Health

New Mexico getting about $7 billion from federal Investing in America push

By |

New Mexico is expected to receive more than $7 billion for infrastructure projects that fit with President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda. These projects include infrastructure funding for various road and highway projects, making communities more resilient to climate change and clean water access statewide and private investments including those for manufacturing superconductors, producing clean energy and biomanufacturing. In New Mexico, Invest in America has dedicated $4 billion for semiconductors and electronics, $344 million for clean energy projects, $100 million for biomanufacturing, $1.3 billion for transportation investments such as roads, bridges, public transit, ports and airports, $891.3 million for provide clean water and to improve water infrastructure statewide including $57 million for lead pipe and service line replacement and $265.4 million to help “make our communities more resilient to climate change,” the website states. These projects can be viewed on invest.gov which was launched on Tuesday. The site features an interactive map noting what and where projects are located.

Environmental Project

Lands around Chaco officially withdrawn from oil and gas leasing

By |

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland officially withdrew lands surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from mineral leasing on Friday morning. The withdrawal order, which has been years in the making, means that no new oil and gas leasing can occur on federal lands within 10 miles of the park for 20 years. This does not apply to Navajo allotments. 

The withdrawal has been divisive among Native communities. The Navajo Nation withdrew its support for the buffer zone earlier this year citing economic concerns. Many of the allottees who live near Chaco say that leasing their mineral rights is one of the few ways they can make money off their lands and that, even though the withdrawal does not impact their mineral rights, it would make it harder for them to lease their rights.

Environmental Project

NM Supreme Court hears venue arguments in case regarding overlapping leases of state lands for cattle, wind energy

By |

The court battle over where to determine whether wind leases overlapping with a ranch owner’s grazing leases could impact his ability to raise cattle on state trust land reached the state Supreme Court. 

The Blanchard Corona Ranch first sued Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard in district court in Lincoln County, but Garcia Richard and her legal counsel say that Lincoln County is not the proper venue. The State Land Office then asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to find that the Lincoln County district court venue was improper. 

The New Mexico Supreme Court heard the arguments in the case on Wednesday, though no decision was made and there is no deadline for when the court must make a ruling. If the state Supreme Court sides with the defendant’s arguments, a district court ruling that the Lincoln County venue was proper would be reversed. “It’s basically a landlord telling a tenant ‘we’re going to issue a lease right on top of you and we don’t care what you say and we don’t have to follow our rules,’” Pete Domenici Jr., an attorney for Blanchard Corona Ranch, said. 

The Supreme Court justices were skeptical about the arguments in the case. Justice David Thomson said that state law and the lease contract may allow for wind energy to be developed on the land that the ranch owners are leasing. 

Thomson said the question is where the plaintiff gets to make their argument.

Environmental Project

Lesser prairie chicken in New Mexico receives endangered species protections

By |

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is listing the population of lesser prairie chicken within New Mexico as endangered. The lesser prairie chicken—which despite its name is not a chicken, but a grouse—is divided into two distinct population groups. The southern group includes birds living in parts of Texas and New Mexico in the Permian Basin area. “Lesser prairie chickens, known for their loud and showy mating rituals, are one of America’s most unique grassland birds,” Amy Leuders, the southwest regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said during a press conference on Thursday. “For generations, people have marveled at the strutting, dancing and booming sounds displayed each spring on their leks.”

She said the birds are synonymous with healthy prairies because they need “large unfragmented parcels of intact native grasslands to support self-sustaining populations.”

In total, there are about 32,000 birds in both population groups, though there were once hundreds of thousands of lesser prairie chickens in the United States.

Environmental Project

Federal legislation aims to permanently withdraw lands around Chaco from mineral leasing

By |

Democratic members of the New Mexico congressional delegation once again introduced legislation today that would permanently remove areas surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from the federal mineral leasing program. This would prevent new oil and gas leases as well as coal and uranium mining on federal lands in the 10-mile buffer zone around the park. The proposal comes as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Farmington Field Office is accepting comments on a 20-year moratorium on leasing in that area. Unlike Luján’s proposal, the withdrawal of federal lands around Chaco from the mineral leasing program is a temporary measure. In a press release, U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján said that protecting Chaco Canyon has been one of his top priorities.

