New Mexico is a go-to state for women seeking abortions. A new court ruling helps it stay that way - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday struck down abortion restrictions by conservative cities and counties at the request of the state attorney general.
The unanimous opinion reinforces the state's position as having some of the most liberal abortion laws in the country. The ruling preserves access to abortion procedures across a state that has become a major destination for people from other states with bans, including neighboring Texas.
Attorneys representing the cities of Hobbs and Clovis and Lea and Roosevelt counties had argued that provisions of a federal "anti-vice" law known as the Comstock Act block courts from striking down local abortion ordinances.
Writing for the majority opinion, Justice C. Shannon Bacon said that state law precludes cities and counties from restricting abortion or regulating abortion clinics.
"The ordinances violate this core precept and invade the Legislature's authority to regulate access to and provision of reproductive healthcare," she wrote. "We hold the ordinances are preempted in their entirety."
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez praised the court's ruling Thursday, saying that the core of the argument was that state laws preempted any action by local governments to engage in activities that would infringe on the constitutional rights of citizens.
"The bottom line is simply this: Abortion access is safe and secure in New Mexico," he said. "It's enshrined in law by the recent ruling by the New Mexico Supreme Court and thanks to the work of the New Mexico Legislature."
New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martinez called access to health care a basic fundamental right in New Mexico.
"It doesn't take a genius to understand the statutory framework that we have. Local governments don't regulate health care in New Mexico. It is up to the state," the Albuquerque Democrat said.
Opposition to abortion runs deep in New Mexico communities along the border with Texas, which has one of the most restrictive bans in the U.S.
But Democrats, who control every statewide elected office in New Mexico and hold majorities in the state House and Senate, have moved to shore up access to abortion — before and after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, eliminating the nationwide right to abortion.
In 2021, the New Mexico Legislature repealed a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures as felonies, ensuring access to abortion even after the Roe v. Wade reversal.
And in 2023, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill that overrides local ordinances aimed at limiting abortion access and enacted a shield law that protects abortion providers from investigations by other states.
In Thursday's opinion, justices said they "strongly admonish" Roosevelt County, in particular, for an ordinance that would have allowed individuals to file lawsuits demanding damages of more than $100,000 for violations of the county's abortion ordinance.
The provision would have created "a private right of action and damages award that is clearly intended to punish protected conduct," the court said in its opinion.
Alamogordo residents weigh in on crime in latest town hall with governor - By Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
Alamogordo resident Christopher Douglas recalls being able to ride his bike everywhere while growing up in the southern New Mexico city. There was no thought of danger or risk like he has experienced in more recent years.
“This was a wonderful community and now, I want to get out. That’s what’s happening in New Mexico,” Douglas said during a town hall Wednesday evening in Alamogordo, the latest in a series of public safety town halls around the state held by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who attended along with local and state officials.
Audience members gathered at the New Mexico State University-Alamogordo campus and touched on the topics of supportive services for unhoused people, criminal competency, economic development and law enforcement.
The governor has hosted several town halls throughout the state since last summer, starting with Las Cruces in July, previewing an expected emphasis on crime initiatives in the next legislative session starting Jan. 21.
“We need to be able to express how we feel here and we’re not Las Cruces, we’re Alamogordo. I think it’s very obvious we’re a lot different,” Alamogordo Mayor Susan Payne said of her town, which is located about an hour northeast of Las Cruces.
Michael Coleman, spokesperson for the governor’s office, said there were about 120 people in the room at the fullest point of the event, which lasted nearly six hours.
Many people used their time at the microphone to tell leaders about their experiences of being victims of violence or personal family experiences with drug addiction. Others reflected on how the community has changed since they were children to now, and the decline in safety they’ve seen.
Lujan Grisham said that was a large part in why she was in Alamogordo and hosting these town halls.
“I don’t recognize parts of many New Mexico communities,” the governor said.
Several people asked if dilapidated or unused buildings in town could be refurbished as shelter for unhoused people. One man even offered his own building which he said is only used for storage currently.
