Environmental Project

PRC plans to open official inquiry into San Juan cooling tower collapse

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The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission plans to open an investigation into a cooling tower collapse that happened in late June at the San Juan Generating Station. “We had a major baseload component of our power system go down and we were in the dark about it,” said Commission Chairman Stephen Fischmann, who added that an investigation will create a formal record. This unanimous decision came after Public Service Company of New Mexico, the majority owner and operator of the plant, presented information to the commission during a Wednesday meeting. It was the first time that PNM officials spoke publicly about the incident. Mark Fenton, the executive director of regulatory policy for PNM, said the company was concerned that market prices could increase if it became widely known that the power plant’s unit was not supplying electricity to customers.

Quick Reads

Long list of potential candidates in Santa Fe mayor’s race

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Santa Fe’s mayoral election next March will likely look similar to Albuquerque’s current race  in terms of the number of candidates already showing interest. The current mayor, Javier Gonzales, announced he would not run for a second term, leaving no incumbent. Six people have already announced they plan to run for mayor in Santa Fe, and there’s still time for more to enter. The winner will be the first since the city passed an amendment to the city charter making the city a “strong mayor” governmental system. This means the mayor will have more power than the current system, where a city manager does much of the day-to-day work in the city.

2017 legislative session

Immigrants, advocates keep heat on

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Hundreds of people packed into the rotunda of the Capitol on Monday in an intensifying show of alarm over President Donald Trump’s clamp down on illegal immigration and his vow to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The demonstration reflected growing concern nationally among immigration and civil rights advocates as Trump’s flurry of executive orders in his first weeks in office have escalated to include banning refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, an effort temporarily halted last week by a federal court. The demonstrators included immigrants here legally and illegally and scores of supporters who gathered to listen to politicians and faith leaders rail against the president’s policies. Children stood near the speaker’s lectern holding a broad banner that read, “No ban. No wall.