Get Ready...Otero Mesa in the Crosshairs Again! SWEC has just learned that the Bureau of Land Management intends to release a new plan for oil and gas leasing of New Mexico’s Otero Mesa in October. This is not good news, considering that the current administration has made fossil fuel development the top priority on federal [...]
By Laura Paskus When drilling wells, operators inject chemicals, sand and water underground to create fissures that help move oil and natural gas to the wellhead more efficiently. That practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, uses a lot of water. And it leaves behind a lot of water, too. In 2015, even before the Permian Basin [...]
Candidate promises to work to save power plant FARMINGTON - Republican gubernatorial candidate U. S. Rep. Steve Pearce says if he is elected he will do everything he can to prevent the San Juan Generating Station and other coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners area from closing. Pearce made the commitment to keeping the [...]
by Naomi Klein My focus is the central premise of the piece: that the end of the 1980s presented conditions that “could not have been more favorable” to bold climate action. On the contrary, one could scarcely imagine a more inopportune moment in human evolution.. This Sunday, the entire New York Times Magazine will [...]
In the American Southwest, Jewish activists are joining with Native American groups to fight climate change and destruction of sacred land By Frances Madeson “Most of the things I’ve done in my life resemble the other things I’ve done in my life,” Charlotte Levinson explained. “But not so with the Stronghold.” After 30 years at the [...]
by John R. Moses (Photo: LaSen Inc.) FARMINGTON — The environmental group that backed a multi-year study on the impacts of methane releases from natural gas collection tanks at drill sites and other sources says fixing the problem will make money and create jobs. Oil industry groups say increased regulation patterned after Colorado's Regulation 7 would [...]
by Hannah Grover Local senator warns of unintended consequences Buy Photo (Photo: Jon Austria/The Daily Times) FARMINGTON — Over the past decade, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power have seen steady growth. But that trend was questioned Friday by some Republican state lawmakers. Michael McDiarmid, a consulting energy engineer who has worked with [...]
A renewable energy ballot measure could shutter the largest nuclear plant in the country. Elena Saavedra Buckley West of Phoenix, Arizona, where cooling towers billow steam into the air, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station churns out more carbon-free energy than any other power producer in the country. But, in the light of a controversial [...]
SANTA ANA PUEBLO, NM, US: The annual Convention of Western Attorneys General Conference (CWAG) scheduled Fireside chat with Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was met with disruption from activists who demanded the Secretary finally listen to public concerns regarding his administration's crusade to hand over America’s public lands and resources exclusively to fossil fuel [...]
By Thom Cole | tcole@sfnewmexican.com The state Legislature needs to do what it can to soften the economic blow to northwestern New Mexico caused by the winding down of the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station, says the co-chairman of the legislative Water and Natural Resources Committee. Public Service Company of New Mexico shuttered half the [...]