Lujan Grisham brought up criminal competency at the start of the town hall and said more than 16,000 cases in the state have been dismissed due to criminal competency since 2016. She said because of this, people in need of help are not connected to the correct services and are susceptible to repeat offenses.
Dayna Jones, the district defender for the 12th Judicial District, pushed back saying that at least in the district where she works, most competency cases are not dismissed.
“It is factually inaccurate that people have 30 or 40 violent felonies and they’re getting their cases dismissed. That does not happen. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can get the information from the court,” Jones said.
Jones said a new competency diversion program was recently started in the area to help people who have misdemeanor charges that would normally be dismissed. If the person agrees to the program, providers connect them to services to help stabilize them.
Kayla Blanchard pointed out the shortage of behavioral health professionals in the Alamogordo area and proposed that New Mexico social workers join an interstate compact. This would allow New Mexico to partner with other states and create a regional standard as well as potentially allow providers to apply for multistate licenses in the other compact areas.
Lujan Grisham said she is looking into that solution and agreed that it is difficult to recruit and retain behavioral health providers. She added that she believes New Mexico is leading the country in policy work surrounding behavioral health, however, “misperceptions” stymie recruiting efforts.
“We’re missing something.There is a sense by far too many practitioners that this is not a friendly state to work in,” Lujan Grisham said. “I’m working on that.”
Attendee David Lucoski brought up the need for better economic development to bring more employers into the area. He described it as “the cornerstone to reduce crime” because more people would be working and earning an income.
Several people discussed red flag laws and the problem with firearms still finding their way into the hands of dangerous people. Lujan Grisham pointed to a lack of accountability.
“New Mexico has a terrible … accountability issue with all of the laws that we’ve passed that require protection, particularly here, for domestic violence victims and others,” the governor said.
She said an independent review of such laws several years ago found that the state has “good laws on the books,” but departments and jurisdictions do not execute the laws.
“This is an area that I’m very upset about, very concerned about,” Lujan Grisham said. “I’m going to fight a lot harder to require that you follow the law in those circumstances when you fail to do so, at all junctions of the judicial system.”
Crime legislation was a focal point for the governor during the 2024 legislative session. Lawmaker’s inaction on her proposals was the reason she called a special session in July. Lujan Grisham voiced her frustration when lawmakers again did not move forward with her proposals.
The governor’s next public safety town hall will be in Raton on Monday, Jan. 13. Members of the public are encouraged to attend the 5:30 p.m. meeting at the Shuler Theater.
Councilors press mayor’s staff on COVID-bonuses - Rodd Cayton, City Desk ABQ
City councilors Monday night took aim at Mayor Tim Keller’s administrative staff over an independent report that found pandemic-relief money may have been improperly used to provide employee bonuses.
Councilor Dan Lewis last week sent a letter to New Mexico U.S. Attorney Alexander Uballez, notifying his office of alleged discrepancies found by the city’s Office of the Inspector General.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said Tuesday the agency has received the report and correspondence from Lewis and is reviewing the matter.
The Inspector General report, issued last week, alleged the administration in 2022 took grant money marked for early childhood education programs and used it to pay cash bonuses to the mayor’s staff.
The total of the alleged bonuses is almost $290,000. Those include almost $20,000 to a fiscal manager and almost $11,000 to a deputy director.
Associate Chief Administrative Officer Carla Martinez told councilors the child development centers depend on centralized administration for some services, including fiscal management and human resources.
A response from the city included in the report says the determination of premium pay disbursements was based on guidance from state authorities.
“It was further defined that eligibility included direct service personnel, administrative personnel (department leadership, HR and fiscal), janitorial and maintenance staff, bus drivers and cooks as applicable,” the response states. “Based on the recommendation of OIG, the (Division of Child & Family Development) will review its determinations and take appropriate action, if necessary.”
The American Rescue Plan Act, signed by President Joe Biden in March 2021, included money to provide financial relief to help childcare providers defray unexpected business costs associated with the pandemic and stabilize their operations so they could stay open.
The city’s Department of Family and Community Services received grants for 21 childcare centers; the grants totaled $8,855,600, according to the inspector general’s office.
