Is your drinking water safe? — Hannah Grover, NM.news
The New Mexico Environment Department says more than 5% of New Mexicans that are served by drinking water utilities are receiving water that could potentially put their health at risk.
There are more than 1,000 drinking water systems in the state that serve more than 2 million people. According to the environment department, nearly 14% of those systems are in violation of at least one health-based standard,
The state has been cracking down on drinking water systems for approximately a year. Last July, the department sent letters to 138 systems warning that they could face civil penalties if they did not submit plans to address the violations.
That crackdown resulted in 14 administrative compliance orders and more than $880,000 in assessed civil penalties. The environment department is expected to issue another 16 administrative compliance orders in the upcoming months.
“Through our technical assistance offerings and focused enforcement efforts, we have reduced health-based violations and brought numerous systems back into compliance,” Bruce Baizel, NMED Compliance and Enforcement Director, said in a statement. “We will continue to hold accountable those municipal governments and private entities who are responsible for making sure our tap water is safe and reliable.”
The environment department resolved five drinking water violations in May.
MAY NOTICES OF VIOLATION
While the environment department has seen a reduction in health-based violations, dozens of drinking water systems are still receiving notices of violation for various problems ranging from failure to submit reports to exceeding maximum contaminant levels.
The environment department issued 59 notices of violation to 30 different drinking water systems in May.
The Chilili Water Users Association received a notice of violation from NMED in early May stating that two of its wells had exceeded the maximum fluoride levels during the first quarter of the year.
The running annual average fluoride levels from those wells was 5.4 milligrams per liter. The federal maximum levels for fluoride are 4 milligrams per liter.
Fluoride, at low levels, can protect teeth and is sometimes added to municipal water systems. However, in New Mexico, the geology can sometimes lead to higher levels of fluoride. This can cause dental problems such as mottling of the teeth, especially for young children. Exposure to high levels of fluoride over many years can also contribute to bone disease.
Families with children younger than nine years who receive water from the Chilili Water Users Association are being encouraged to find an alternate source of water that is lower in fluoride and to consult their dentists about whether to avoid using dental products that contain fluoride.
Chilili isn’t the only water system that received a notice of violation about high levels of fluoride. The Lordsburg Water Supply System, which has been working for years to address fluoride, also received one on May 20.
Meanwhile, the Pojaque Terraces Mobile Home Park near Tesuque received a notice of violation in early May about high levels of uranium in its water system. The maximum contaminant level for uranium is 30 micrograms per liter. The running annual average for the mobile home park was 78 micrograms per liter during the first quarter of the year. High levels of uranium has been an ongoing challenge for Pojaque Terraces
A full list of drinking water systems that received notices of violation from the environment department can be found here.
Salmonella outbreak tied to eggs sickens dozens across 7 states — Associated Press
A salmonella outbreak linked to a large egg recall has made dozens of people sick in seven states in the West and Midwest, federal health officials said Saturday.
The August Egg Company recalled about 1.7 million brown organic and brown cage-free egg varieties distributed to grocery stores between February and May because of the potential for salmonella, according to a posted announcement Friday on the Food and Drug Administration's website.
At least 79 people in seven states have gotten a strain of salmonella that was linked to the eggs, and 21 people have been hospitalized. the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The recall covers Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington and Wyoming. A list of brands and plant codes or Julian dates can be found on the FDA and CDC websites.
Symptoms of salmonella poisoning include diarrhea, fever, severe vomiting, dehydration and stomach cramps. Most people who get sick recover within a week.
Infections can be severe in young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems, who may require hospitalization.
The CDC advises people to throw away recalled eggs or return them to the store where they were purchased. Consumers should also wash and disinfect any surfaces that came in contact with the eggs.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Homeland Security accelerates border wall construction in New Mexico and Arizona — Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
The U.S. government this week set aside environmental protection laws in order to speed up border wall construction along approximately 20 miles of New Mexico’s border with Mexico.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday signed a waiver of various federal laws to expedite border wall construction in southwestern New Mexico. She also signed two similar waivers for areas in neighboring Arizona on Tuesday and Thursday.
Taken together, the waivers allow the federal government to speed up construction of physical barriers and roads along approximately 36 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, the agency said in a news release on Thursday.
The waivers “ensure the expeditious construction of physical barriers and roads, by minimizing the risk of administrative delays,” DHS said.
The New Mexico waiver lifts the legal requirements of 24 separate federal statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, just to name a few.
“Trump is recklessly casting aside the foundational laws that protect endangered species and clean air and water to build a wildlife-killing wall through pristine wilderness,” Laiken Jordahl, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Source NM on Friday.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told Source NM on Friday in a statement that she has serious concerns about the waivers, saying they bypass protections for endangered species, cultural heritage sites and Native American artifacts.
“New Mexico’s archaeological resources and sensitive ecosystems could face permanent damage without proper environmental review,” Lujan Grisham said. “While we understand border security concerns, the federal government should engage with state officials before waiving decades of established environmental protections.”
The New Mexico waiver designates an area in southwestern New Mexico as “an area of high illegal entry,” divided into three sections.
