Click here to send a thank-you note to Sens. Udall and Heinrich.

This permanent Wilderness designation will assure higher levels of protection for the landscapes, wildlife, archeological and historic resources located in these especially rough and fragile portions of the 486,000-acre Monument. The Wilderness designation doesn’t allow motorized vehicles and will have a more protective management plan than the rest of the monument and prevents most development in the designated area.

“After working with many groups, governments, agencies and legislators over the last several years to protect these lands with National Monument status, I see this effort to further protect large portions of the Monument with Wilderness designation as the insurance policy future generations need” said Ken Newtson, Public Lands chair of the Southern New Mexico Group of the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter and member of the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks Action Team.

Thank you for taking action and for all you do for New Mexico’s environment!

Featured photo by the Bureau of Land Management

Please tell Texas Parks and Wildlife to support wolf-reintroduction efforts

Imagine the return of the “grand opera of Texas” while sitting around the campfire, hearing howling wolves in the distance, heads upturned, singing at the night sky. Imagine, the return of the gray wolf.

With all the attention on wolf restoration elsewhere in the Southwest, many people are not aware that the last wild Mexican wolves in the U.S., before the species went extinct in the wild in the 1970s, were killed just north of Big Bend National Park in Texas.

The fact that Texas is not part of the plan for saving the species is unacceptable. People need to know about this if we are ever going to see the wolf return to Texas and conserve our natural heritage.

The El Paso Sierra Club group has launched a Return the Wolf to Texas educational initiative, and we need your help in sending letters of support to Texas Parks and Wildlife Executive Director Carter Smith.

Please act today to return the Mexican gray wolf to Texas

Texas needs to put wolf reintroduction on its conservation radar screen, and with your help we can make it happen.

Sincerely,

Rick LoBello, El Paso Group Executive Committee, ricklobello@gmail.com

P.S.: Be sure to take action today and share this petition on Facebook andTwitter!

To learn more about the work of the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter’s El Paso Group, visit our Facebook page.

Part I: Mapping the Threats

Date & time: June 30th, 2016 at 6:30pm
Location: Step Back Inn, 123 W. Aztec. Blvd., Aztec, NM 87410

Our featured speaker is Dr. Jordon Johnson of Mckinley Community PLACE MATTERS – NM Health Equity Partnership. He will discuss some of the health issues related to oil and gas development in the region, as well as his approach for addressing community impacts.

Following his presentation, there will be a demonstration of a new online “Oil and Gas Threat Map,” created by a coalition of groups.  The interactive tool shows what populations and schools are at most risk living near oil and gas facilities. You can preview the map online HERE.

Part II: How Oil & Gas Affects Your Health

Date & time: July 28th, 2016 at 6:30pm
Location: Step Back Inn, 123 W. Aztec. Blvd., Aztec, NM 87410

Join us for our second forum on the health impacts of oil and gas in the Four Corners area. Our featured speaker is Dr. Richard Grossman who is an OB/GYN with a Masters in Public Health. He will discuss how chemicals used in oil and gas operations affect health.

Part III: Navajo & Community Lead Opposition

Date & time: August 25th, 2016 at 6:30pm
Location: Step Back Inn, 123 W. Aztec. Blvd., Aztec, NM 87410

Join us for our final forum on the health impacts of oil and gas in the Four Corners area. Our featured speaker is Daniel Tso who is a Navajo Community Leader and member of the Chaco Coalition. He will discuss health impacts faced by communities living near fracking sites and share Navajo community lead efforts to address fracking in the greater Chaco region.

Contact for details or more information:

Miya King-Flaherty, 505-301-0863 | miya.king-flaherty@sierraclub.org
or
Alex Renirie, 925-989-6957 | alex.renirie@sierraclub.org

Featured photo by Bowie Snodgrass (Shiprock)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Peer-reviewed science shows that living near polluting oil and gas facilities is associated with negative health impacts, including fetal defects and respiratory ailments.

“The oil and gas industry is recklessly leaking millions of tons of methane pollution and toxic chemicals such as such as benzene, formaldehyde & ethylbenzene into the air, harming our health and speeding climate disruption,” said Camilla Feibelman, director of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club. “These industrial leaks are like an invisible oil spill happening every day. That pollution can have devastating health impacts on the communities surrounding oil and gas development.”

