in the second-ward of Houston, Texas and the east side bayous of Channelview.

Nieves is a graduate student at the University of Arizona in the M.S. Water, Society, & Policy program, focusing their studies on rural vs. urban water access and equity. She has interned with the National Park Service throughout the Intermountain Region and urban farms in Central Texas. They focused on engaging in difficult dialogues with federal land-based agencies for the inclusion of Indigenous people and under-represented groups in the outdoors and environmental field. She advocates for a shift in the narrative for land as a cultural source and not just as a natural resource.

Their advocacy ranges from the Colorado River in the Southwest, to the springs in Central Texas – from the Houston bayous, to the ríos of the Sierra Madre Oriental in México. Growing up around unregulated corporate extraction and inequitable health effects in her Houston neighborhood ignited a passion for their environmental justice work. Despite these issues, they continue to see the gift of the waterways and the rich culture of flora, fauna, and people keeping these ecological systems alive.