Majority Latino City Endures Years of Toxic Water in Health ‘Crisis’
By Silvia Foster-Frau
Washington Post
After repeated violations, the state of New Mexico has stepped in — but problems are a reminder that safe water is not available to all Americans
SUNLAND PARK, N.M. — Rosana Monge clutched her husband’s death certificate and an envelope of his medical records as she approached the microphone and faced members of the water utility board on a recent Monday in this city in southeast New Mexico. …
Sunland Park Déjà Vu: Water, Management Crisis and Community Protest
April 15, 2024
By Kent Paterson
El Chuqueño
Momentous days riveted April in the southern New Mexico border communities of Sunland Park and neighboring Santa Teresa, where renewed controversy over water quality grips the public stage..
Dozens of people jammed the small Sunland Park City Council chambers April 5 in a town hall convened by City Councilor Alberto Jaramillo. Billed as the “Let’s Celebrate Our Hispano Heritage” event, the gathering heard city and utility company officials report on different municipal initiatives. …
Woods: Potential Buyers are Not Admissible Evidence
April 11, 2024
By Jessica Carranza
El Defensor Chieftain
RESERVE – Judge Roscoe Woods of the Seventh Judicial District Court, granted the State Engineer’s motion for summary judgement thereby upholding the State Engineer’s denial of Augustin Plains Ranch LLC’s application to pump 54,000-acre feet of water a year from the San Agustin Plains basin at the Catron County Court house on April 5….
Speaking with One Voice
April 7, 2024
By Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear International
Tribes call for cleanup, remediation and an end to uranium mining and milling
They were there to tell their stories. The contamination of air, land and water. The sicknesses. The displacement. The loss of community, culture and language. The deprivation of fundamental human rights. And they spoke with one voice in their plea for justice, the voice of Indigenous peoples in the United States and their lived experience of uranium mines and mills. …
Judge Denies Pumping of Water from the San Agustin Basin
April 5, 2024
by Jessica Carranza Pino
El Defensor Chieftain
Judge Roscoe Woods, Seventh Judicial District Court Judge, denied the application from the Augustin Plains Ranch LLC to pump 54,000 acre feet of water a year from the San Agustin Plains basin at the Catron County Court house this morning, April 5, in Reserve, New Mexico.
There was standing room only with over one hundred people present at the hearing in protest as lawyers shared their arguments for almost five hours. …
A Nuclear Power Revival Is Sparking a Surge in Uranium Mining
April 4, 2024
A push for nuclear power is fueling demand for uranium, spurring the opening of new mines. The industry says new technologies will eliminate pollution from uranium mining, but its toxic legacy, particularly in the U.S. Southwest, leaves many wary of an incipient mining boom. …
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.. …
Top 10 Environmental Issues to Watch in New Mexico in 2024
January/February 2024 By NMELC Staff Green Fire Times The New Mexico Environmental Law Center is honored once again to be invited by Green Fire Times to share our list of what we consider to be the Top 10 Environmental Justice Issues for the coming year. This annual...
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. …
A Cruel Movida Against Environmental Justice
November 6, 2023
By V. B. Price, Mercury Messenger
A landmark environmental justice regulation proposed in Albuquerque — undoubtedly the most important of its kind in generations — has so frightened the business community here that it has gone to preposterous and disgusting lengths to undermine and destroy it.
Westside City Councilor and conservative Republican Dan Lewis, a petroleum businessman and pastor, introduced two bills in mid-October that would not only undermine the health of impoverished communities in Bernalillo County but would also deepen the county’s abysmal air quality record. The American Lung Association puts us in the top 25 most polluted metro areas in nation. …
Boarding Up: New legislation would stifle Albuquerque’s current Air Quality Board and replace it with a new one
November 4, 2023
By Ryan Lowery, The Paper.
An Albuquerque city councilor is seeking to replace a seven-member board tasked with preventing and abating air pollution in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. It’s a plan that isn’t sitting well with many residents of the South Valley, part of the city that is home to a disproportionate number of potentially polluting businesses. …
Albuquerque Plastic Fire Gives Air Regulators Opportunity ‘to Make the Right Decision’
August 17, 2023
By Austin Fisher, Source NM
Massive, toxic fire comes as grassroots community groups push for historic air regulation
Richard Moore started getting phone calls from his neighbors in the South Valley on Aug. 6.
He followed the path of the smoke, and decided to go up to Mesa del Sol where the Atkore United Poly Systems fire was still burning.
Ten days after the plastic fire, there has still been no official report to residents on the health impacts of the smoke created by burning plastic.