Sierra County enacts 18-month data center moratorium
—Algernon D’Ammassa, Albuquerque Journal
Sierra County commissioners passed the latest local moratorium on data center development in a surprise move during Tuesday morning’s regular meeting.
The southern New Mexico community joins Santa Fe County and Socorro County in enacting a temporary moratorium to study the impacts of data centers in their community and assess how to regulate them. It comes as state lawmakers propose a statewide moratorium for consideration in the next legislative session.
The commissioners initially took up a resolution simply opposing the development of “large-scale data centers” within Sierra County, as details recently emerged of a proposed solar-powered data center at Spaceport America, which sits on state trust land in the county.
After hearing more than an hour of public comments, nearly all opposed to data centers in the community, Commissioner Sandy Jones proposed amending the resolution to include an 18-month moratorium, to which Commissioner Hank Hopkins avidly agreed. With Chairman Jim Paxon, all three commissioners voted to add the moratorium, a development that drew gasps and applause from the crowded meeting room.
The initial resolution reflected limits on how the county can regulate development at the spaceport, which sits on 18,000 acres leased through the State Land Office, as well as legal boundaries on local governments imposing restrictions that make economical development of private property unfeasible. As presented, the resolution simply expressed the commission’s opposition to such developments.
Although the resolution does not apply to activity on state land, the Green Data proposal at Spaceport America cannot move forward unless State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard approves a sublease. The office said last week no decision has been made, but that the commissioner “has serious concerns about the tremendous strain that some data centers put on water systems and other natural resources.” Garcia Richard, currently a candidate for lieutenant governor, is leaving the State Land Office at the end of the year.
Community organization in opposition to artificial intelligence-centered data centers has spread quickly in New Mexico since the rapid development of Project Jupiter, a hyperscale complex of data centers on private land in Santa Teresa that was first disclosed to the public in August 2025. The project began construction the following month after industrial revenue bonds and tax incentives were approved by Doña Ana County under ordinances approved before the project’s commitments to the county were even finalized.
Project Consequences, an informal group of residents across Sierra County, took form over the last month, after public records obtained by local resident Wil Troup revealed that Spaceport America had been in talks with developer Jason Bak of Green Data/Aetherion Inc. since 2021.
Sulome Anderson, a Monticello resident who is one of the group’s organizers, said Project Jupiter presented a lesson in how quickly data center developments can break ground, with much of the regulatory groundwork laid before the public is aware of it.
“We learned from that and I think Socorro also learned from that,” Anderson said during a break in the meeting. “I would rather jump the gun than miss the opportunity. I don't think there's any shame in anticipating these things because they're happening across the country, and the people who didn't know and waited too long or weren't aware are the people who are suffering the consequences.”
A petition circulated this month supporting a moratorium gathered 408 signatures.
Thirty people presented comments over 70 minutes, nearly all in opposition to data centers and emphasizing concerns about water resources in the Lower Rio Grande community and the need to support other sectors of the local economy.
An exception was Joan Baker of Los Lunas, representing U.A. Local 412, a union chapter representing pipefitters, plumbers and HVAC workers. “Sierra County has a high number of disaffected youth,” she said. “Once I come into town and I train them, where will they work? … I will be sending them to Santa Teresa, El Paso or Pecos, Texas. What do those three places have in common? They're building data centers.”
While many speakers expressed opposition to AI infrastructure in itself, others said Sierra County — where the Elephant Butte Reservoir earlier this month fell below 3% of capacity for the first time since 2018 and the region’s farmers are facing shorter allocations of water for irrigation — is simply not an appropriate location.
“The idea that these data centers are inevitable, or that they're crucial to our economy or our national security, is a fallacy,” Crystal Jones of Truth or Consequences said. “It is not crucial for us as people to have data centers or faster response times for (large language) models — and certainly not at the expense of clean water, air quality, utility prices and our quality of life.”