The inspector general’s office recommends the city look into whether it should try to get the money back from the employees who received the payments or move the expenditures to the general fund and pay back the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
According to grant information from the New Mexico Early Childhood Education & Care Department, wages and benefits for child care program personnel are an allowable use for the money. The department urged providers to spend the money on raising the wages of child care staff, and listed staff bonuses, premium or hazard pay and ongoing professional development or training as other allowable personnel costs.
In response to an inquiry from the inspector general’s office, the report states, the early childhood department said the money “cannot be used to provide pay to personnel who are not staff of a licensed child care program or are not working at a licensed child care center.”
Councilor Renee Grout asked whether all teachers received premium pay and whether it helped with retention.
Martinez said all teachers did receive the pay, but that more time was needed to ascertain any impact it had on retention.
Grout also expressed concern about the report’s allegation of unauthorized electronic signatures on some grant documents. In one case, the report says, the signature on an application bore the name of an employee who had retired about nine months prior.
“The selection of a retired employee as the affirming provider who did not have access to the system reflects that someone other than the affirming provider submitted the application using the retired employee’s name and electronic signature,” the report states.
Grout asked whether there is a policy of signing an individual’s name to a document without that person’s knowledge. City Chief Administrative Officer Samantha Sengel said the administration at times permits some staff to sign off on documents for employees who are lower in the hierarchy. She said all the child development centers at the time were administered through Family and Community Service, and someone there could potentially have been authorizing for all of them.
Lewis criticized the administration’s response to the report, which he characterized as an attack on the inspector general’s office.
Lewis said the administration had the opportunity to include in the report comments pledging to improve its practices and correct any improper actions.
“But that’s absolutely not what happened,” he said. “What happened here is this administration absolutely slamming the Office of Inspector General, delegitimizing this office that we set up for transparency, and saying ‘out of her jurisdiction,’ and making excuses and no clear indication of going to learn from it at all.”
Sengel said the city’s Accountability in Government Oversight Committee — not the administration — determined that the Office of the Inspector General lacked sufficient jurisdiction to investigate one or more of the allegations contained in the report.
She also said the city did respond to the findings, but didn’t have the entire report at that time.
“We didn’t know what employees they were saying were improperly paid,” she said. “I wasn’t here, but I reviewed all of the documents … those payments were based on the fact that, at the time, we were in the midst of a pandemic, and when everybody else went home, these employees were here working, four days after the COVID pandemic hit, and everything was shut down across the state, across the nation, across the world.”
She said the child development centers had to be open because “essential employees” such as restaurant workers, firefighters and law enforcement officers, couldn’t stay home.
City Chief Financial Officer Kevin Sourisseau said he was working in the Department of Municipal Development at the time and he did not get any additional compensation and doubts that any administrative staff did. He said it’s not uncommon for the city to award hazard pay, and that the administration is looking at who may have received such during the time covered by the report.
Survey finds more than half of New Mexicans have experienced sexual violence - Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
Editor’s note: This story discusses sexual violence. For anyone in need of support, please call, text or chat the New Mexico Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-844-667-2457 or nmsahelp.org.
More than half of all New Mexicans have been sexually assaulted or raped at some point in their life, and 40% have been the victim of some kind of sexual violence while in New Mexico in the past year, according to a report published Wednesday.
Researchers from the Catherine Cutler Institute at the University of Southern Maine set out to understand how often people in New Mexico become victims of sexual violence, how often they report it and how often they seek help.
They surveyed 1,272 people between September 2023 and June 2024, and 54% of the people who responded said they had either been raped or sexually assaulted within their lifetime. “This rate translates to more than 1.1 million New Mexico residents,” the authors wrote.
The findings mark the first new New Mexico sexual violence crime victimization survey data in nearly two decades, the authors wrote. The last one was conducted between 2005 and 2006.
Researchers collected the data for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, a nonprofit that provides technical assistance to more than 60 sexual assault service providers, sexual assault nurse examiners, child advocacy centers and community mental health centers.
In an interview with Source, Alexandria Taylor, the coalition’s executive director, said she thinks a lack of funding is the primary explanation for why it’s been so long since the last survey.
