by NMELC | Dec 14, 2022 | NMELC in the News
December 12, 2022
by Alexis Skonieski, KRQE Reporter
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – On a good day, Marla Painter says you can smell the fresh air in the South Valley. On others, she says all you smell are chemicals coming from the many industrial developments in the area.
“We have just seen one air permit after another rubber-stamped without any consideration for the health and wellbeing of the community,” Painter says. She feels the South Valley, her home for the last 25 years, has become a haven for industrial developments….
by NMELC | Nov 22, 2022 | NMELC in the News
By Susan Montoya Bryan
Associated Press
US News
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. …
by NMELC | Sep 13, 2022 | NMELC in the News
By Gov. Vernon B. Abeita, Pueblo of Isleta, with co-authors Lauro Silva / board member, Mountain View Neighborhood Association; Marla Painter / president, Mountain View Community Action; Katie Dix / executive director, Friends of Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge; and Virginia Necochea / executive director, N.M. Environmental Law Center.
Albuquerque Journal
September 11, 2022
On Tuesday, Sept. 13, the Bernalillo County Commissioners will make a decision with outsized consequences for the South Valley and the Pueblo of Isleta, directly across the railroad tracks from a new housing development. The county zoning ordinance does not allow this type of land use, and the locals do not want it. The county zoning administrator, the county Board of Adjustment, and Albuquerque’s Environmental Health Department have thus far denied all requests relating to the new asphalt plant. Commissioners are now considering Star Paving’s appeal of a zoning administrator decision that it cannot build an asphalt plant on this site. Commissioners should deny the appeal. …
by NMELC | Aug 18, 2022 | NMELC in the News
By Gwynne Ann Unruh
The Paper.
Bernalillo Commission Votes Unanimously to Support Santolina Industrial Park Amendments
Santolina’s solar arrays, wind turbines and tire recycling plant were approved by the Bernalillo County Commissioners Tuesday at their zoning meeting. It looks like “Culligan Man” is the new water source for the development’s 630-acre industrial business park located next to their Santa Fe size housing development. The development has been sidestepping the New Mexico Water Authority for years after their original permit expired as they fought members of the Albuquerque community through the court system this past decade….
by NMELC | Jul 4, 2022 | NMELC in the News
By Gwynne Ann Unruh
The Paper.
July 4, 2022
There is a lot at stake for community members in opposition to the Santolina development and they want to be sure that, when they raise their voices in disapproval, they are heard.
The Bernalillo County Commissioners (BCC) Santolina hearing (Zoning Meeting) scheduled for June 28 was originally an in-person meeting only. Community members and their representatives, who have opposed the massive development for over a decade, mobilized phone callers asking for the same treatment for the Santolina hearing as the BCC’s June 21 meeting, which was scheduled online “due to an increase in COVID cases in the state and out of an abundance of caution for the health and safety of county employees and citizens at-large.”
by NMELC | Jun 17, 2022 | NMELC in the News
By Noel Lyn Smith
Farmington Daily Times
June 17, 2022
FARMINGTON — A decision that was expected this month about whether to remove uranium mine waste from an area near a Church Rock community or store it onsite near the community has been delayed for now by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. …
