A Silver City woman who uses a wheelchair and is paralyzed from the waist down says she’s being evicted from her apartment because her landlord discovered marijuana plants she grows under state license for medical reasons. Preservation of a modest Los Alamos building where the world’s first plutonium bombs were assembled has been named a national award winner. Five New Mexico National Guardsmen received the New Mexico Medal of Valor Thursday morning for last Saturday’s rescue of a soldier who had fallen down a cliff near El Paso. Saying New Mexico can take the lead in clean energy, a Santa Fe climate change scholar is urging New Mexicans to take his “Power Pledge.” And a consultant’s suggestion that the state foot the bill for a $30 million gondola system to the Mescalero-owned Ski Apache resort is on hold.

Disabled woman faces eviction

A Silver City woman who uses a wheelchair and is paralyzed from the waist down says she’s being evicted from her apartment because her landlord discovered her two marijuana plants, which she grows under state license for medical reasons, according to the Silver City Sun News.

Bobbie Wooten, who lives in the Silver Cliffs apartments in Silver City, said an apartment management representative performed a surprise inspection on Tuesday and discovered two marijuana plants. According to Wooten, the representative left and came back a short while later and gave her a notice telling her she had three days to move out.

The eviction is within the terms of the lease, said a spokesman for the Arizona realty company that manages the property.

“My lease provides for a drug-free environment,” said David Kotin of Kay-Kay Realty. “Obviously, she is in violation of my lease.”

The paper said Wooten joined New Mexico’s medical marijuana program because she suffers severe spasms and that she became paralyzed in a car crash several years ago.

Bomb site national award winner

At its 2008 National Preservation Conference in Tulsa, Okla., the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the V-Site project at Los Alamos National Laboratory as one of 21 national award winners, the Los Alamos Monitor is reporting. “Thanks to an innovative preservation partnership, the centerpiece of a crucial time in history will not be lost,” Trust President Richard Moe was quoted as saying.

As the Manhattan Project began what many thought was a race for atomic supremacy, wooden sheds known as the V-site were thrown together in a relatively remote part of a secret location on an isolated plateau in northern New Mexico. Abandoned almost as rapidly as they were built, the V-Site buildings quickly eroded and were in danger of collapsing after World War II. The buildings stood empty and threatened with demolition until the 1990s, when historians and preservationists mobilized …

The V-Site’s location on the grounds of … a Department of Energy complex with significant security and safety constraints … required creative problem solving and commitment far beyond the norm. Moreover, in May 2000, the Cerro Grande Fire … spared only two of the dilapidated structures, including Building 516 — the most significant V-Site structure, where the atomic bomb, known as “the Gadget”— was assembled.

Fueled by funding from a variety of public and private sources, including the Save America’s Treasures program, each challenge was met.

At the end of last year, when V-Site won a state award, officials of the New Mexico Historic Preservation Office and others involved in the preservation project said they would now focus on saving two more structures from the Manhattan Project era, the Gun Site and the Trapdoor Site.

The 21 winners of the National Preservation Awards will appear in the November/December issue of Preservation Magazine and online.

Five guardsmen honored for valor

Five New Mexico National Guardsmen — Sgt. Ron Benavidez, Staff Sgt. Ryan Haworth, Sgt. Brian Bowling, Lt. Col. John Fishburn and Capt. Dan Purcell — received the New Mexico Medal of Valor Thursday morning in a ceremony at the New Mexico National Guard Aviation Unit’s facility in Santa Fe, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports.

The five members of the New Mexico National Guard Aviation Unit late last Saturday rescued an active-duty soldier who had fallen an estimated 200 feet down a cliff while climbing in the Franklin Mountains near El Paso, the paper said.

The five-member crew of a New Mexico National Guard UH-60A helicopter pulled the soldier from a canyon and flew him to nearby William Beaumont Army Medical Center’s emergency room at Fort Bliss.

The soldier, 19, was not identified. He sustained serious injuries, including broken ribs, a crushed sternum and abdominal bleeding but was expected to recover, New Mexico National Guard officials said.

New Mexicans urged to take a “Power Pledge”

Saying New Mexico can take the lead in clean energy, a Santa Fe climate change scholar is urging New Mexicans to take his “Power Pledge.”

The Santa Fe New Mexican has the story about scholar Robb Hirsch:

The pledge itself sounds like a greenie constitution. “We are summoned now and duty bound to shake off these harmful habits of our Nation and provide a brave new era of conservation and energy stewardship in their place,” says the preamble to the pledge. “Making a full-scale commitment to clean, efficient and renewable power will not only bolster our national security, prosperity and health, and redeem a deep-rooted belief in justice for all, but also help replenish the Earth’s life sustaining capacity.”

(Hirsch) said 1,000 youth and adults already have joined up, promising to reduce their energy use, consume less and push their politicians to support renewable power. Hirsch wants to sign up 10,000 people.

Hirsch, a Harvard graduate and Fulbright Scholar, founded the nonprofit Climate Change Leadership Institute in Santa Fe. Prior to starting the group, he worked for the U.S. State Department’s Oceans, Environment and Science Bureau focusing on climate change and biodiversity treaties.

“The time is ever more pressing that citizens here in New Mexico and beyond live by example and press government to take action on energy issues,” Hirsch said.

People can sign the Power Pledge, become a project “Ally” and purchase Clean Energy Raffle Tickets online.

Gondola proposal could meet resistance

The Albuquerque Journal says a consultant has suggested that the state foot the bill for a $30 million gondola system to the Mescalero-owned ski resort instead of upgrading the highway leading to the base of Ski Apache near Ruidoso, which is in need of repairs. In its story, the Journal says:

The price would be about the same as building a new roadway, an estimated $25 to $30 million.

However, the idea of using public money for a venture that would largely benefit a private enterprise, the Mescalero Apache-owned ski resort northwest of Ruidoso, could raise objections.

Meanwhile, a downturn in state highway dollars and an uncertainty about federal funding have put the project on hold, at least temporarily.

George Brooks, executive director of Ski New Mexico, a nonprofit group that represents the state’s ski industry, praised the plan but said an all-seasons road would probably need to be maintained in addition to the gondola.