Federal Government Must Halt New Uranium Mining and Clean up the 500-plus Abandoned Mines

March 24, 2024

By Eric Jantz, Allbuquerque resident and Teracita Keyanna, Gallup resident

They look like small mesas — indistinguishable, really, from the buttes and juniper-dotted hills that are common features on New Mexico’s landscape.

Rather than being part of a landscape that reflects the ebb and flow that millennia of seasons have sculpted into the Earth, however, these mounds of uranium mining waste are obelisks memorializing the point at which humanity completely divested itself of its moral compass and put its faith in the destructive power of the atom. …

MacKenzie Scott Donates $20 Million to New Mexico Nonprofits

March 21, 2024

By Griffin Rushton, KOB TV 4

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has awarded 10 New Mexico organizations a total of $20 million through her Yield Giving foundation. …

For the folks at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, $2 million is keeping their fight alive.

“I literally was just in disbelief, and in tears, or just feeling some of that weight being lifted off my shoulders,” said Virginia Necochea, executive director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. …

County Leaders Should use Realistic Data when Considering Santolina Proposal

March 17, 2024

By State Sen. Linda M. Lopez & David Vogel

We can all probably agree that good governance is an essential ingredient for a sustainable democracy. And good data is an essential ingredient for good governance.

A report recently released by the University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER), an independent, nonpartisan research group and recognized expert in socioeconomic data for the state of New Mexico, revealed that the Santolina proposal for development on the far West Side of Albuquerque is based on highly unlikely and unrealistic data and projections….

Indigenous leaders confront U.S. Government over Its uranium exploitation policies at historic IACHR hearing in D.C.

March 14, 2024

By Buffalo’s Fire, Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance

Diné (Navajo), Ute Mountain Ute, Havasupai, Oglala Lakota, and Northern Arapaho Tribal Members Give Powerful & Moving Testimonies on How the NRC, EPA & BIA Violate Tribes’ Human Rights

ALBUQUERQUE, NM—Members of five different Native American Indigenous communities provided moving and powerful testimony on the devastating health, environmental and cultural impacts from the uranium industry during a thematic hearing convened by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on Wednesday, February 28, 2024.. …

Albuquerque Air War: Big Business, Bipartisan Politicos Attack Environmental Justice Rule

December 15, 2023

By Kent Paterson, CounterPunch

Promoting a tourism mystique, the marketers of Albuquerque, New Mexico, peddle images of clean skies, diverse culture and delicious cuisine. The icons encompass soaring hot air balloons, majestic Sandia Mountain vistas and the ubiquitous chile pepper, red or green. But if current political trends hold, the postcard visitors send grandma might depict more spewing emissions, sickly skies and gagging residents.

At least that’s the implication of recent actions by the Albuquerque City Council that sacked the current members of the joint Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board (JAQCB) and blocked a proposed Health, Environment and Equity Impacts rule (HEEI) aimed at protecting low-income communities of color in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County from further, disproportionate air pollution impacts, including the cumulative effects of pollution. …