Taylor said the findings validate and quantify what she has known anecdotally for years: sexual assault is present in many people’s lives.
“All of our service providers, whether it’s our substance use treatment centers, our schools, our places of employment — even our places of incarceration — they’re all serving survivors of sexual assault,” she said.
Rachel Cox, the coalition’s deputy director of programs, told Source she was surprised the report gave her some hope they can actually address the prevalence of sexual assault, because it shows neither victims nor perpetrators of sexual violence are exceptional.
“We’re really talking about something that vicariously impacts everyone in New Mexico,” she said.
While counts of sexual violence victims commonly derived from service organizations and police reports are informative, they are also “certainly undercounts,” the report states.
Researchers asked New Mexicans about their experiences with four kinds of sexual violence: stalking, rape, sexual assault and domestic violence. Forty percent said they had been the victim of at least one of these crimes within the last 12 months while they were in New Mexico.
The research was funded by the Crime Victims Reparation Commission, a state agency that helps crime victims recover losses resulting from being victimized, and provides federal grants to other organizations serving them.
In a news release attached to the report, the coalition outlined its priorities for the upcoming legislative session to boost support for survivors and evidence-based prevention education.
The group plans to ask the Legislature to set aside $3 million to the Department of Health for prevention initiatives, $2 million to the Health Care Authority for medical and counseling needs, and $2 million to the Crime Victims Reparation Commission for providers and the New Mexico Sexual Assault Helpline.
The report also noted that 68% of victims of sexual assault and 75% of victims of rape did not seek support.
State law prohibits reparations to people victimized in prison
As researchers conducted the survey, they also sought to find disparities between demographic groups.
For example, people who have been incarcerated have the highest overall rate of victimization: 69%. They were also more likely to have been the victim of stalking than any other group.
Formerly incarcerated New Mexicans were also less likely to seek victim services, and more likely to have experienced “significant problems” with their job or schoolwork as a result of being victimized, the researchers found.
The group with the next highest rate of victimization was homeless people, at 68%.
Taylor said people who are most systemically impacted either have experienced sexual violence or are at greater risk of experiencing it. Cox said incarcerated and unhoused people can be some of the most invisible in society.
The findings are notable, in part, because New Mexico law does not allow reparations to people who were victimized while they were incarcerated. Taylor said it can’t be ignored that people who do harm and end up incarcerated have also themselves experienced harm and need healing.
“That’s where we have to use what we know from the individual level to impact things at the policy level,” she said.
Transgender or nonbinary people were more likely than cisgender people to have been raped, and Black respondents were more likely than other races to have been raped.
Perpetrators of rape were most commonly identified as casual acquaintances of the victims, at 34%; followed by a former partner or spouse, 30%; a current partner or spouse, 23%, and finally a stranger, 22%.
City of Albuquerque names crime and homelessness as top funding priorities - By Nash Jones, KUNM News
With the New Mexico legislative session set to begin in less than two weeks, the City of Albuquerque is outlining its state funding priorities. Initiatives to combat crime and ease homelessness top the list.
Mayor Tim Keller and other city leaders announced the priorities Wednesday. In a statement, the mayor said the city has momentum and is asking lawmakers to keep projects moving forward.
The funding priorities the city identifies as enhancing “public safety”are primarily directed to the police department. They include equipping officers with emergency vehicles, cameras, and other technology. Fire stations also stand to receive some of the capital funding.
The city is also eyeing expanding services for people living on its streets, including more overnight shelter beds, pallet homes and case management.
To address Albuquerque’s housing shortage, the city is prioritizing putting state funds towards building more affordable housing, purchasing land and converting hotels.
ABQ agrees to halt encampment clearing for annual homeless count amid ongoing sweeps — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
About 40 volunteers gathered in a downtown Albuquerque conference room Tuesday, grappling with the final survey questions they’ll ask when they set out later this month in search of people living on the streets.
The annual point-in-time count is already a challenging – and imperfect – means of taking a census of the state’s homeless population. Volunteers across the state conduct surveys over a few days and nights, collecting basic demographic and other information from unhoused people, and sometimes adding a question or two about relevant local issues, like access to free and clean restrooms.
