I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
A state Environment Department official disputes a former Bernalillo engineer’s claim that arsenic levels in the Town wells climbed sharply over recent years.
Former Bernalillo engineer Ramesh Narasimhan told The Independent and Town officials in February that arsenic levels in the Town’s wells — and at one well in neighboring Rio Rancho — had unexpectedly climbed over the past three to four years.
Narasimhan claimed that climbing arsenic levels were at least partly to blame for the malfunctioning of the Town’s arsenic filtration system.
Narasimhan repeated the claim shortly after former mayor Patricia Chavez had terminated the Town’s contract with his firm, NCS, on Feb. 23.
“At this point, the treatment system appears to have malfunctioned due to rising arsenic levels in the groundwater, which is obviously a factor beyond NCS’ control,” Narasimhan wrote in the Feb. 26 letter, a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent.
But that does not appear to be the case, according to Environment Department Drinking Water Bureau Technical Services manager Andy Edmondson, who reviewed state water quality data for Rio Rancho and Bernalillo at The Independent’s request.
“After reviewing between 10 and 15 years worth of sampling data for Rio Rancho and Bernalillo, I have concluded the following,” Edmondson emailed The Independent. “Rio Rancho has not had any significant increase of arsenic concentrations in their municipal wells. Bernalillo has not had any significant increase in arsenic concentrations in municipal wells three and four.”
Wells Three and Four are Bernalillo’s active wells. Two older wells were shut down in the early 1990s because of high arsenic levels.
Narasimhan did not answer an email from The Independent Thursday, requesting comment on his claims that well water’s arsenic levels had climbed.
Narasimhan previously failed to disclose a complete set of his firm’s water quality lab reports to the Town and to The Independent.
But in Narasimhan’s letter to Chavez, he had claimed rising arsenic concentrations in the Town’s well water had overwhelmed the treatment facilities, “stress(ing) the system beyond the original design criteria NCS developed based on historical data.”
