Court pilot project in San Miguel County to help people with mental illness – By Taylor Velasquez, KUNM News
The way the magistrate court in San Miguel County handles those charged with misdemeanors who may be experiencing mental health struggles is set to change. As of now, anyone charged with a misdemeanor who is found incompetent to stand trial is dismissed.
This week, the court will be launching the competency diversion pilot project that aims to steer people who face severe mental health challenges away from the justice system and connect them with long-term services like housing assistance, food, medication, and employment opportunities.
Justice Briana H. Zamora, the Supreme Court’s Liaison to the Commission on Mental Health and Competency says, “The goal is to create a pathway to treatment to stabilize the lives of people with severe mental illness and promote public safety by reducing re-arrests”.
But, according to New Mexico Political Report, Democratic Senate Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart says she’s worried about lack of professional capacity and the training that would go into this type of outpatient competency restoration.
The pilot program will provide early diversion but it is completely voluntary
and, once participants successfully complete the plan developed in
collaboration with the court, they will have their criminal charges dismissed.
Barelas Coffee House hosts Harris-Walz campaign event - Alice Fordham, KUNM News
Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris has not yet visited New Mexico during her campaign, but the Barelas Coffee House hosted an event for the Harris-Walz ticket Wednesday.
Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury and Speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives Javier Martínez were joined for breakfast in Albuquerque by Congressman Pete Aguilar, of California, who's chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
The officials met with members of the community, emphasizing what Speaker Martínez called a "groundswell of support" for the Harris-Walz ticket. Recent polling suggests Harris leads Republican nominee Donald Trump by seven points in New Mexico.
Congresswoman Stansbury echoed Vice-President Harris's framing of her platform as being a vision of freedom and the future, while saying former President Trump's campaign seeks to move the country backward.
Stansbury said everything is on the line this election, "from our democracy and voting rights to our right to make decisions about our own bodies"
Speaker Martínez said that mobilizing voters is now crucial. Despite an apparent uptick in support for the Democratic ticket, data from the Secretary of State's office shows far more New Mexicans registered as Republicans than Democrats last month.
Diné author writes Navajo Code Talkers book for elementary school readers - By Shaun Griswold, Source New Mexico
Danielle Burbank collected each and every book on Navajo Code Talkers that she came across in her nearly two decades of work as a librarian. She found paths to learn her own family history.
Her research process started at home in Crystal, New Mexico, where she wondered what her grandfather experienced in his time serving as a Navajo Code Talker.
“He didn’t share his stories freely with me,” Burbank said. “I know he shared a lot of stories with my dad and my uncles, but I don’t know if it was because he just didn’t think I needed to know about his experiences or to relive what he experienced during World War II.”
More than 400 Navajo Code Talkers remained under orders after the war by a U.S. military program that was highly classified until 1968. The first Code Talkers Day was celebrated in 1982.
Burbank wrote “DK Super Readers Level 4: Navajo Code Talkers” with fellow Diné researchers that offered guidance and review.
The publisher sought writers like Burbank for its series geared toward giving fourth- and fifth-grade readers insight into Navajo Code Talkers as part of history and social studies classes.
She will debut the book Tuesday night as part of the Navajo Nation Library’s celebration for Navajo Code Talkers Day that takes place Aug. 14 each year.
Former New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman introduced the “Honoring the Code Talkers Act” in 2000, and the following year, the 29 Navajo Code Talkers were awarded a gold medal by President George W. Bush.
“That’s what this book gets into, is sharing with kiddos that because it was a classified program they couldn’t share it until almost two decades later. Then we came to celebrate these older gentlemen who did all of this,” Burbank said.
Navajo Code Talkers took their place in U.S. military history. John Woo directed a big budget Hollywood movie in 2002. Code Talkers began regular appearances in parade routes and at schools across the Navajo Nation.
Burbank recalls a visit by Dr. Samuel Billison to her high school that opened her eyes to understanding more of the Code Talkers’ history. She said that led to research at the Library of Congress as part of its Veterans History Project.
Her book ties those experiences together and brings her family background to a better understanding that she hopes can connect with more readers, some who may be living with this history too.
“That’s what I really get into in my book is how our Diné upbringing our schools on the reservation and a lot of those social aspects, how that made them stronger, to be Code Talkers and then also what it was like when they returned home, and have to celebrate them in their older age.”
Burbank said she writes to educate children and sees her book as a tool that can be valuable for any classroom or student in the country.
“Sharing a story like this can be powerful for the kiddos that I envisioned when I was researching this, like my own kiddo or my friend’s kiddos who are interested in history, interested in Native culture, interested in military history as well,” she said. “So that made it really exciting when I got the book in my hand.”