Leaders of the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, which coordinates the annual count, said the undertaking is more fraught this year, amid steep increases in unsheltered people and following a Supreme Court ruling that makes it easier for cities to crack down on public camping.
“It’s more difficult, in general, when people are fearing being kicked out, to be sure that they’re going to be where you think they are when you go to survey them,” said William Bowen, a program officer for the coalition.
Making that effort a little easier this year, at least in Albuquerque, is an agreement by city officials to hold off on their regular clearing of homeless encampments for a few days later this month when volunteers fan out across the city to speak with people on the streets, Bowen said.
According to Bowen, the city has agreed to postpone sweeps in various “zones” throughout the city beginning Jan. 23, beginning with the International District and ending with Downtown.
A similar pause during the count last year was supposed to occur, Bowen said, but a “miscommunication” occurred. In its annual report last year, one that nonetheless reported a 26% increase in Albuquerque homelessness, authors said that the city’s “decommissioning” of encampments stymied their efforts.
“The city’s aggressive decommissioning policy leading up into the night of the count still caused surveyors to arrive in surveying zones, previously identified as having been heavily populated with unsheltered individuals, with no one to survey,” the authors wrote back then.
This year, Bowen said, the coalition and its volunteers have more assurances they’ll be able to do their work and find people in the usual spots.
In a statement, city spokesperson Alex Bukoski said that while officials will be “cleaning” during the point-in-time count, they will hold off on asking people to move except when they’re somewhere unsafe.
“The city will continue to offer outreach during the point-in-time count as we work with our partners to ensure we’re getting the most accurate data possible,” he said.
The federal Housing and Urban Development Department requires point-in-time counts for cities and states to receive millions of dollars in funding to address housing and homelessness. In 2022, for example, Albuquerque and the rest of the state received nearly $15 million from HUD’s Continuum of Care program.
It’s not clear exactly how much funding is tied to the result of the count, Bowen said, but he stressed that it is a HUD requirement. And he said all parties should agree, even if they have competing interests or views of the homelessness crisis, that a correct and comprehensive view of homelessness trends and issues in New Mexico is worthwhile.
“I think everyone would like a more-accurate count. Different sides of the political world have different reasons for that,” he said. “But you know, everyone wants it to be accurate.”
Assuming the volunteers can find unsheltered people on city streets, they discussed Tuesday what questions they should ask them, and how to do so.
A final questionnaire is still being developed, but Bowen suggested at the end of the meeting that volunteers would ask all the HUD-required questions and a few others specific to Albuquerque and New Mexico. Those other questions could be barriers the homeless face in finding housing, whether they’ve been threatened on account of being homelessness and, amid a rise in infectious diseases like norovirus, whether they had access to restrooms.
Toward the end of the meeting, coalition member Jazmin Moreno stood up and announced that she’d received word about another city sweep of a “mass encampment sweep” near Central Avenue and Tramway Boulevard. She urged those in the audience who work with that population to be aware and to offer help, as needed.
In his statement to Source New Mexico, Bukoski did not respond to questions about whether such a sweep had occurred Tuesday.
“City workers conduct daily outreach throughout Albuquerque and during that process individuals experiencing homelessness are offered resources and transportation to shelter and other services,” he said.
EPA finalizes plan to move uranium mine waste to landfill near Thoreau - By Hannah Grover, New Mexico Political Report
Uranium mine waste rock that has been sitting for decades near the Navajo Nation community of Churchrock will be moved to a landfill six miles east of the Village of Thoreau.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed an action memo Monday finalizing the plan to transport the low-level radioactive material to the Red Rock Landfill property.
“I feel as though our community finally has something of a win,” Teracita Keyanna, a member of the executive committee for Red Water Pond Road Community Association, said in a news release. “Removing the mine waste from our community will protect our health and finally put us back on a positive track to Hózhǫ (balance).”
The mine waste was left behind at three areas on the former Quivera Mine site, including near Navajo homes where residents are living with the health and environmental impacts.
“This decision will remove over 1 million cubic yards of waste that has haunted the Red Water Pond Road and Pipeline Road communities for too long,” EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman said in a separate news release. “These cleanup efforts will pave the way for these two Diné communities to fully — and safely — utilize this land.”
