Two large fires sparked in the Albuquerque area hours apart from each other - Gillian Barkhurst and Nakayla McClelland, Albuquerque Journal
Two fires sent up smoke that could be seen for miles around Albuquerque on Wednesday—one at a warehouse in the middle of the city and a tire fire on the Pajarito Mesa.
The fire at the AA Events and Tents warehouse along Second NW, north of Interstate 40, resulted in two people being hospitalized.
Their condition was unknown, according to Lt. Jason Fejer, spokesperson for the Albuquerque Fire Rescue.
All lanes of Second, north of the I-40 frontage road, were closed as AFR fought the blaze. Fejer said the fire began just after 2 p.m., and the cause was under investigation.
Fejer said it looked to be an occupational fire that sparked within the warehouse, likely from someone welding. A majority of the black smoke wafting across the city came from plastic materials and other products inside the warehouse, he said.
“This was a deep-seated, well-involved fire, and we actually ran into some difficulties of firefighters becoming disoriented inside the structure,” Fejer said.
Parajito Mesa fire
Two hours after the fire sparked at the warehouse, another was reported in the middle of the Pajarito Mesa, south of the Metropolitan Detention Center.
William Harris, spokesperson for Bernalillo County Fire and Rescue, said they were still investigating the cause of the fire. He said firefighters believed hundreds of illegally dumped tires in the area were the source of the flames, which eventually spread to nearby brush.
“Unfortunately, we have a lot of illegal dumping out here, and eventually what we have is a fire,” Harris said.
Nobody was injured in the blaze.
State to cover costs of looming SNAP funding freeze for 460,000 residents - Dan Boyd and Cathy Cook, Albuquerque Journal
For at least 10 days and maybe longer, New Mexico plans to foot the expensive bill to avoid having 460,000 residents lose their food assistance benefits due to an ongoing federal government shutdown.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Wednesday she would tap a $30 million state contingency fund to continue covering food costs for residents enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for a 10-day period starting on Nov. 1.
The governor can legally spend money from the fund by issuing executive orders, something she’s done frequently this year in response to floods and wildfires around New Mexico.
Once the $30 million runs out, if the federal shutdown is still ongoing, the governor said she would consider calling lawmakers back to Santa Fe for a second special session. Legislators already met for a two-day special session this month that focused on crafting a state-level response to a federal budget bill.
“We’re going to choose feeding families over politics in New Mexico,” Lujan Grisham said during a news conference outside an Albuquerque grocery store that she frequented while raising her two daughters.
But she also acknowledged the state cannot cover the costs of SNAP in the long run.
“No state, including this one, can replace federal SNAP benefits,” Lujan Grisham said.
With the federal government shut down since Oct. 1 due to gridlock in Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to stop delivering November benefits despite a $5 billion contingency fund.
The total cost of providing SNAP benefits in New Mexico has been between $80 million and $90 million per month over the last year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. That equates to roughly $1 billion annually, or nearly 10% of the state’s budget.
Key legislators met this week with top staffers and budget officials from the governor’s administration to come up with the plan to respond to the looming SNAP delays.
The plan hinges on the state Health Care Authority, which operates the SNAP program on a day-to-day basis, using an existing state supplement program as a way to load recipients’ benefits directly onto their EBT cards, or benefit debit cards. Those cards can then be used at grocery stores.
If the governor does call a second special session, it could cost an estimated $255 million to continue funding SNAP benefits until the Legislature meets again in mid-January.
The state is unlikely to be reimbursed for any dollars it spends to keep SNAP benefits in place during the federal shutdown, though Lujan Grisham said the state’s congressional delegation would seek such reimbursement.
What’s at stake
More than 20% of state residents participate in the federal food assistance program, which provides an average of $310 per month for qualifying New Mexicans to buy groceries.
While local food banks have been preparing for a surge in demand and some restaurants have announced plans to provide free meals to children, food bank directors and legislators alike say the scale of the SNAP funding freeze means such efforts will likely not be enough to meet statewide hunger needs.
Of the 460,204 residents who qualified for SNAP benefits last month, a total of 169,448 — or about 36.8% — were children under age 18, according to state Health Care Authority data. An additional 51,498 were individuals age 65 or older.
New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, this week accused President Donald Trump’s administration of using the SNAP funding freeze as a negotiating tactic.
“We’re going to work like hell to protect our residents from what’s coming, but this is Trump’s doing and people need to know that,” Martínez said in an interview.
