New Mexico Independent: Comments by Joel Gay

Joel Gay — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:32:32 GMT

Thanks for the comments. Your first point is well taken. The difficulty with headline writing is that sometimes they can be read two ways. In this case, the hed is correct in that a lease sale was called off. Yes, other leases were sold as scheduled, and yes, the deferred sale may one day be held. But the point is that the vast majority of leased acreage was pulled off the table over environmental concerns.
Your second point stems from a misleading sub-hed, which perhaps might have led some to misread the story. The Colorado sale deferral “comes on the heels of” a protest filed over a separate lease sale in New Mexico, which was the protest based on climate change concerns.
We’ll try to rein in our headlines.
Joel Gay

Joel Gay — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:53:41 GMT

To answer Davidzet’s question, the OSE bases its transfers on consumptive use of water, not how much is diverted, and the rate is 2.1 acre/feet (consumptive use) per acre of land. I chose not to delve into that issue in my article in hopes of not making it any longer, but the issue that Davidzet raises is a real concern to many farmers. They call it carriage loss. When water rights are sold far upstream, less water is diverted into the irrigation ditch, which reduces the water pressure at each field along the ditch. With less water pressure, it takes longer to irrigate a field, waters the field unevenly and can increase evaporative loss. The remaining water in the ditch that doesn’t flow into fields does, in fact, return to the river and recharge the aquifer.
Joel Gay

Joel Gay — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:29:03 GMT

Thanks for the comments. I went back to my source and found I had been confused about the Yucca Mountain waste. Only reprocessed fuel is vitrified, Andrew Orrell said, and that’s no longer done in the United States. Yucca Mountain will store encased, spent fuel rods for 100 years before final burial, providing an opportunity for the fuel to be retrieved and reprocessed, Orrell said.
As far as the last comment, about spent reactor containing “significant” amounts of plutonium, it’s actually less than 1 percent, according to Orrell and other sources.

Joel Gay — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:47:36 GMT

Regarding Bristolbay’s comment, I fished in 1993, but didn’t meet the Palins until I started tendering in the Nushagak District in 1994. Being sleep deprived for the entire season, I have no idea whose permit was used or who signed the fish tickets. But there weren’t any citations written that I knew about. If she brushed off questions about her citation when running in 2002, I can’t imagine it’s an issue now. She has bigger things to worry about, like whether to support Georgia’s admission into NATO.
And to Michael_a, a voice from the past, thanks for the note. It was a surprise to hear that Alaska might actually vote Democratic in November, but that was before Palin. Obama’s campaign might think about sending that Homer staff to NM, where the outcome could determine the election.

Joel Gay — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:09:31 GMT

Good question, John. I’d be more skeptical if the developer, George Chapman, hadn’t rounded up UniStar, which consists of two major players — Constellation Energy and Areva. If it were just him talking about the need for power and his vision for delivering it, well, we’ve seen that a million times. The fact that UniStar is working with him on the license application was enough to suggest to me that this proposal is at least in the realm of possibility. That said, it’s also a greenfield — no other reactors at the site — which means there could be community opposition, environmental issues, lack of adequate water, etc. And as I reported last week, funding will be key. If Congress and the next administration support nuclear power with loan guarantees and other incentives, that could make or break the Amarillo project.

Joel Gay — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:12:57 GMT

That’s one of the big questions about the audit regulations being written by Secretary of State Mary Herrera. The law calls for 2 percent of precincts statewide to be selected at random, but there’s no guarantee how those precincts would be distributed. The new regulations could call for at least one precinct from each county, or leave it as a purely random selection. We’ll see when the regulations are released.