The Red Rock Landfill currently receives municipal solid waste from McKinley and Cibola counties as well as Navajo Nation communities, including Tuba City, Arizona. The landfill also has a potential site for a uranium disposal cell, which is located on a part of the 640-acre property that is separate from the existing municipal waste disposal area. This portion of the property is located next to the shuttered Escalante Generating Station.
The decision to move the waste to the landfill comes after decades of debate that, at one point, included potentially adding more radioactive waste on top of the existing tailings pile.
The landfill owner, Northwest New Mexico Regional Solid Waste Authority, must now begin the years-long process to apply for necessary permits from the New Mexico Environment Department. The Regional Solid Waste Authority must show that the disposal of uranium mine waste will not impact groundwater, air or soil in the decades to come and that Thoreau and other nearby communities will not be harmed.
Those permit applications will include opportunities for public input.
While the Red Water Pond Road and Pipeline Road communities are excited to see the mine waste removed, people living in the Thoreau area are concerned. Last year, nearly 100 Thoreau High School students wrote letters to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham asking her to intervene and attempt to stop the mine waste from being moved to the Red Rocks Landfill.
The EPA’s decision comes following negotiations with the Navajo Nation and the EPA is continuing to work on solutions to address uranium mine waste on the reservation. Those solutions include a potential disposal location off of tribal lands or the possibility that the waste could be consolidated into a single location on the Navajo Nation.
There are no existing disposal facilities dedicated to accepting uranium mine waste within 350 miles of the Navajo Nation and there are hundreds of documented abandoned uranium mines dotting the reservation.
“This solution is a compromise that will get radioactive waste in this area off of the Navajo Nation as soon as possible,” Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in a news release. “It’s not everything the three affected communities would wish for but it’s action in the right direction now rather than in the future. Most importantly, this will protect our people from harmful exposure. I greatly appreciate Administrator Guzman’s continued compassion and attention to the Navajo Nation after decades of having the legacy of uranium contamination ignored.”
New Mexico’s new wildland firefighters say they’re making steady progress toward Hotshot status - By Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
After their first year of existence, two New Mexico wildland firefighting teams say they’re on track to become certified Hotshots, a designation that will increase the state’s capacity to fight wildfires, and mark its first foray creating elite wildfire teams.
The move follows state lawmakers’ 2023 approval of $1.3 million to the State Forestry Division for the Mimbres and Pecos River wildfire teams in northern and southern New Mexico in the aftermath of the devastating 2022 fire season. That season featured the two biggest wildfires in New Mexico history, the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire and the Black Fire.
Having Hotshot firefighters—who possess the highest level of certification—year-round in New Mexico would allow quicker and more effective responses to wildfires across the state,where blazes can erupt at any time, anywhere. At present, only Utah and Alaska have such teams.
“We would have better capabilities to help fight that fire,” squad boss Joshua Chavarria said. “We wouldn’t have to bring in more experienced people, because we would have a core here.”
With early winter underway, New Mexico’s fire season has already begun. On Jan. 4, the National Weather Service issued a red flag warning, which signals high fire risk, for the Middle Rio Grande Valley and elsewhere due to low humidity, strong winds and an unstable atmosphere.
In 2024, Chavarria and other members of the Mimbres Crew, based in Socorro, fought four fires in New Mexico, including the Salt Fire near Ruidoso. They also responded to two fires in Oregon and helped with prescribed burns on federal land in the Carson and Gila national forests.
Their counterparts in northern New Mexico, the Pecos River team, fought fires in New Mexico, North Dakota and Oregon in 2024, according to state forestry spokesperson George Ducker.
But because both teams are at a lower level of certification, known as “type 2 initial attack” crews, that often meant arriving to fires and being delegated to supporting roles. The Salt Fire in mid-June, which drew firefighters and a command team from out of state, was one example, even though it erupted here in New Mexico. The Salt Fire and the nearby South Fork Fire burned more than 25,000 acres and were contained in mid-July.