The DHS news release states that the sections of the border where the laws have been waived total approximately 8.5 miles, but that figure is inaccurate, according to Jordahl, who has traveled to every part of the U.S.-Mexico border as part of his work.
“It is extremely frustrating how difficult they make these waivers to track,” he said. “Instead of using simple [latitude and longitude] coordinates, they pick landmarks that are almost impossible for the public to map. I believe they may have made an error in their locations in the waiver.”
One section starts at a point on the border just south of Antelope Wells in Hidalgo County and extends one-tenth of a mile east, according to International Boundary and Water Commission data. Jordahl told Source NM he found the same measurements using his own map of the border. This section is already walled off, and so DHS is likely adding another layer of wall, he said.
Another section begins at a point on the border just south of Wamels Draw, a valley in Luna County, and extends approximately 7.5 miles east. This section of the border already has vehicle barriers, but is not walled off yet, Jordahl said.
Building a border wall along this particular stretch would be the most environmentally damaging by far, Jordahl said, because it would threaten the movement and migration of Mexican gray wolves.
“We’ve seen Mexican gray wolves in this area; we’ve seen them cross the border,” he said. “We’ve also seen them push up against the border wall in New Mexico, wander along it for days and then ultimately have to turn around, being unable to cross.”
Jordahl said his organization’s focus lies on Arizona’s two waivers and potential wall construction, which would also threaten wildlife.
“Throwing taxpayer money away to wall off the Santa Cruz River and San Rafael Valley would be a death sentence for jaguars, ocelots and other wildlife in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands,” he said. “This is happening while border crossings are at the lowest level in decades. We’ll fight this disastrous project with everything we’ve got.”
The third section starts at a point on the border west of Santa Teresa and extends approximately 12.4 miles, over Mount Cristo Rey, to the Rio Grande near El Paso. This section already has older mesh border walls, and DHS may be installing newer walls there, Jordahl said.
The sections of the border described in the waiver lie in the same general area as the New Mexico National Defense Area, a newly created military buffer zone which the U.S. government is trying to use — along with novel criminal charges — to discourage people from crossing the border.
Gov. Lujan Grisham, in the statement provided to Source, urged meaningful consultation with state and local officials before the federal government begins construction that “could cause lasting harm to our communities and environment.”
“New Mexico’s natural and cultural resources deserve consideration in this process,” she said.
NM attorney general and two manufacturers cap diabetes drug costs in settlements — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Federal prosecutors this month charged fewer people for allegedly trespassing on the newly established military base along New Mexico’s border with Mexico, according to a Source New Mexico review of federal court records.
Over the last two months or so, 570 people have been charged for “unauthorized entry” into what is now effectively a military base along the border, Source’s review shows. On April 15, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the transfer of land from the Bureau of Land Management to the military, effectively making the 180-mile border New Mexico shares with Mexico into an extended military base tied to Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
Along with empowering the United States Army to patrol the border and temporarily detain people they found, the transfer exposed people arrested to a new criminal charge of unauthorized entry, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. The area transferred to the military is a little more than 400 square miles, minus state and private land, running roughly along the New Mexico Panhandle and south of Highway 9 before Hachita.
Prosecutors announced the new type of criminal charge in late April and began filing charging documents soon after, with as many as 58 people facing the new misdemeanors in a single day in early May.
But the charges quickly proved vulnerable to legal challenges based, partly, on whether people knew they were illegally entering a military base. The military has posted small warning signs in English and Spanish along the northern and southern borders of the so-called National Defense Area that entry is prohibited.
On May 14, a federal judge dismissed more than 100 of the charges, after federal public defenders raised the issue on behalf of their clients.
The dismissals coincided with a one-day dip in the number of unauthorized entry charges being brought, according to Source’s review. The number of daily charges picked up again before beginning to decline early this month.
Since May 30, just 11 people have been charged with unauthorized entry, according to federal filings.
The reason for the decrease is unclear, including whether it’s because fewer people are crossing or whether federal prosecutors have changed their strategy. Tessa Duberry, a spokesperson for the office, did not respond to a request for comment on the decrease.
In addition to the judge’s dismissals, the U.S. Attorney’s Office dismissed at least three of its own unauthorized entry charges due to confusion about where the boundaries of the NDA lie.
Meanwhile, the Army has warned hunters and hikers that they could be prosecuted if they enter the area, but per an informal agreement, ranchers can drive past the signs without issue as they tend to cattle they graze on former BLM land they lease in the NDA.
Public defenders are also challenging the charge in a couple of individual cases, including one instance in which the charging documents suggest the arrestee was picked up in Arizona, and another involving a citizen of Uzbekistan who, her attorneys argue, didn’t read or speak English or Spanish and therefore couldn’t have known she was entering a restricted area.
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) this week questioned Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll in a Congressional committee hearing, saying widespread confusion exists about who can enter the area and “where the boundaries of this military zone actually start and where they end.”
Driscoll said the Army would work on improving signage and communication with people in the area and members of Congress.
“The army is working incredibly hard with our soldiers to put out signage. We have taken it over recently,” he responded.