AIR

The Law Center represents residents in their battle to fend off polluting industry and preserve their right to clean air.

LAND

The Law Center serves communities fighting to keep dangerous pollutants away from their land and clean up areas already contaminated.

WATER

In the face of the added urgent threat from climate change, protecting both access to water and quality of water is a critical priority for the Law Center.

OUR MISSION

The New Mexico Environmental Law Center has been defending environmental justice since 1987. It is our mission to work with New Mexico’s communities to protect their air, land and water in the fight for environmental justice.

At the Law Center,  we are working hard with under-resourced communities in New Mexico to ensure that they have the same clean air, land and water that every New Mexican is entitled to. We are on the legal front line fighting to not only keep environmental regulations, but to make them even stronger. Support our work to protect New Mexico.

The New Mexico Environmental Law Center is committed to dismantling the racist structures that are at the heart of environmental injustice and all disparate treatment of communities of color. If we do not respect the water we drink, the air we breathe, the land we sow, and the community in which we live, we cannot realize the fundamental human rights to which we are all entitled. We stand with those seeking justice and will continue to utilize our platform to support our state and its people.

Note: the Law Center is currently only considering requests for assistance on a limited basis.

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DONATE TO NMELC

Your support for the NMELC is crucial to support our environmental justice legal work for the communities that we serve and ensuring that New Mexico will be a beautiful, healthy place for generations to come.

NEWS

Laramide Resources Hits Pause on La Jara Mesa Uranium Project

September 16, 2026

Uranium Company Requests a Pause After Community Members Put Up Consistent Resistance to Mining Sacred Mount Taylor

Albuquerque, NM–A representative from the New Mexico Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources Department (EMNRD) announced that the La Jara Mesa uranium project proposed for the sacred landscape of Mount Taylor is on pause.

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As interest in uranium mining increases in New Mexico, residents raise concerns

by Jessica Barron
KRQE
September 11, 2026
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Uranium mining and its impacts on residents have become a controversial topic in New Mexico. Most recently, the State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richards announced a ban on new uranium mines on state land. A resident impacted by uranium mining shared their story with KRQE News. “The desecration of the environmental environment is huge,” said Larry King, resident of Church Rock, New Mexico. …

Watch full story.

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Homestake Barrick Gold Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Walk Away from its Cleanup Responsibilities

by Ava Curtis and Ann McCartney
Cibola Citizen
OpEd

September 2, 2026

What impact do community members make when an international mining giant wants to walk away from obligations to keep our drinking water safe? After making money from mining and milling uranium for decades, the groundwater contamination from those operations persists, threatening Milan and Grants’ drinking water….

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