Environment
Artifacts at risk?
Four years ago, when a group of individuals and agencies succeeded in prompting passage of the Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Protection Act, they had no idea the land surrounding the 24 sites they sought to preserve would be eyed for potential oil and gas drilling down the road. Today, the sites are outside any direct danger of being exploited for mining or drilling. But there are hundreds -- even thousands -- of other archaeological sites in the basin, according to state officials.
Pickens to push plan in ABQ on Wednesday
Looks like it isn't only presidential election visits for the Land of Enchantment. We will now also be getting a visit from oilman T. Boone Pickens whose Pickens Plan has received a lot of attention. The wealthy Texan will be in town to discuss the plan that focuses on wind energy and natural gas as an alternative to oil.
Pickens will be at the Albuquerque Convention Center Ballroom on Wednesday, Sept. 10. Doors will open at 9:30 a.m. and the event begins at 10:30 a.m.
The RNC: A night of red meat and hard-edged speeches
Several former presidential candidates touted GOP nominee John McCain. Barack Obama came in for more than a few partisan barbs. And Washington suffered a black eye or two as speaker after speaker at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday portrayed the nation's capital as broken and dysfunctional.
But in the end the night belonged to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's No. 2 choice, who made her debut as McCain's Veep candidate. Judging her reception by the screaming crowd at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, she killed.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Sagebrush invades landscape near Farmington
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will poison up to 31,000 acres of sagebrush with herbicide near Farmington later this month in what officials are calling an attempt to restore the landscape to ecological health, The Farmington Daily News reports.
Rep. Steve Pearce is taking time off his campaign schedule after his father passed away Monday in Texas, The Las Cruces Sun-News reports. Melvin Pearce was 86.
More than 400 members of the New Mexico National Guard headed toward the Gulf of Mexico coast early Monday as Hurricane Gustav bore down, The Associated Press reports.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that UNM women’s basketball coach Don Flanagan and three assistants all got what were described as “retroactive” raises this year, totaling nearly $100,000, despite a state law that prohibits such raises to state employees.
University attorneys told the paper that, in fact, the raises weren’t retroactive, and that UNM Finance Vice President Ava Lovell misspoke when describing the raises that way. The money was not a raise but a “late payment” on a verbal agreement proffered by athletics officials earlier, UNM attorney Lee Peifer said.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Gustav has the gulf coast on edge
The biggest news this Labor Day weekend is Hurricane Gustav bearing down on the gulf coast. The storm is expected to cross the Louisiana coast mid-day today, to the west of New Orleans. As of this morning Gustav was downgraded to a Category 2 storm because its winds have slowed to 110 miles per hour, according to the New York Times.
The Albuquerque Journal reports today that New Mexico is preparing for gulf coast evacuees and has also sent the NM Disaster Medical Assistance Team to a Texas medical station.
Gustav has caused the Republican party to cancel much of its convention activities today. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney canceled their planned speeches set for tonight, and the program for today was largely curtailed. It seems the Republican party will play the rest of the week by ear.
In other news, John Fleck has an excellent article about PNM’s future energy plans in this weekend's ABQ Journal.
Poll of Western voters finds mixed signals
An independent poll of voters in six Western states including New Mexico paints a complex picture of the region’s mindset as the two major political parties prepare to battle for their votes in November. While many support green-leaning measures such as water conservation and renewable energy, they also want more oil and gas drilling on public lands and uranium mining to support nuclear power.
But the No. 1 issue for many voters is immigration, according to the poll conducted on behalf of three major Western newspapers earlier this month. Mason-Dixon Polling and Research found immigration to be the single-most important issue to voters in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. It was of less importance in Utah and Wyoming, but in all six states more than 60 percent of voters said they support efforts to stop illegal immigration by completing a border fence and penalizing employers who hire undocumented workers.
T. Boone Pickens hobnobbing with environmentalists?
“The fact that I am on stage with T. Boone Pickens just goes to show how absolutely dysfunctional our government has been,” Carl Pope, the executive director of theSierra Club said this afternoon in Denver. What he’s talking about is the idea that the Bush presidency’s fealty to Big Oil is now making for strange bedfellows. Translation: Bush and Cheney’s loyalty to their friends in Bush’s former industry has saddled America with a war in Iraq, a massive transfer of wealth to foreign crude-producing nations, and a multi-trillion dollar debt.
Mr. President, whoever you may be, here's an environmental to-do list
If the presidential debate on climate change and energy has seemed a little thin on substance and heavy on political posturing this summer, a refreshing tonic is coming out of the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs: a to-do list for the first 100 days of the next White House.The No. 1 priority, according to The Presidential Climate Action Project, is for the next president to challenge Congress to come up with a “clean, elegant” plan to cap carbon emissions and provide a way for them to be traded.
What about energy? Democrats tailor their answer as the debate shifts
In a rambunctious press conference that could forecast the tone of the energy debate to come, House Democratic leaders clashed with Republican supporters in Denver Tuesday over each party's approach to offshore oil drilling.
You, too, can watch your electricity meter go backward
A foundation that teaches organic agriculture and sustainable living in Costa Rica has sought to apply "wise use" principles to its Albuquerque office. Founder Franklin Wilson -- who says the foundation has cut its energy use and produces power that is sold back to PNM -- wants to spread the word that anyone can pretty much do the same. In fact, he says, it's "rather easy."
Underground + water = clean, green electricity
Hot water deep under the ground in southwest New Mexico will soon start making clean, green electricity in what is being called the first geothermal power plant in the state.
