Environment
The big H2O transfer
The demand for water has driven up the value of Middle Rio Grande water rights more than tenfold in the last 20 years, and landowners are cashing out in what appear to be record numbers. But even as water transfers speed up, so has opposition from farmers and pueblos alike. In recent months the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has chimed in over concern for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow.
West Siders beware
Although most people in Albuquerque remain unaware, a Texas based oil company, Tecton, has signed a lease to drill for oil on 50,000 acres of the West Mesa. Tecton has already started looking for oil, using three wells.
If Tecton strikes oil, Albuquerque residents could see more than a thousand wells on the horizon. The medical and public health communities believe strongly that this is the wrong prescription for Albuquerque. The actual act of drilling an oil well poses serious risks to Albuquerque’s way of life. Oil companies inject chemicals into underground aquifers, thus putting precious water supplies in danger. Oil wells also release toxic chemicals, increase ozone levels and smog, and contribute to air pollution.
A big, dirty mess
Responding to congressional demands and a series in the Los Angeles Times in 2006, the federal government has laid out a $161 million plan to prevent the spread of radioactive contamination on sites across the Navajo nation.
The plan calls for the clean up of the Northeast Church Rock Mine near Gallup as well as a survey of structures and wells for contamination.
Honeybees at risk
New Mexico’s bees are faring better than in most places around the world, including the neighboring states of Colorado and Texas, where instances of the phenomenon known as bee colony collapse are decimating hives and putting beekeepers out of business. But that’s not to say bees are not threatened. “All of our pollinators are in trouble, including hummingbirds,” one expert says.
Albuquerque opens new path and bridge, aims to be more bike-friendly
Albuquerque opened a new bicycle bridge this week and it has plans to extend bike trails in coming years. But much more work is needed to make the Duke City the bike-friendly metropolis Mayor Martin Chavez envisions.
Green growth gambit
Depending on whom you talk to, five new zoning codes currently being considered by Albuquerque’s Environmental Planning Commission are either a positive step forward, toward less sprawl and more transit-oriented development, or they’re potentially a Trojan horse that will allow developers to more easily deviate from existing neighborhood sector plans. The new codes are called “form-based,” which is a wonky way to describe a new way of regulating how the city develops.
Senator Tom Udall?
Tom Udall wants to be your next Senator. And if the the election were held today, he'd win in a landslide.
But the election isn't today.
In an exclusive interview with the New Mexico Independent, Udall gives voters an extended look at his positions on the issues, why he's Mr. Neutral (or Mr. Cautious) in Democratic primaries, and what he sees as the major difference between his campaign and that of his two would-be Republican opponents.
Green jobs coming to Albuquerque
Creating "green-collar" jobs is the new mantra around some circles. For this reason, the timing is right for the “Albuquerque Green Job Corps,” a training program introduced by City Councilors Debbie O’Malley, Rey Garduño, Michael Cadigan and Isaac Benton at the city council meeting last night.
Southern NM developer stands to make millions from controversial lease
You know those controversial leases the State Land Office has been routinely entering into over the past few years? Well, planning work under one was recently completed by Las Cruces developer Philip Philippou and the land is now up for sale. When you crunch the numbers based on the minimum acceptable bids for the parcels, Philippou stands to make several million dollars. The original appraised value of the land was $8,000 per acre, or $1,968,000 given the total of 246 acres up for sale. If the land office receives bids for each of the 13 parcels offered that Philippou did work on, the minimum required bid amounts will total $17,180,000, or $15.2 million over the original appraisal. Philippou will get a majo cut of that.
Lawsuits for lobos
Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies got a break last Friday as they regained endangered species status—thanks to a lawsuit brought by a coalition of environmental organizations, including Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council. The decision comes as environmental groups in New Mexico await a decision on one lawsuit involving the Mexican gray wolf, and continue to pursue two others.
Survey: Many want wolves to thrive
A large majority of New Mexico voters support reintroducing the Mexican gray wolf, according to a statewide poll released Monday. Conservationists hope the survey results will give them ammunition to persuade elected officials to work harder to protect the wolves—even if lawsuits filed earlier this year fail.
No slam dunk
In April 2007, just a few months after a hard-fought and ultimately successful battle to ban energy development in northern New Mexico's pristine Valle Vidal, local conservationists were brimming with confidence and had their sights set on another chunk of rugged beauty near the Colorado border. A year later, conservationists are still waiting.
Shadow over solar
Large-scale solar power plants -- ideally suited for states like New Mexico -- are "straining to burst onto the Southwest utility scene," in the words of one expert testifying at a U.S. Senate hearing on solar energy Wednesday. But without an immediate eight-year extension of the 30 percent federal investment tax credit, the concentrating solar power industry, or CSP, will be "stopped dead in its tracks."
Kirtland: Jet fuel contaminates off-base groundwater
Air force officials said Friday that 12 groundwater wells would be dug over the next year to monitor a long-term leak of jet fuel that has migrated off Kirtland Air Force and into the groundwater table nearby.
Atrisco strikes brackish gold
A company drilling for natural gas on Albuquerque's West Side has struck another valuable commodity — water. Atrisco Oil & Gas drilled into an aquifer believed to be 50 square miles in size and at least 1,000 feet deep. The discovery of a large aquifer could make it easier to accommodate the anticipated growth of another 100,000 homes on the West Side in the next 20 years, said Atrisco CEO Peter Sanchez.
Speculation in overdrive
With gasoline pushing $4 a gallon, many Americans are wondering how fuel got so high. Explanations for the rising cost of fuel are varied, and the solution, in the short term anyway, is elusive. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., citing from testimony given before several Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearings, spoke forcefully from the Senate floor on May 12 about one possible culprit: speculation in the oil markets.
NMI's Marjorie Childress explores the role of speculation in your pain at the pump.
Congress passes stopgap oil plan
The U.S. Congress made a rare display of bi-partisan muscle Tuesday when it overwhelmingly voted to suspend shipments of roughly 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The decision by federal lawmakers set aside for a moment the partisan bickering in Washington over how best to respond to rising oil prices. One federal lawmaker, however, doesn't hold out too much hope for a substantive solution to emerge from that ongoing debate. He said what many think: that the ongoing debate is nothing more than a lot of election year speechifying.
Stop fueling oil and gas exploration misconceptions
Mallery Downs and Dr. Lucy Boulanger, who wrote the op-ed commentary, “West Siders Beware” for the New Mexico Independent, couldn’t be more wrong in their comparison of oil and gas exploration on the West Mesa to what has taken place in other parts of the state years ago. And the Independent’s grossly exaggerated (and incorrect, by the way) depiction of what drilling looks like in recent decades only fuels the fear-mongering that Downs and Boulanger hope to instill in people who live on the West Side. It’s time to stop exaggerating and start looking at the facts. Let’s start by clearing up some of the misconceptions about oil and gas drilling that appeared in the op-ed piece by Downs and Boulanger.
Water worries
A Silver City judge's recent decision that new household water wells cannot impinge on a neighbor's water is rippling through the state, creating the potential to drive up rural home prices, dry up agricultural land and cause a major political dust-up in Santa Fe.
Mass transit bargain
The skyrocketing cost of gasoline and diesel that is driving more Americans to use mass transportation is also forcing some cities to raise bus fares or cut back service. But thanks to a combination of good fortune and good planning, city officials say Albuquerque is not among them — for now.