Environmental Project

Three watersheds impacted by historic mining receive federal funding

By |

New Mexico will receive $300,000 in federal funds made available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for restoration projects in three watersheds in Luna and Santa Fe counties. These watersheds—Cooke’s Peak, Fluorite Ridge and New Placers—are located in areas where mining and milling operations have occurred in the past. 

The funding will help with removal of invasive vegetation, re-contouring of streambeds and mitigating for mine tailings. It will also fund revegetation with native seeds. The Bureau of Land Management is partnering with the state’s Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department’s Mining and Minerals Division on the project, which is one of 17 projects that the U.S. Department of the Interior announced funding for on Tuesday. The 17 projects—totalling nearly $10 million—are focused on addressing legacy pollution and conserving ecosystems.

“At the Department of the Interior, we are using every tool at our disposal to support multiple programs to clean up these legacy environmental hazards, advance environmental justice, support good paying jobs, and safeguard our lands for future generations,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a press release on Tuesday.

2022 elections

Energy transition at the center of the Public Lands Commissioner race

By |

The ongoing energy transition is taking center stage in an often overlooked race on the New Mexico ballot this year. Environmental advocacy groups say this year’s three-way race for commissioner of public lands will determine if the State Land Office continues down a path of diversification and moving toward renewable energy development or if it returns to the days of “business as usual” and prioritized fossil fuel extraction. The State Land Office manages state trust lands with the goal of raising money to support public institutions such as schools. These lands are leased out for energy development and grazing as well as other commercial uses. Demis Foster, the executive director of Conservation Voters of New Mexico, said New Mexico has the most state trust lands of any state in the country, which is one reason why this year’s election is extremely important.

Environmental Project

Computer modeling can help prescribed burn decisions

By |

Prescribed burns can be a key weapon in preventing catastrophic wildfire, but finding the right window to burn can be challenging and, with dry conditions, prescribed burning in New Mexico has come to a halt. A modeling effort by Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists aims to provide agencies with a tool to determine when the conditions are best for burning. Rod Linn, a scientist with Los Alamos who leads the wildfire modeling team, told NM Political Report that various factors are used to determine when it is safe to burn, but conditions can change rapidly. On Saturday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a briefing that the state is banning fires campfires on stand lands and is asking every local government to think about ways to ban the sales of fireworks. This comes as 20 wildfires were actively burning, as of Saturday afternoon, in 16 counties in New Mexico. “Half the state has a fire issue,” she said.

Environmental Project

When oil and gas wells stop producing, environmental impacts remain

By |

Throughout New Mexico, there are thousands of oil and gas wells that have not produced in years but remain unplugged. One area with a high concentration of these sites is the Horseshoe Gallup field, located in the Hogback area west of the San Juan Generating Station in San Juan County. Environmental advocates have identified hundreds of wells, as well as associated infrastructure, in this field that have not produced in years. Some of these sites are contributing to environmental degradation. This includes leaking methane from a separator tank, overflowing tanks leading to puddles of thick black liquid on the ground and leaking chemicals from containers.

Environmental Project

Haaland visits Chaco Culture National Historical Park

By |

As the U.S. Department of the Interior begins the process of placing a 20-year moratorium on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands near Chaco Canyon, some nearby Indian allottees say that such an action would limit their ability to make a living off of their land. Meanwhile, proponents of the moratorium say it is needed to protect the sacred sites, lands and waters. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland drove by signs protesting the moratorium as she headed to Chaco Culture National Historical Park to celebrate President Joe Biden’s announcement of the moratorium impacting federal lands within a ten mile buffer of the park. While at the park, Haaland met with Indigenous and state leaders before addressing the crowd that had gathered for, what she described as, a celebration that was decades in the making. Haaland said Chaco Canyon is a living landscape.