Trump Rollback Could Leave Waterways Vulnerable To Pollution- By Ellen Knickmeyer Associated Press
The Trump administration is ending federal protection for many of the nation's millions of miles of streams, arroyos and wetlands.
It's a sweeping environmental rollback that could leave the waterways more vulnerable to pollution from development, industry and farms. The new rule narrows the types of waterways that qualify for federal protection under the half-century-old Clean Water Act.
One of the biggest changes applies to so-called ephemeral waters - creeks and rivers that run only after rainfalls or snow melt. Such streams provide a majority of the water for some dry Western states, including New Mexico.
New Mexico officials have particular concerns given that the Rio Grande, which provides drinking water and irrigation supplies for millions of people in the Southwest and Mexico, depends largely on the types of intermittent streams, creeks and wetlands that could lose protection under the rule draft released earlier. The Rio Grande is one of North America's longest rivers.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called the new rule "an absolute disaster for the state's water resources.
Albuquerque Man Gets Life Prison Term For Heroin Trafficking – Associated Press
An Albuquerque man convicted of distributing heroin that resulted in the death of an 18-year-old addict in 2011 has been sentenced to life in federal prison.
Prosecutors say 36-year-old Raymond Moya was sentenced Thursday after being found guilty in May 2019 on two heroin trafficking offenses.
Moya was sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment on the heroin distribution not resulting in death charge with the sentence to run consecutive to a 72-month sentence previously imposed in another federal drug trafficking case in 2014.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment on the heroin distribution resulting in the death charge.
Moya was indicted in May 2015. At the time, Moya was serving a 72-month federal prison sentence for his conviction for committing a heroin trafficking crime in Albuquerque in November 2011.
Prosecutors say Cameron Weiss died from an overdose in August 2011, one day after buying heroin from Moya.
Moya faced a life prison sentence because of his status as a career offender with a criminal history that includes at least four prior felony convictions.
New Mexico Leads US In Pecan Production – Associated Press
The numbers are in and U.S. agricultural officials say New Mexico marked a record year of pecan production in 2019 to lead the nation.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported Thursday that production in the Southwest state topped out at more than 96 million pounds, up 6% from the previous year.
Georgia followed with 69 million pounds, but many trees there are still recovering from the effects of last year's Hurricane Michael. Hot, dry weather from late August through October also had negative effects on Georgia's yield.
Overall, the value of the nation's pecan crop totaled $469 million, up 14% from the previous season.
In New Mexico, pecans were worth just over $170 million in 2019, down 2 percent from the previous year. The average yield per acre in the state increased by 120 pounds to finish at 2,100 pounds.
Agricultural officials said yield nationwide also was up, with pecan producing states averaging nearly 670 pounds per acre.
Lawmakers May Lift Secrecy From State Financial Settlements - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
A proposal would force New Mexico state government to immediately disclose financial settlements that resolve accusations of wrongdoing by state officials.
It also would do away with a system that keeps those records sealed for at least six months. The proposal comes amid concerns that the current system led to secretive, unjustified payouts during the prior administration of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez.
The proposal was written by Republican Sen. Sander Rue of Albuquerque with support from Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
General Service Secretary Ken Ortiz says current secrecy provision appears to date back to legal claims against the state in aftermath the 1980 riot at a state penitentiary outside Santa Fe that left more than 30 inmates dead.
A related bill would ensure settlements continue to be published by future administrations on the state's Sunshine Portal, a clearinghouse for information about state contracts, salaries, budgets and income.
New Mexico County Looks At Closing Juvenile Detention Center – KOB-TV, Associated Press
A New Mexico county is considering shutting down its juvenile detention center because of a decrease in the detention population, officials said.
Santa Fe County is looking at the option as state officials say fewer teens are incarcerated before seeing a judge, KOB-TV reported Wednesday.
Santa Fe County Manager Katherine Miller plans to ask county commissioners for guidance concerning the facility, the station reported.
The county is not required to have a youth detention center, officials said
There are now 1,500 teens detained in the state, down from 10 years ago when there were more than 4,000, officials said.
There are currently six statewide detention centers, while Chaves, Taos and McKinley counties have shut down their juvenile detention facilities, officials said.
The average stay in detention facilities is less than three weeks. Last year, fewer than 150 juveniles were incarcerated in Santa Fe County, officials said.
The Santa Fe County facility faces frequent staff turnovers and vacancies, a lack of guaranteed revenue and aging facilities, the county manager said.
