2nd Annual National Green Amendment Day Tackles Environmental Injustice Through Collective Action

Second Annual Green Amendment Day Tackles Environmental Injustice Through Collective Action

Yesterday, over one hundred environmental advocates from 23 states across the country gathered virtually to celebrate the Second Annual Green Amendment Day. Entitled “Green Amendments: Transforming Environmental Rights from Rhetoric to Reality,” programming aimed to shine a light on how enforceable environmental rights, in the form of constitutional Green Amendments, can help frontline communities’ address toxic pollution, environmental racism, climate injustice, and air and water pollution harming their communities….

Community Opposition Forces Santolina Hearing to Reschedule

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.”

Nuclear Regulatory Commission slows decision about Church Rock uranium cleanup

by Marjorie Childress

New Mexico In Depth

June 16, 2022

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission appears to have slowed its timeline for deciding whether to let another federal agency house uranium-contaminated debris on a mill site it regulates near Church Rock.  Local Navajo people and Navajo Nation officials object to the plan, saying the proposal doesn’t move debris far enough away from the community. …

Bernalillo County Refuses to Hold Santolina Hearing Online

Officials Ignore Pleas to Expand Access to Public Hearing 

Albuquerque, NM—The Bernalillo County Commission is refusing to provide the greatest accessibility to the public by not allowing the public to attend the upcoming Santolina hearing scheduled for June 28 at 2pm over Zoom as they have done in the past throughout the pandemic. This is despite multiple requests from immunocompromised community members who want to participate, but fear for their health during this time of rising Covid-19 cases in Bernalillo County and across the state of New Mexico. The public deserves the greatest accessibility to attend this public hearing and their public safety should be kept at the forefront during these ever-changing times. 

Group claims discrimination over hearing asphalt plants

by Claudia L. Silva

Santa Fe New Mexican

May 7, 2022

Residents of neighborhoods in southwestern Santa Fe who have fought a proposed asphalt plant consolidation, arguing its effects would amount to environmental racism, also allege they faced discrimination during a public hearing before the New Mexico Environment Department….