Commissioner Sandy Jones of Williamsburg, appointed last November following Commissioner Travis Day’s resignation, proposed an amendment adding the moratorium.
Jones expressed alarm over further stressing water resources and raised other questions, including whether data center development at the spaceport could affect the mission of neighboring White Sands Missile Range, from whose restricted airspace the spaceport benefits.
Meanwhile, Jones continued, “There are private lands out there of more than 22 acres that probably could be for sale,” with few means for the county to put the brakes on data center projects.
He said a moratorium would allow time both for the county to complete resource impact studies and allow time to see what regulatory actions the state Legislature pursues in the next two sessions, which will take place under a new administration as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham leaves office at the end of 2026.
The three commissioners agreed to the amendment and unanimously passed the resolution, delivering a move that was more than opponents had hoped for when the meeting began.
“That was a big shock to me,” Anderson said minutes after the vote. “I'm so grateful to our commissioners for doing that, all three of them. And I'm so proud of our community. I'm so proud of every single person, and I think that this will give us the time to nail down these issues.”
Paxon told the Journal after the meeting that his vote was decided by “the will of the people and a need for more information as to the scale of the facility and means of cooling and supplying electricity.” He continued, “The county will do or contract for some studies to find answers. The resolution just gives us time to do that.”
LANL nuke waste cleanup contractor's ex-employees allege safety lapses, retaliation
—Santa Fe New Mexican
People who worked for a contractor that did business with Los Alamos National Laboratory are accusing the contractor of unethical and illegal business practices.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that there are now 15 whistleblowers who have joined a pending lawsuit against the company called Newport News Nuclear-BWXT Los Alamos — commonly known as N3B.
Plaintiffs include the company’s former chief of staff, project managers and directors. They describe a culture of negligence, intimidation, and retaliation against employees. The suit also names N3B’s parent companies, the defense contractors Huntington Ingalls Industries and BWXT.
City of Santa Fe seeks info on missing $300K payment from Railyard Community Corp.
—Santa Fe New Mexican
The Santa Fe Railyard Community Corporation has a new executive director. Tunté Vigil started on the job last week. The nonprofit organization manages the city-owned Railyard District.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the Railyard Corporation and the City of Santa Fe remain in a disagreement over a situation wherein the city says that Railyard still owes the city $300,000.
Public Works Director Sam Burnett told The New Mexican the city was working toward a resolution of what might have been a “misunderstanding.”
Burnett says a deferred land acquisition payment of $300,600 was due March 31. Railyard Community Corp. board President Rosemary Romero, told the New Mexican the nonprofit is fully caught up on its payments to the city and actually might have overpaid.
The Railyard Community Corp. board fired former executive director Christine Robertson in February.
The New Mexican reports Robertson alleged in a lawsuit she was pressured by the board to sign off on financial documents she believed to contain inaccuracies. Romero has denied the allegations.
Carson National Forest lifts fire restrictions
—John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
Carson National Forest is dialing back fire restrictions in effect since the spring as it prepares to close the area around New Mexico’s tallest peak, where Taos Pueblo holds private tribal ceremonies each August.
Previous restrictions on smoking, campfires and other permissible forms of burning were rescinded at 6 a.m. Tuesday. The Forest Service cited “a decrease in overall fire danger from sustained monsoonal moisture, increased humidity and high public compliance.”
The order revokes Stage 2 fire restrictions enacted on June 30 and Stage 1 fire restrictions ordered on April 24, but the regulations could be reenacted at any time if conditions change.
National prohibitions on certain forms of burning remain in effect at all times, such as burning without a permit, discharging incendiary or tracer firearm ammunition and abandoning campfires before extinguishing them completely.
Gila National Forest also lifted Stage 2 fire restrictions on Monday, and the Bureau of Land Management Roswell Field Office rescinded restrictions in the Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area and its Rio Bonito acquired lands in Lincoln County on Friday.