Martinez and other Democratic legislators also spoke at Wednesday’s news conference, which was attended by grocery store workers, food bank leaders and a gaggle of curious shoppers.
Lt. Gov. Howie Morales spoke at the news conference about having to use food stamps while growing up in Silver City due to his parents’ fluctuating income levels.
He also pushed back against criticism of SNAP recipients being lazy, saying such rhetoric is “anti-American.”
Food assistance a hot-button issue
Several members of New Mexico’s all-Democratic congressional delegation have pushed to keep SNAP funded during the federal government shutdown.
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., is leading a Democratic effort in the Senate and spoke alongside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., at a news conference on Wednesday.
“I come from a small farm. I know the difference of good soil and the bullshit that goes in it, and this is the bullshit,” Luján said as he held up a USDA plan from earlier in the year saying that USDA contingency funds could be used for SNAP during a shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., objected to a unanimous consent vote on Luján’s bill. It’s unclear if either Luján’s bill or a bill filed by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri will be considered for a vote before the shutdown ends.
Meanwhile, New Mexico Republicans have criticized members of the congressional delegation for refusing to vote for a GOP-backed plan to reopen the federal government.
Specifically, Senate Republican floor leader William Sharer of Farmington in a recent social media video accused Luján and fellow U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of putting “politics over people” with their votes in Washington, D.C.
But House Speaker Martínez said he supports their stance and urged them not to back down.
“My message to them is to keep up the pressure and keep the federal government accountable,” Martínez told the Journal. “At this point, they’re the only ones doing so.”
New Mexico starting cleanup for abandoned uranium mines, but says more funding needed - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
New Mexico environment officials told lawmakers Wednesday that efforts are underway to clean up pollution from a handful of uranium mining and petroleum sites, but said it will take more funding and decades to address the full scope of the problem.
Earlier this year, the legislature earmarked $20 million in one-time funds to clean up abandoned contaminated sites that did not otherwise qualify for state or federal funds.
During a presentation to legislators meeting in Artesia for the interim Water and Natural Resources Committee, state environment department officials said they’re on track to clean up three former uranium mines, along with petroleum pollution from both the Tucumcari Truck Terminal and the former Aerex Refinery in San Juan County.
However, one-time funds won’t address the whole problem, according to NMED Water Protection Division Deputy Director Kelsey Rader. In all, the environment department has identified 348 industrial sites with “suspected or known contamination” that pose risk to environmental and human health and have no responsible party for their cleanup. An “unknown number” of former dry cleaning sites that could pose further risks to groundwater also exist.
She said the conservative estimate to clean up sites is over $100 million.
“Really, that $100 million is going to go first to remediation to those sites that are ready to go, that are shovel-ready, that are project ready,” Rader said. “We can’t rule out, though, that there is going to be a chunk of that funding that is going to be spent, trying to figure out what the extent of some of the contamination is across the state.”
As for the one-year funds, NMED will use $2 million for the legal activity to investigate if any responsible parties exist to shoulder the cost. For the actual remediation, NMED said the state will use $6 million to truck out contaminated soil in spring 2026 from the two sites with petroleum pollution.
The remaining $12 million will be split between the clean up of three uranium mines near Grants: the Schmitt Decline Mine, Red Bluff No. 1 Mine and Moe No. 4 Mine.
Rep. Rod Montoya (R-Farmington) asked why the federal government isn’t paying for remediating the state’s uranium mines from decades past, noting that federal requests for nuclear power and weapons drove most mining in New Mexico through the 1990s.
NMED’s uranium mine reclamation coordinator Miori Harms said the federal Environmental Protection Agency has jurisdiction to clean them up, “but they lack the capacity so, in their prioritization, all of these neglected smaller mines fall off the radar. They focus their energy on the bigger issues, like the mills.” Harms noted the state only recently gained authority to clean up uranium mines itself.
Jury awards Albuquerque officers over $1 million in whistleblower suit against city - Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
Jurors awarded seven Albuquerque police officers a total of $1.085 million Tuesday in a case that stemmed from a 2023 police academy policy that required cadets to razor-shave their heads each morning.
The city of Albuquerque must pay $155,000 in damages to each officer, who alleged in a lawsuit that Albuquerque Police Department leaders retaliated against them after the son of a top APD commander was terminated from the police academy.
