New Mexico Residents Raise Environmental Justice Concerns

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — On the southern edge of New Mexico’s largest city is a Hispanic neighborhood that used to be made up of a patchwork of family farms and quiet streets, but industrial development has closed in over the decades, bringing with it pollution.

Neighbors point to regular plumes of smoke and the smell of chemicals wafting through the neighborhood at night, saying contamination has disproportionately affected the area when compared with more affluent neighborhoods in the Albuquerque area.

Now residents have come up with a proposal as they fight for environmental justice, and members of the Mountain View Neighborhood Association, supporters of the nearby Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge and others gathered Monday afternoon to roll it out and to request that Albuquerque and Bernalillo County regulators hold a hearing to consider the measure. …