HEAR FROM THE AUTHOR
Danielle Burbank will speak at the Navajo Nation Library to discuss her book, “DK Super Readers Level 4: Navajo Code Talkers.” The event will be livestreamed on the library Facebook page. It is also in person, masks are encouraged.
WHEN: Tuesday Aug. 13, 5:30-6:30
WHERE: Navajo Nation Library, Highway 265 and Postal Loop Road
ONLINE: Navajo Nation Library livestream
NM officials withdraw $1.2 million fine against El Paso Water - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
The fight between Texas and New Mexico over the sewage spill of more than 1 billion gallons into the Rio Grande near Sunland Park is over.
A federal district court judge in Texas approved a settlement last week with New Mexico environmental officials, dropping a $1.2 million fine against El Paso Water Utility.
The Aug. 6th ruling from Western District of Texas Judge David Briones officially dismissed the case, which resulted with both parties agreeing to pay for their own costs and attorney fees.
The fine from New Mexico environment officials stemmed after a catastrophic break in two sewage mains in August 2021. El Paso Water said the utility’s only option was to divert an eventual 1 billion gallons of untreated sewage into the Rio Grande near Sunland Park, N.M. over five months.
The Rio Grande, which acts as both the international boundary between the U.S. and Mexico, also meanders across the Texas and New Mexico state lines in that reach.
Officials with the New Mexico Environment Department filed two enforcement actions, including the $1.2 million fine in June 2022, saying the spill posed threats to New Mexico’s health and environment. El Paso Water called the accusations “false and misleading” at the time, and pointed to environmental reviews the utility commissioned finding no wildlife harmed by the spill.
Now, New Mexico is dropping the case against El Paso Water altogether.
State environment agency attorneys determined there was no chance the case would succeed, said Drew Goretzka, a spokesperson for the agency.
“The people of Sunland Park were heavily impacted by the over billion gallons of sewage released by El Paso Water, that’s why we filed this case” Goretzka said. “However, after evaluating its legal merits, we’ve decided to withdraw it.”
There is no expectation that the New Mexico Environment Department will appeal.
Texas environmental officials fined the El Paso utility just over $2 million dollars for the spill, but allowed for it to go towards the estimated $7 million spent on cleanup, according to a September 2023 settlement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
In a press release from El Paso Water, the utility will provide New Mexico environmental officials with information, documents and materials from the spill, in exchange for the dismissal for the fine.
House Democrats dig in amid ongoing fight in Congress over compensation for US radiation victims - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
A top Democrat in the U.S. House says it will take a shift of power in Congress to ensure that legislation is finally passed to extend and expand a compensation program for people exposed to radiation following uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out by the federal government.
Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar joined Tuesday with members of New Mexico congressional delegation to call on voters to put more pressure on Republican House leaders to revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
With his party seeking to win back majorities in Congress, the California congressman made campaign pitches for New Mexico Democrats and vowed they would support the multibillion-dollar compensation program.
"I would say this is both a failure in government and this is a failure in leadership," Aguilar said, referencing House inaction on the legislation.
The Senate passed the bill earlier this year, only for it to stall in the House over concerns by some Republican lawmakers about cost. GOP supporters in the Senate had called on House leadership to take up a vote on the measure, but the act ended up expiring in June.
Native Americans who worked as uranium miners, millers and transporters and people whose families lived downwind from nuclear testing sites have been among those arguing that the legislation was sidelined due to political calculations by the chamber's majority party rather than the price tag.
Advocates for decades have been pushing to expand the compensation program. Front and center have been downwinders in New Mexico, where government scientists and military officials dropped the first atomic bomb in 1945 as part the top secret Manhattan Project.
Residents have made it their mission to bring awareness to the lingering effects of nuclear fallout surrounding the Trinity Test Site in southern New Mexico and on the Navajo Nation, where more than 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activists.
The chorus grew louder over the past year as the blockbuster "Oppenheimer" brought new attention to the country's nuclear history and the legacy left behind by years of nuclear research and bomb making.
Freshman Congressman Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat from New Mexico who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that national defense spending tops $860 billion every year.
"So when you tell me that we can't afford to compensate people who have suffered through pancreatic cancer, miscarriages, the horrors of nuclear fallout and the generation that have suffered from it, it is a joke to me," he said.
Vasquez, who is facing GOP challenger Yvette Herrell in his bid for reelection, suggested that the legislation be included in a defense spending measure and that lawmakers find ways to offset the cost by saving money elsewhere.
There's still an opportunity for House leaders to "do the right thing," he said.
