Environment from New Mexico Independent

Governor to create "21st century showcase"

Denise Tessier — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:00:00 GMT

As the New Mexico State Fair kicked off on Friday, the governor's office released a number of broad ideas for use of the EXPO New Mexico fairgrounds year-round, promising the state "will move forward to turn EXPO into a 21st century showcase."

Clearing the neighborhood air

Joel Gay — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:00:00 GMT

Mowing the lawn and blowing the leaves off the porch may keep your yard tidy, but it’s spoiling my air.

That’s the underlying message in Environmental Protection Agency regulations released Wednesday that aim to reduce hydrocarbon emissions from gasoline-powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers and other hand-held garden equipment, as well as a other types of non-road machinery including golf carts, household generators, boats and personal watercraft.

The new exhaust emission standards take effect in 2011 and 2012, depending on the size of the engine and its use. Included in the new rule are non-road engines below 25 horsepower.

Nuke power poised for explosive growth

Joel Gay — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Energy has exploded onto center stage as one of the key issues of Campaign '08, driven there by skyrocketing fuel prices and concerns about global climate change. And all candidates say nuclear power deserves a place at the nation's energy table, despite lingering questions that go to the heart of fission technology: what to do with the waste.
Editor's note: This article is the first of a two-part series.

Artifacts at risk?

Denise Tessier — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

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

Matthew Reichbach — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:13:23 GMT

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

Trip Jennings — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:59:44 GMT

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

Joel Gay — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:52:30 GMT

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

Marjorie Childress — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:51:23 GMT

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

Joel Gay — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:00:19 GMT

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?

Todd Spencer — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:00:00 GMT

“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

Joel Gay — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:30:00 GMT

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

Mike Lillis — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:00:00 GMT

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

Denise Tessier — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:00:00 GMT

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

Joel Gay — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:59:56 GMT

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

Marjorie Childress — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

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.