Statewide fire restrictions on nonfederal, nontribal and nonmunicipal lands, however, remain in effect under the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.
Human activity remains the leading cause of wildfire, but firefighters are responding to an increased number of lightning-caused fires this summer as seasonal monsoon weather brings increased thunderstorms across the state.
Multiple small lightning-caused fires were reported in the Carson forest over the past week, but firefighters were able to contain them quickly due to rainfall and high humidity.
The Carson forest is also reminding the public of its annual closure of Wheeler Peak and three other nearby trails — Williams Lake, Wheeler Summit and Lost Lake — from Aug. 21- 28.
The Williams Lake basin, a popular summer hiking destination accessible from Taos Ski Valley, and the ridgeline from east of Taos Cone to Simpson Peak will also be closed next month.
Taos Pueblo uses the area for private tribal ceremonies each summer on and around the 13,167-foot peak, the highest point in New Mexico.
“We are fully committed to coordinating across jurisdictions with traditional communities, including those that require access to continue cultural practices that predate the Forest Service’s management of the area,” Forest Supervisor James Duran said. “I recognize the inconvenience this temporary closure brings to visitors and do appreciate their flexibility.”
Sandoval County commissioners to weigh $34.4M in bond asks, ethics overhaul and a new assessor Wednesday
—Sandoval Signpost
In Bernalillo, Sandoval County commissioners are scheduled to consider placing three General Obligation Bonds on November ballots at this Wednesday’s regular meeting.
The Sandoval Signpost reports that the measures would fund libraries, firefighter training and the county’s election resources.
All three items total more than $34 million. A public library bond would be $3.4 million, the bond for a new fire training facility would be $9 million, and a bond for a new Bureau of Elections building to securely store voting machines comes to about $22 million.
Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Sandoval County Commissioners is scheduled for 6 p-m in the Commission Chambers at 1500 Idalia Road in Bernalillo.
First of four Santa Fe Charter Review Commission engagement sessions happening Thursday
—Santa Fe New Mexican
This Thursday evening, the City of Santa Fe is hosting the first of four public meetings on the topic of potential updates to the city charter.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports residents will be asked for their perspectives on topics including the "roles and responsibilities" of the mayor and City Council, how the city's budget should be developed, whether the city should have a strategic plan and other topics.
The city’s Charter Review Commission will present a report to the city next year for potential inclusion on the November 2027 local election ballot.
The public input session is scheduled for 6 to 8 p-m Thursday at the National Education Association of New Mexico's building at 2007 Botulph Road. There will be three more such sessions in other parts of the city later this year.
As financial literacy expands, teachers head back to class — Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
It takes a good teacher to get a class full of high schoolers to care about their retirement savings.
As teachers gear up for the new school year, some of them are getting an education themselves. English, math, science and social studies teachers from across New Mexico are meeting at Albuquerque Public Schools’ southeast operations complex this week to attend seminars on how to teach financial literacy, and APS teachers will present their own lesson plans.
Almost two-thirds of New Mexico high school students must take a personal finance class to receive their diploma — financial literacy is now a graduation requirement in 56 of New Mexico’s 89 school districts. The upcoming school year will be the second that the course is required for students at APS.
“The single most important gift that we can give our children is to let them know they’re on their own,” Charlie Bergman, who teaches financial literacy at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, told the group of teachers. “You’ve got to figure out how to be smart with money.”
Bergman walked the group through the basics of passive income through savings and investments, using the teachers’ own pension plans as an example of appreciation.
“I would love for New Mexico over the next several years to become the recognized national leader in financial literacy,” he said.
As of October 2025, 30 states require a personal finance course for high school graduation, according to Next Gen Personal Finance, a group providing teaching materials on financial literacy.
“It’s really just kind of sweeping across the nation,” said Mandi Torrez, education reform director at the nonpartisan policy group Think New Mexico. Think New Mexico has lobbied lawmakers and school districts to require financial literacy since 2020, and co-sponsored the teacher conference at APS.