Raser Technologies and Gov. Bill Richardson announced Friday that the Provo, Utah, company will begin construction near Lordsburg of a 10-megawatt plant — enough to power about 8,000 homes with virtually no emissions of greenhouse gases. A second construction phase eventually will expand power output to 20 to 25 megawatts, or enough power for as many as 20,000 homes, the company said.
Richardson praised Raser's decision to build the Lordsburg plant, which will be the company's eighth.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: The DNC starts today
The Democratic National Convention starts today in Denver. NMI’s David Alire Garcia and Matt Reichbach will be reporting from Denver, along with many other local bloggers and media outlets.
In a report about two domestic violence cases, the Gallup Independent says McKinley County is experiencing a “staggering epidemic” this year, with 6,747 cases of domestic violence reported this year so far.
According to the Los Alamos Monitor, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Environment Department are in a dispute about what constitutes “hard” water.
John Fleck had a report in the Albuquerque Journal over the weekend about new University of Arizona research showing that human-caused climate change is already occurring in the southwest, causing the region to be drier in late winter and early spring.
The Farmington Daily Times has a nice profile of a Democratic party state at-large delegate to the convention this week: Emet Rudolfo.
State presses Air Force on Kirtland jet-fuel cleanup
Kirtland Air Force Base must do more to identify the extent of a decades-old underground fuel leak and clean it up before it reaches nearby drinking water wells, officials with the New Mexico Environment Department said today.
In a news release, department Secretary Ron Curry said the state has required the Air Force to drill five additional wells to determine the size of the underground jet-fuel plume, which was discovered in 1999 but was only made public in July. The cleanup plan also requires the Air Force to speed up its ongoing remediation process by installing additional equipment.
Biofuels get a boost
Principals from the New Mexico Biodiesel Policy Summit held in March have taken that groundbreaking summit a step further, forming the Southwestern Biofuels Association to promote and guide policy in use of this "green" source of energy.
Those who attended the summit received letters earlier this month about the formation of the association, which includes members of the industry, government and Sandia National Laboratories.
The group made its debut on the opening day of the Legislature's special session and has a Web site touting the Southwest, and New Mexico in particular, as well-suited for biodiesel fuels production:
The potential for New Mexico and the Southwest to become major players in the production of biofuels and biodiesel feedstocks is very promising. While the region's climate is too arid for the production of many agricultural products, some of the most important biodiesel crops are well suited to the region's high altitude, low moisture levels, and high summer heat. Where other crops would fail, crops used for biodiesel production -- such as Camelina and Jatropha -- prosper favorably in the Southwest's climate.
Lawsuit seeks EPA data which may shine light on bee die-off
By benito aragon 08/20/2008
A pesticide which caused the deaths of millions of bees in Germany is at the center of a lawsuit filed against the U.S Environmental Agency on Monday.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, "wants to see the studies that the EPA required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience five years ago," according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The lawsuit is an attempt to examine the extent to which the EPA is protecting bee populations from dangerous pesticides.
Hydrogen tour comes to Albuquerque
By Denise Tessier 08/20/2008
Eleven hydrogen-powered vehicles from major automakers like BMW, GM, Honda and Toyota will be available for public view -- and some for short test drives -- from 2 to 4 p.m. today at the Sandia Science & Technology Park.According to Sandia National Labs, several of the hydrogen-fueled cars will be displayed in the parking lot of the Ktech building at Eubank Boulevard and Gibson Avenue SE, and some will be available for test drives.
Desert Rock may be "clean" but it'll still emit 12 million tons of CO2
By Marjorie Childress 08/20/2008
Even if the Sithe Global Corporations proposed Desert Rock power plant uses state of the art technology to be the "cleanest" coal-fired in the country, it will still emit approximately 12 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.
In a feature article Sunday in the Farmington Daily Times, Cornelia de Bruin details the arguments for and against Desert Rock, which would be built about 30 miles southwest of Farmington, an area that already is home to two coal-fired power plants. One of the major concerns is that the plant's emissions would push the four corner region's air perilously close to the EPA's permitted ozone levels, also known as "smog:"
Pols to McCain: Hands off our water!
By Marjorie Childress, Matthew Reichbach 08/20/2008
John McCain stirred up a hornet's nest in Colorado last week when he suggested the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which includes New Mexico, should be renegotiated due to increasing population in western states. New Mexico pols, like their counterparts in Colorado, are saying 'No way!'
McCain declares a water war
By V.B. Price 08/20/2008
When the Colorado River Compact was negotiated by representatives of seven western states at Bishop’s Lodge, near Santa Fe, in 1922, everyone signed the compact except the Arizona delegation. Arizona refrained from ratifying the agreement for 22 years, finally signing it 1944. Arizona wanted a larger allotment of water, even though it was a sparsely populated state. This week in Denver, Arizona Senator and Republican candidate for president, John McCain, echoed his state’s historic discomfort with the original deal by calling for a renegotiation of the compact as a whole. In response, Colorado U.S. Senator Ken Salazar, a San Luis Valley Democrat, was quoted in the Pueblo Colorado Chieftain this week as saying “Senator McCain’s position on opening up the Colorado River Compact is absolutely wrong and would only happen over my dead body.”
Santa Fe makes list of 'Healthiest Hometowns'
By Denise Tessier 08/19/2008
As if Santa Fe hasn't had enough attention, AARP has decided the City Different is one of "America's Healthiest Hometowns," suggesting it's a great place to retire -- even with its median housing price of $499,900.The September/October issue of AARP Magazine places Santa Fe in the No. 4 slot in its list of 10 healthy cities, saying:These cities have made robust living—and active retirement—a priority. After reading why, you might want to move there too.