The law was initially passed more than three decades ago and has paid out about $2.6 billion in that time. The bipartisan group of lawmakers seeking to update the law has said that the government is at fault for residents and workers being exposed and should step up.
The proposed legislation would have added parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada to the program and would have covered downwinders in New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Guam. Residents exposed to radioactive waste in Missouri, Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky also would have been covered.
In New Mexico, residents were not warned of the radiological dangers of the Trinity Test and didn't realize that an atomic blast was the source of the ash that rained down upon them following the detonation. That included families who lived off the land — growing crops, raising livestock and getting their drinking water from cisterns.
As Colorado River states await water cuts, they struggle to find agreement on longer-term plans - By Suman Naishadham Associated Press
The federal government is expected to announce water cuts soon that would affect some of the 40 million people reliant on the Colorado River, the powerhouse of the U.S. West. The Interior Department announces water availability for the coming year months in advance so Western cities, farmers and others can plan.
Behind the scenes, however, more elusive plans are being hashed out: how the basin will share water from the diminishing 1,450-mile river after 2026, when many current guidelines that govern it expire.
The Colorado River supplies water to seven Western states, more than two dozen Native American tribes, and two states in Mexico. It also irrigates millions of acres of farmland in the American West and generates hydropower used across the region. Years of overuse combined with rising temperatures and drought have meant less water flows in the Colorado today than in decades past.
That's made the fraught politics of water in the West particularly deadlocked at times. Here's what you need to know about the negotiations surrounding the river.
WHAT ARE STATES DISCUSSING?
Plans for how to distribute the Colorado River's water after 2026. A series of overlapping agreements, court decisions and contracts determine how the river is shared, some of which expire at the end of 2025.
In 2007, following years of drought, the seven U.S. states in the basin — Arizona, Nevada, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — and the federal government adopted rules to better respond to lower water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Those are the river's two main reservoirs that transfer and store Colorado River water, produce hydropower and serve as barometers of its health.
The 2007 rules determine when some states face water cuts based on levels at Lake Mead. That's why states, Native American tribes, and others are drafting new plans, which anticipate even deeper water cuts after 2026 based on projections of the river's flow and climate modeling of future warming in the West.
"The ultimate problem is that watershed runoff is decreasing due to an ever-warming climate," said Jack Schmidt, professor of watershed sciences at Utah State University, and director of the Center for Colorado River studies. "The proximate problem is we've got to decrease our use."
HOW ARE THESE TALKS DIFFERENT FROM EXPECTED CUTS THIS MONTH?
Sometime this month, the federal government will announce water cuts for 2025 based on levels at Lake Mead. The cuts may simply maintain the restrictions already in place. Reclamation considers factors like precipitation, runoff, and water use to model what levels at the two reservoirs will look like over the following two years. If Lake Mead drops below a certain level, Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico are subject to cuts, though California has so far been spared because of its senior water rights.
In recent years, Arizona has faced the bulk of these cuts, while Mexico and Nevada also saw reductions. But these are short-term plans, and the guidelines surrounding them are being renegotiated for the future.
WHAT ARE STATES ALREADY DOING TO CONSERVE WATER?
Arizona, Nevada and Mexico faced federal water cuts from the river in 2022. Those deepened in 2023 and returned to 2022 levels this year. As the crisis on the river worsened, Arizona, California and Nevada last year agreed to conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of water until 2026, with the U.S. government paying water districts and other users for much of that conservation.
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — the state's so-called Upper Basin — don't use their full 7.5 million acre-foot allocation from the river, and get a percentage of the water that's available each year.
An acre-foot is enough water to serve roughly two to three U.S. households in a year.
HAVE THESE EFFORTS WORKED?
Yes, for now. A wet 2023 plus conservation efforts by Lower Basin states improved the short-term outlook for both reservoirs. Lake Powell is at roughly 39% capacity while Mead is at about 33%.
Climate scientists and hydrologists say that higher temperatures driven by climate change will continue to reduce runoff to the Colorado River in coming years, and cause more water to be lost to evaporation, so future plans should prepare for less water in the system. Brad Udall, a senior water and climate scientist at Colorado State University, said predicting precipitation levels is harder to do.
The short-term recovery in the Colorado River basin should be viewed in the context of a more challenging future, he added.
"I would push back heartily against any idea that our rebound over the last couple of years here is some permanent shift," Udall said.
WHAT CAN'T STATES AGREE ON?
What to do after 2026. In March, Upper and Lower Basin states, tribes and environmental groups released plans for how the river and its reservoirs should be managed in the future.