The facility's closure would save the county nearly $1.8 million per year, officials said.
Santa Fe officials have spoken to officials in San Juan and Bernalillo counties about the possibility of housing their juvenile detainees, officials said.
Schools, Other Beneficiaries To Get $1B From State Endowment – Associated Press
New Mexico schools and other beneficiaries will share more than $1 billion in funding from the state's permanent endowment funds.
The State Investment Council said Thursday the amount that will be distributed over the next fiscal year will be more than ever before. It also marks an increase of more than $60 million over the last year due to growth of the state's Land Grant and Severance Tax permanent funds.
State Investment Officer Steve Moise said record revenues from oil and gas production and strong investment returns over the past decade have turned the funds into a billion-dollar revenue generator for New Mexico.
Despite the current oil boom, finance officials in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's administration as well as some state lawmakers have cautioned about overspending.
Moise echoed some of those concerns, saying there will be a time when revenues flowing into the funds will diminish, making it more difficult to grow the investments.
New Mexico Minimum Wage Could Affect Medicaid Eligibility - Associated Press
Thousands of New Mexicans who are enrolled in the Medicaid program could end up losing their eligibility because of the recent increase in the state's minimum wage.
Starting Jan. 1, base pay rose to $9 an hour, marking the first in a series of increases in New Mexico's minimum wage that will top out at $12 an hour in 2023.
According to the state Human Services Department, the first bump up in the statewide minimum wage in more than a decade could affect the eligibility of an estimated 6,000 people. It wasn't immediately clear how many could be affected when it increases again in subsequent years.
New Mexico's Medicaid caseload stood at more than 827,000 individuals in November. That was essentially flat from October and down a half-percent from November 2018.
Lawmakers Assured Review Of Nuclear Weapons Work To Be Open - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Members of New Mexico's congressional delegation say they've been assured by U.S. officials that a review of a proposal to ramp up production of key components for the nation's nuclear arsenal will be open and transparent.
Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and Rep. Ben Ray Luján said in a joint statement to The Associated Press that they received assurances from federal officials that the review process also will include an opportunity for public comment.
The Democrats were briefed last week by federal officials after the National Nuclear Security Administration announced it did not need to do a more expansive nationwide review of the impacts of building plutonium cores at federal installations in New Mexico and South Carolina.
Watchdogs say the site-specific review planned for Los Alamos National Laboratory will fall short of what's needed for such a major undertaking.
The mission of producing the plutonium cores has been based at Los Alamos for years but none have been made since 2011 as the lab has been dogged by a string of safety problems and concerns about a lack of accountability.
New Mexico Confronts Backlog Of Wage-Theft Complaints - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
New Mexico is struggling to clear a backlog of about 1,900 complaints of wage theft linked to enforcement of the state's minimum wage law.
Workforce Solutions Secretary Bill McCamley on Wednesday urged legislators to fund two new staff positions to investigate complaints of employers failing to adequately pay low-wage laborers. Six investigators currently attend to complaints linked mostly to restaurants, nursing homes and agriculture.
Uninvestigated cases piled up during the past administration of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, said Gabriela Guzmán, staff attorney for the immigrant rights group Somos Un Pueblo Unido.
McCamley said he hopes to reduce the backlog to 800 cases before 2021 and to reduce the influx of claims through education seminars for employers and more opportunities for financial settlements between employers and workers.
Labor officials under the administration of Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who took office in January 2019, have fulfilled major provisions of a 2018 settlement negotiated by labor- and immigrant-rights groups. McCamley said his agency now provides non-English language services for wage-theft claims and accepts wage complaints in remote communities through a network of more than 20 offices.
GOP Leader Chides Lujan Grisham For Ignoring Oil In Speech - By Russell Contreras And Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
New Mexico's leading House Republican says he found it disrespectful that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham failed to mention the oil and gas industry in her State of the State speech.
GOP House Minority Leader James Townsend of Artesia said Tuesday the industry is providing record revenues to the state's coffers and will end up funding some of the Democrat's educational initiatives. He says the governor should have acknowledged that.
In her State of the State speech to mark the beginning of New Mexico's Legislative session, Lujan Grisham urged legislators to legalize recreational marijuana, underwrite tuition-free college for residents and boost spending on early childhood education amid efforts to improve economic opportunity in a state with the highest rate of poverty in the American West.
She also advocated teacher pay raises and new "cradle-to-career" investments in public education that include $74 million in new annual general fund spending for early childhood programs.