The verdict followed a seven-day trial in 2nd Judicial District Court before Judge Joshua Allison.
Levi Monagle, who represents the officers, said Albuquerque Police Department leaders “fabricated” hazing allegations against the officers who terminated the cadet.
“This case begins with a lie and ends with the erasure of that lie by some of the highest ranking members of the Albuquerque Police Department,” Monagle told jurors in closing arguments.
Attorneys for the city of Albuquerque responded that APD properly investigated a hazing incident in which the cadet was forced to shave his head in front of classmates, resulting in bleeding cuts to his head.
The attorneys argued that the case centered on an incident of harassment, not retaliation.
“The city takes those allegations seriously,” managing city attorney Catherine Gonzalez told jurors. “The city had a duty to investigate, and they did. They want us to punish the city for doing that.”
The whistleblower lawsuit alleged that APD leaders, including Chief Harold Medina, retaliated against the academy staff members following an Aug. 16, 2023, incident in which cadet Joshua Vega failed to razor-shave his head.
Vega, son of then-APD Cmdr. George Vega, was forced to shave his head in front of classmates in the academy gym while other cadets did exercises as a form of collective punishment.
Academy staff alleged that Joshua Vega lied about his failure to shave his head, which led to his termination from the academy the next day, followed by his prompt reinstatement to the academy.
Joshua Vega remains an APD officer. George Vega is now a deputy chief at APD.
Monagle told jurors that APD commanders retaliated against the training officers for sending an Aug. 24, 2023, letter to Chief Medina alleging nepotism and asking that they be restored as academy staff members.
In the letter, the officers said that Josh Vega was terminated because he admitted lying about shaving his head, which they said is a “class-one” violation in the academy handbook and punishable by termination.
The harassment investigation was “pretextual, which is a nice way of saying fabricated,” Monagle told jurors Tuesday. “This was constructed by the APD command staff to silence and discredit the academy staff for reporting Josh Vega for his dishonesty.”
Monagle asked jurors to award the officers $200,000 each for reassigning them to other departments at APD in retribution for sending the letter to Medina. Jurors sided with the officers but fell short of awarding them the total $1.4 million in damages that Monagle requested.
On Sept. 25, 2023, the seven officers received a letter from Medina notifying them that they were the targets of an investigation into “alleged inappropriate conduct, to possibly include hazing, toward a cadet,” the suit alleges.
Gonzalez told jurors the officers suffered no damage to their careers as a result of the verbal reprimand each received at the close of the investigation.
“They are asking for $200,000 because they were investigated, because the city had a duty to investigate,” she said. “They want you to feel sorry for them because they were investigated. They didn’t lose any pay. They didn’t get demoted. The evidence shows accountability, not retaliation.”
Gonzalez also said the officers have taken no responsibility for hazing a cadet.
“None of them have taken accountability for this,” Gonzalez told jurors. “They didn’t even have a smidge of empathy for the fact that maybe (Vega) did feel humiliated.”
Three of the officers who filed the lawsuit — Lisa Neil, Shane Treadaway and Steve Martinez — returned to work at the APD academy in January 2024.
The other plaintiffs in the suit are Tillery Stahr, Alix Emrich, James Jacoby and Kelsey Lueckenhoff.
Watchdog sues New Mexico Department of Public Safety over delays in release of records - Santa Fe New Mexican
A watchdog organization is suing the New Mexico Department of Public Safety.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the nonprofit New Mexico Foundation for Open Government claims the Department of Public Safety has routinely blocked the release of public records, leading to monthslong and in some cases, indefinite delays.
The department handles requests for New Mexico State Police records. It has argued in its denials or delays that such requests are excessively burdensome to fulfill or are tied to pending investigations.
The case was filed Tuesday in the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe.
The suit names three journalists from The Santa Fe New Mexican whose records requests have been delayed or otherwise obstructed by the Department of Public Safety.
The New Mexican reports the agency’s public records unit has only 10 full-time employees to address records requests: the records custodian leading the team, a supervisor, and eight coordinators digging up and processing records, including two who mainly focus on traffic citations.
The nonprofit's complaint seeks an injunction requiring the Department of Public Safety to comply with the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act in the future; an order directing the agency to satisfy all of the requests laid out in the suit; and other damages, costs and attorneys' fees.
The suit claims the Foundation for Open Government, multiple journalists and other members of the public have struggled to obtain records from the department.