Arizona, California and Nevada asked the federal government to take a more expansive view of the river management and factor water levels in seven reservoirs instead of just Lake Powell and Lake Mead to determine the extent of water cuts. If the whole system drops below 38% capacity, their plan said, deeper cuts should be shared evenly with the Upper Basin and Mexico.
"We are trying to find the right, equitable outcome in which the Upper Basin doesn't have to take all of the pain from the long-term reduction of the river, but we also can't be the only ones protecting Lake Powell," said Tom Buschatzke, director of Arizona's Department of Water Resources and the state's lead negotiator in the talks.
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming called for addressing shortages based on the combined capacity of Lake Powell and Lake Mead, as opposed to just Lake Mead. It proposed more aggressive cuts that would affect California, Arizona and Nevada sooner when the major reservoir levels fall. Their plan doesn't call for reductions in how much water is delivered to Upper Basin states.
Becky Mitchell, the lead negotiator for the state of Colorado, said the Upper Basin's plan focuses more on making policy with an eye on the river's supply, rather than the demands for its water.
"It's important we start acknowledging that there's not as much water available as folks would like," Mitchell said.
WHERE DOES IT GO FROM HERE?
The federal government is expected to issue draft regulations by December that factor in the different plans, and propose a way forward. Until then, states, tribes and other negotiators will continue talking and trying to reach agreement.
Only about half of funds NM has put toward public safety have been spent, says new report — Albuquerque Journal, KUNM News
Amid a struggle between lawmakers and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to enhance public safety across New Mexico, a new legislative report shows much of the funding allocated to the effort over the last few years has gone unspent.
The Legislative Finance Committee report found lawmakers have allocated $424 million in one-time funds to public safety initiatives over the last five years. And that various state agencies have only spent about half of it, including the largest pot of money for officer recruitment and retention.
The Albuquerque Journal reports lawmakers expressed frustration about the findings at the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee meeting this week.
Chair, Democratic Rep. Christine Chandler, said lawmakers have been doing their part to support local and state agencies by “providing the resources they ask for and they need.” However, once the cash gets to them, they struggle to use it.
Chandler said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham hasn’t helped matters by vetoing language in the budget meant to guide that spending.
A spokesperson for the governor took issue with the accuracy of the report, calling the data potentially misleading. She also said “funding alone” won’t solve the state’s public safety issues, arguing for changes in law that Lujan Grisham advocated for when she called a special legislative session last month.
Lawmakers didn’t pass the public safety proposals the governor wanted. Several argued existing laws aren’t being adequately enforced.
NM governor hiring at least two people for her new statewide housing office - By Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office is seeking applicants to fill at least two jobs for the newly created “Office of Housing,” a small group of executive branch officials tasked with coordinating various statewide housing programs.
Creating a statewide housing office under the governor’s control was one of Lujan Grisham’s main priorities during the 2024 30-day legislative session. Lawmakers ultimately stymied her request to create a formal office with expanded authority, but she did find $2 million to fund new positions to work in her office on the issue over the next two years.
The job openings include a new “director of statewide homelessness initiatives,” who would be responsible for a “coordinated and strategic response” to the growing unhoused population across the state, according to a news release from the governor’s office. The job would pay between $75,000 and $130,000.
The statewide housing office is also hiring at least one more person,creating a general job listing for those “with experience in housing development, programs, policy, regulatory frameworks, data and demographics,” according to the governor’s office. That job would pay between $50,000 and $120,000.
The governor staffing up a state housing office comes after the Legislature made a historic one-time investment to try and spark home building across New Mexico.
New state money includes a $125 million loan program for affordable housing infrastructure and workforce housing development, a $50 million payment for the New Mexico Affordable Housing Trust Fund and $20 million for initiatives aimed at homelessness.
The housing office is built to improve availability and affordability of homes across the state. The governor’s office is seeking “talented and innovative thinkers” to come up with new ideas and to build a strategic approach, according to the release.
“The housing landscape has changed monumentally in the last few years, and it’s time for new models and new levels of coordination,” said Daniel Werwath, whom the governor hired in January to lead the office, in the news release. “The Governor is assembling an experienced team with broad expertise to develop innovative ways to combat the unprecedented housing crisis facing New Mexico.”
Lujan Grisham asked the Legislature to sanction her push for an Office of Housing and grant it new authority, including putting the office’s new director on the board of the New Mexico
Mortgage Finance Authority, which recently rebranded as Housing New Mexico. She made the rare move of advocating for the bill in person in front of a legislative committee.
A bill the governor supported faced pushback from some lawmakers who thought a new office could be redundant or get in the way of existing state entities, like Housing New Mexico. Housing New Mexico officials also lobbied against Lujan Grisham’s proposal.