Though a 2024 legislative effort to make the course a requirement for all New Mexico high school students narrowly failed to pass, the class is now offered as an elective in every high school, Torrez said.
“We talk about chronic absenteeism and student engagement being such an issue. When students feel like what they’re learning is actually relevant to their lives, they’re going to get more out of it,” Torrez said. “It’s the practical learning that they’re asking for.”
Travis Crawley, a government and economics teacher at Volcano Vista High School in Albuquerque, said he hopes his students carry the lessons from the course with them into adulthood.
“The unfortunate part is the mistakes can be pretty costly,” Crawley said. “Getting yourself into credit problems or debt problems and lowering your credit score can have a pretty literal, costly impact on your life.”
Crawley said he often asks students to pick their dream college and plug the cost into a student loan calculator to see how much they might be paying back for the next 10 years.
“They’re usually blown away and really dejected by it,” he said.
Though it’s easy to get overwhelmed by how bleak the financial situation may be for many Americans, Crawley said he tries to teach students how to give themselves a head start through savings and investments.
“Here’s the really good benefit of it,” Crawley said. “Let me show you how to do it correctly, so you can be the winner from the system.”
Natalie Robbins covers education for the Journal. You can reach her at nrobbins@abqjournal.com.
Mental illness, substance abuse driving New Mexico’s high maternal mortality, new data shows — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Mental illness, particularly substance abuse, was the biggest contributing factor to 74 pregnancy-related deaths of New Mexico mothers between 2018 and 2023, according to new data presented Monday to a legislative health committee.
New Mexico Department of Health officials presented the most recent figures from the department’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee, a board tasked with investigating all deaths that occur during or within one year of pregnancy and recommending measures to prevent such deaths in the future.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New Mexico’s maternal mortality rate is well above the national average. Still, the new data shows that New Mexico’s pregnancy-related mortality rate has dropped precipitously since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, the state’s pregnancy related-mortality rate — was 149.6 per 100,000 live births. By 2023, however, the rate decreased by nearly 84% to just 24.2, according to the new data.
The rate the New Mexico Mortality Review Committee measures is the number of people who die due to pregnancy complications or from health conditions a pregnancy exacerbated.
The decline brought levels back to pre-pandemic rates. Nonetheless, the review committee noted that more than 97% of the 74 deaths in that six-year period were “preventable.”
The report identifies mental illness as the biggest factor underlying those deaths, a term that includes includes suicide, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other psychiatric illnesses.
Mental illness accounted for nearly 42% of the deaths, followed by infections at roughly 16% and heart-related illnesses and hemorrhages or other injuries that each caused approximately 10% of the deaths.
“Mental health conditions, especially substance use disorders, remain the most significant contributing factor to maternal mortality and the most common underlying cause of death,” NMDOH Chief Medical Officer Miranda Durham told lawmakers.
The review committee also determined that more than three-quarters of the patients who died in that period had no prenatal care or unknown prenatal care, according to the new data. Kevin Peine, executive director at the NMDOH’s Centers for Public Health, noted that the rate of deaths drops sharply even if patients receive prenatal care only in their first trimester.
“This drives home the point to me that access to prenatal care in the state is critical, and early prenatal care can be a driving factor towards some of those preventions,” he said.
Several Democratic lawmakers on the interim Health and Human Services Committee keyed in on the findings regarding lack of prenatal care and substance abuse to criticize Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 2025 order requiring state officials to take immediate custody of newborns with fetal alcohol syndrome or drug exposure.
Committee Chair Rep. Liz Thomson (D-Albuquerque) said she fears that mothers with drug addictions will opt out of prenatal care to avoid losing custody of their babies.
“That’s really scary to me, and something I think that we need to keep a close eye on,” she said.
State Sen. Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque) also said the report shows the state’s resources would be better placed supporting mothers and babies exposed to drugs, rather than separating them. The report recommended expanding post-birth support, conducting additional screenings and expanding services to high-risk families in the period right before and right after birth.