“When we got there and checked in, we kind of had to explain what we were capable of and what kind of experience we had. And because we were a ‘type 2’ crew, they kind of said, ‘All right, well, you guys hang tight.’” Chavarria said. “And then there was some other crews that came in and they went right to work.”
The goal, Forestry leaders said at the time, was to hire two crews of between 20 and 22 people and create a cohesive fire-response unit that could eventually leap all the hurdles toward becoming elite Hotshots.
The Forestry Division is still hiring for both teams. The Mimbres crew expects to hire its 20th member by February, crew members said, but they still need an additional squad boss who is crew boss-qualified.
The Mimbres crew needs at least five members with that qualification before it can seek approval from the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, which certifies Hotshots, among other roles. The Pecos River team has nine members, Ducker said.
They also need vehicles and a permanent space. The crew hopes to move into an office in Socorro in 2025. At the moment, they meet in an office on the campus of the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas.
More than staffing, the crews need more experience and cohesion, said Ducker. Members estimated it will take three to five years, at most, for them to check all the boxes and survive a field test by NWGC examiners.
Chase Smith, assistant superintendent of the Mimbres team, held up a booklet half-an-inch thick showing all the requirements the team will need to complete before they’d reach out to the NWGC for an on-site visit.
“They grade us on all this stuff,” he said, flipping through the booklet.
But until then, the Mimbres crew said they’re gearing up for another punishing wildfire season in New Mexico and elsewhere.
“I think we come in with a notion that it’s just gonna be a horrible season, and we’ll just see what goes on,” said Candice Kutrosky, the team’s superintendent. “You always expect the worst, right? You plan on that. And so if it’s not that bad, you’re like, ‘Oh, good.’”
Stargazers' delight: Efforts to cut unwanted light pollution in New Mexico win praise - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Advocates for limits on indiscriminate outdoor lighting that obscures night skies worldwide are recognizing efforts by an oil and natural gas developer to reduce scattered light in New Mexico.
DarkSky International, an advocacy group for preserving or restoring views of starry skies, announced on Wednesday its first-ever certification of oil and natural gas sites that seek to reduce unwanted light pollution.
It recognized Denver-based Franklin Mountain Energy for lighting retrofits at two sites and one new location within a major oil production zone in southeastern New Mexico. The projects are expected to reduce skyglow at locations including Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a remote gathering point for astronomy buffs and night hiking.
"It doesn't do anything to impact their bottom line — it actually makes the workplace safer," said Peter Lipscomb, vice chair of the New Mexico chapter of DarkSky International, because sensible lighting reduces direct glare that otherwise can make it harder for workers to see.
"Being rewarded by (seeing) the dark skies of our ancestors, all those things together, it's a winning combination."
Franklin Mountain Energy cofounder Audrey Robertson said the lighting changes reduce electricity consumption. The company said in a statement that it worked on the effort with an alliance of federal land and parks agencies, telescopic observatories and the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. Recommendations from the alliance include equipment that directs light downward onto work areas and limits light that is cast upward into the sky.
Stargazers worldwide are grappling with the encroachment of outdoor lighting at night.
A 2023 study that analyzed data from more than 50,000 amateur stargazers found that artificial lighting is making the night sky across the world about 10% brighter each year. As of 2016, more than 80% of the world lived under light-polluted skies that obscure the Milky Way.
New Mexico state lawmakers are drafting a proposed update to a 1999 law that regulates outdoor night lighting in the state's high-altitude mountains and desert. The initiative responds to a rapid increase in light pollution amid advances in energy-efficient LED technology that has spurred more outdoor night lighting that is often unshielded.
The National Park Service has set the protection of dark night skies as a priority at remote locations including the Chaco Culture National Historic Park, an area of New Mexico that Native Americans consider sacred. More than 99% of the park has no permanent outdoor lighting.
Lipscomb also credited oil operators in West Texas that are embracing changes to protect starry skies in collaboration with the McDonald Observatory, near Fort Davis, where research and education depends on dark nights.
US will keep protecting more than 2,000 Rocky Mountain grizzly bears - By Matthew Brown, Associated Press
The Biden administration said Wednesday it will continue protecting about 2,000 grizzly bears in the Rocky Mountains despite opposition from Republican-led states.