Lujan Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki says the governor throughout her first year in office has made it clear that she appreciates the state's oil and gas industry.
University Of New Mexico Asks Students To Vote On New Seal - KRQE-TV, Associated Press
New Mexico's largest university is asking students to help with picking a new school seal to replace one that had sparked protests.
KRQE-TV reported the University of New Mexico is allowing students to vote on five options. One has a howling Lobo and the Sandia Mountains in the background. Others have the names of the school around various designs.
The move comes after the University of New Mexico began looking for a new design for its official seal following protests from Native Americans over concerns about the seal that featured a sword-carrying Spanish conquistador and a rifle-toting frontiersman.
The Native American student groups Kiva Club and The Red Nation had been pressuring the university to drop the seal.
Since 2017, the university has used an interim seal. That seal is included among the options up for consideration.
According to the university, the seal is not a logo, but rather a mark used on official insignia, diplomas and other documents. University officials said the goal is to choose a design that reflects the academic mission of New Mexico's flagship institution or the school's history and future and the cultures that coexist within the state.
Netflix Announces New Mexico Investments Including New Film – Albuquerque Journal, Associated Press
Netflix Inc. has announced it is making additional investments in New Mexico including a jobs training program and the production of a new film.
The Albuquerque Journal reports the announcement comes one year after Netflix signed a deal to purchase Albuquerque Studios. Netflix says an upcoming original film starring Idris Elba and produced by Jay-Z will be made in New Mexico.
The project is expected to be filmed in and around Santa Fe County. Netflix also plans a partnership with NBCUniversal and the state of New Mexico to launch a training program for production jobs.
Netflix announced plans to purchase Albuquerque Studios in October 2018 and signed the deal in January 2019 for Netflix to spend $1 billion over a decade and add 1,000 jobs per year.
The state and city of Albuquerque contributed $10.4 million in Local Economic Development Act funds to secure the deal.
Netflix has spent more than $150 million qualified production in the state, used more than 2,000 production vendors and hired more than 1,600 cast and crew members during the last year, state officials said.
New Mexico Officials Urge Health Providers To Be Vigilant – Associated Press
New Mexico health officials on Wednesday urged doctors and other providers across the state to be proactive and vigilant as more than 500 cases of a new viral respiratory illness have been confirmed in China and elsewhere since an outbreak began last month.
State Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel said no cases have been detected in New Mexico, and cases are not expected to be directly imported into the state.
"However, our New Mexico's medical providers need to be attentive to every patient's travel history and symptoms," she said.
The illness comes from a newly identified type of coronavirus, which is a family of viruses that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses.
While originally thought to be spreading from animal-to-person, the New Mexico Health Department said limited person-to-person spread is happening and it's unclear how easily this virus spreads between people.
New Data Book Covers New Mexico Social, Health Statistics - Associated Press
The New Mexico Human Services Department has published a first-of-its-kind data book that summarizes the state's social, economic and health statistics.
Department officials say the book is designed to help with comparisons of national, state and county-level data.
Human Services Secretary David Scrase said the information can be used to identify the state's areas of greatest need.
The agency serves more than 1 million New Mexicans — or nearly half the state's population — through Medicaid, SNAP benefits, child support and other government assistance programs for low-income residents.
Enrollment maps that are part of the data book help illustrate the number of people served by major agency programs as well total program expenditures by county. Also included are maps that show enrollment among Native Americans.
There also are fact sheets that outline budget requests. For instance, the request for the next fiscal year is nearly $7.8 billion, with $1.2 billion of that from the state general fund. Nearly 85% of the agency's budget is funded by federal matching money from a variety of programs.
Officials said that over the last several years, the Human Services Department has managed its programs with little to no new general fund appropriations.
Environmentalists Worried About Gila Forest Management Plan - Associated Press
Some environmental groups are concerned that a proposed management plan for the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico falls short of protecting more than 3 million acres of mountains, hills and range land.
Forest officials recently released a draft of the plan, triggering a 90-day public comment period. Public meetings are being held over the next week.
Environmentalists and wilderness advocates contend the plan maintains the status quo for resource extraction and motorized recreation rather than establishing migration corridors for wildlife or imposing greater protections for the Gila River and its tributaries.
The plan recommends adding another 110,000 acres to the forest's wilderness inventory, but environmentalists say there are more areas within the forest's boundaries that are qualified for such a designation.
The Gila National Forest already holds a unique distinction as the home of the world's first designated wilderness.