“Separating a newborn from a new mom is trauma in itself,” Lopez said. “If we’re willing to separate and take away, then what is the state not doing to assist and help these new moms?”
Michael Coleman, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s communications director, did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment Monday, though he recently told Source NM that the governor stands behind the directive.
“The governor believes safety is the top priority — and that means giving parents the space they need to recover, while making sure no baby is left in a home where exposure puts them at risk,” he said.
PNM, private equity firm extend merger deadline to mid-2027 after regulators deem stock sale illegal
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The parent company of New Mexico’s largest electricity provider and the private equity firm looking to acquire it are extending the deadline for their pending merger to mid-2027.
The announcement came weeks after state regulators found that TXNM Energy Inc., which owns PNM, and private equity firm Blackstone Infrastructure violated state law by conducting a $400 million stock sale in 2025 without first gaining approval from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. After the commission’s decision on the stock sale earlier this month, neither PNM nor Blackstone officials would say if they intended to continue pursuing the merger.
However, in a joint announcement Friday, officials for TXNM and Blackstone said they extended the deadline for the acquisition to May 31, 2027.
“We remain committed to our proposed partnership with Blackstone Infrastructure because it is critical to TXNM Energy’s long-term ability to provide clean, affordable and reliable power to the customers we serve,” TXNM Energy President and CEO Don Tarry said in a statement. “We appreciate the NMPRC’s careful review of this case and look forward to further demonstrating why this partnership will strengthen the grid, support long-term investment and deliver meaningful benefits for customers and communities across New Mexico and Texas.”
Officials with PNM and Blackstone had long said the deal adhered to state law and contended the pending $11.5 billion merger, first announced in 2025, presented an efficient way to quickly infuse much-needed cash into the state’s aging electric grid.
TXNM has taken out a $400 million loan to undo the 2025 stock sale, according to the joint announcement. The PRC also imposed $300,000 in penalties against the companies in its early July decision.
“Blackstone Infrastructure’s extension of our merger agreement is a sign of our commitment to continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders as we demonstrate the significant benefits of the proposed merger,” Sean Klimczak, global head of Blackstone Infrastructure, said in a statement.
Uranium mining pitch near Canjilon has locals on edge as feds say application still incomplete
—Santa Fe New Mexican
In northern Rio Arriba County, locals remain uneasy regarding a proposal from a Canadian mining company to conduct exploratory drilling north of Abiquiú.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that there is no timeline yet for the Forest Service to approve or reject Gamma Resources Ltd.’s application for a permit.
The Vancouver-based company has proposed drilling for uranium in the Carson National Forest near the community of Canjilon.
The New Mexican reports that the Carson National Forest has not yet received a completed plan of operations from the company, but would begin review of the proposal when the application is complete.
County commissioners in Rio Arriba County as well as Santa Fe County have voted to condemn the proposal.
Inmate dies at hospital after medical episode at county jail
—Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
An inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center died at a hospital Sunday, marking the jail’s eighth in-custody death of the year.
The man, James Gonzales, 45, was found in medical distress at 11:12 p.m. on Friday, six days after he was booked into jail, said MDC spokesperson Daniel Trujillo in a news release Monday. In response to the emergency, the jail’s staff and medical team rendered “successful life-saving measures.”
Approximately 35 minutes after his medical episode, Gonzales was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital where he died two days later.
According to the release, Gonzales had no next of kin.
Local authorities are investigating the jail death, including the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and MDC Office of Professional Standards. The New Mexico Office of the Medical Examiner will determine the official cause of Gonzales’ death.
Gonzales is the eighth inmate to die while incarcerated at MDC in 2026. The sixth and seventh were 18-year-old Derrick Benavidez and 36-year-old Julian Wilgress, who died within 48 hours of each other in late April. What caused their deaths is still under investigation and has not been publicly released.