Federal officials also said they would ease some restrictions as conflicts between bears and humans rise. Ranchers operating outside of designated grizzly recovery zones would be allowed to shoot the predators if they attack livestock or dogs. And state officials could be authorized to capture and relocate bears to prevent potential conflicts.
Protections will be withdrawn in states where grizzlies are no longer found, including California, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon.
The changes announced Wednesday could be revisited under President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration.
The Associated Press obtained details of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision in advance.
Grizzlies are fearsome bruins that can reach 800 pounds (363 kilograms) and live more than 25 years. They've been protected as a threatened species across the lower 48 states since 1975. Officials during Trump's first term sought to eliminate those protections, but were reversed in court.
Republican officials in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service beginning in 2021 seeking to reclaim state management of the grizzly population. That would open the door to hunts, although state officials have said those would be limited and not endanger the overall population.
Federal officials said they will work toward ending protections, but declined to offer a timeline.
"This reclassification will facilitate recovery of grizzly bears and provide a stronger foundation for eventual delisting," Martha Williams, U.S. Fish and Wildlife service director, said in a statement.
Agency officials said they will take public comments on whether hunting could be used to relieve conflicts between people and bears. That would require an explicit exemption from provisions of the Endangered Species Act and would likely be challenged by environmentalists in court.
The public also can comment on the loosened rules for shooting bears that attack livestock.
The administration's action drew a sharp rebuke from Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, who worked on a prior attempt to remove protections for bears in and around Yellowstone National Park when he led the U.S. Interior Department under Trump.
"There's no denying the Biden administration jammed this through with 12 days to go knowing it's a blatantly political play to appease radical environmentalists," Zinke said. "Thankfully the political hands pulling the strings at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are about to be fired."
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and some members of Congress also criticized Wednesday's decision, while wildlife advocates welcomed it.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service rightly followed the science," said Andrea Zaccardi with the Center for Biological Diversity.
Grizzlies greatly expanded their range over the past several decades, including in parts of western Washington state. That's led to more attacks on livestock and, rarely, on people.
U.S. government scientists concluded years ago that the bear population in parts of the West — including around Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks — had biologically recovered. But there's been concern that state wildlife laws wouldn't be enough to protect the animals.
Former Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly recovery coordinator Chris Servheen said keeping protections in place will allow grizzlies to continue expanding into new areas. Without those safeguards, he added, the species would again be driven toward extinction because of climate change and state officials intent on reducing bear populations.
"We spent about $30 million and 45 years recovering grizzly bears to where they are. If they are delisted, it would turn around and they would again be on the verge of extinction," Servheen said in an interview. He said he had not yet reviewed documents related to Wednesday's decision.
An estimated 50,000 grizzlies once roamed portions of 18 Western states stretching from Texas to the Canadian border. They were wiped out in most areas by overhunting and trapping.
By 1975, only about 700 to 800 bears remained in the lower 48 states.
Following intensive recovery efforts led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there are now more than 2,000 grizzlies in the lower 48 states and larger populations in Alaska, where hunting is allowed.
Even where hunting isn't allowed, people are the biggest threat to bears. Dozens annually are killed by wildlife agents because of livestock attacks, shot by hunters in self-defense or hit by vehicles and trains.
After the species temporarily lost protection in the Yellowstone region in 2017, hunts were scheduled in Wyoming — where almost 1,500 people applied for 12 grizzly bear licenses, and Idaho, which issued just one license. The hunts were blocked by a court order just days before they were set to begin.
Federal officials in the years since raised concerns about laws from Republican-led states that could potentially harm grizzly populations. Among them was a Montana law allowing grizzlies to be killed if they attack livestock.
Montana and neighboring states also have pursued aggressive policies against gray wolves, including loosened wolf trapping rules that some scientists fear could lead to grizzlies being inadvertently trapped and killed.
In 2021, federal scientists determined protections were still needed, in part because of human-caused deaths. They reconsidered at the states' request and in 2023 said there was "substantial" evidence grizzlies have recovered in two designated recovery zones surrounding Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.