“In New Mexico, more than 145,608 people live in areas within a half-mile of oil and gas facilities that are associated with negative health impacts, including fetal defects and respiratory ailments. Doing nothing and continuing to put those people at risk is not acceptable,” said Dr. Mac Bowen. “Safeguards are urgently needed to protect the public from existing sources of methane and other air pollution. The Obama administration recently finalized the first national standard for new sources of methane pollution from the oil and gas industry, and we stand ready to work with them to finalize a standard for existing sources as well.”

The Oil and Gas Threat Map displays information about those living within half a mile of oil and gas facilities in New Mexico and other states (New Mexico: Total population at risk: 145,608. Total number of affected schools: 89).  Although scientific literature shows that health impacts are also associated at distances greater than 1/2 mile, we conservatively use the distance at which these impacts have been most clearly correlated.  The Oil and Gas Threat Map will also display data about the risk of increased cancer and respiratory health rates at the county level. In addition to the data that the Oil and Gas Threat Map presents, users can enter their own address to see if they live in a threat zone.

To access the map, visit http://oilandgasthreatmap.com/threat-map/new-mexico/

A webinar for citizens interested in learning more about the map will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 21. Those interested can register for the event at http://www.riograndesierraclub.org/find-oil-gas-puts-family-risk/

CONTACT: Camilla Feibelman, 505-715-8388, camilla.feibelman@sierraclub.org
For a recording of the webinar click here.  Click here to RSVP for community webinar at 7 p.m. June 21.

Map provided by oilandgasthreatmap.com

Click here to view the New Mexico map.

Peer-reviewed science shows that living near polluting oil and gas facilities is associated with negative health impacts, including fetal defects and respiratory ailments. The Oil and Gas Threat Map display data about the risk of increased cancer and respiratory health rates at the county level. In addition to the data that the Oil and Gas Threat Map presents, users can enter their own address to see if they live in a threat zone.

What: Learn about New Mexico’s oil and gas threat map and how close you might live to a polluting facility and what it might mean for your health.
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 21
Where: Please RSVP for New Mexico Oil and Gas Threat Map
Webinar: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/180755688861518083

Featured photo by Tod Baker

El Paso Sierra Club Executive Committee member Dr. John Walton will be leading an outing March 5-11, 2016 to Cedar Mesa in Utah.

The Spring Break adventure will include various hikes with short (30 degrees) elevation gains.

To sign up and for more information contact John Walton (915) 539-5797 walton@utep.edu.  The outing will be a return trip to Utah’s wonderful slickrock terrain. We will camp at several locations along Comb Ridge with daily hikes onto the slickrock. The ridge slopes at about 30 degrees then ends in an 800 foot cliff. Next we will camp and hike at Natural Bridges National Monument, Muley Point, and Garden of the Gods. A high clearance vehicle is necessary. This is a beautiful area with interesting rock formations, grand views, and multiple ruins.

Did you know that El Paso residents (No commercial business / contractors) can take trash, household hazardous waste, and bulky items to one of four public drop-off locations, known as Citizen Collection Stations, within the city. Trash is collected at the Citizen Collection Stations and then taken to the Greater El Paso Landfill for disposal. The Citizen Collection Stations also function as additional drop-off sites for recyclables, to complement the city’s curbside recycling program.

Not everything that you may want to throw away or recycle can be placed in your trash or blue recycle bins.  For example cooking oil, motor oil and other toxic liquids can be taken to Citizen Collection Stations.   You can also drop off electronics, tires and in the near future glass!

NO CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION MATERIAL ACCEPTED (includes household and commercial waste)

ACCEPTABLE ITEMS

PROHIBITED WASTE

• Commercial waste/debris
• Construction and demolition waste/debris (includes household and commercial)
• Dirt, rocks, roofing material
• Radioactive waste
• Industrial or agriculture waste
• Explosives/ammunition
• Business generated wastes
• Commercial hazardous waste

EL PASO:  December 6, 2015 — An unprecedented ceremony held at Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso commemorated the 80th anniversary of the first signed agreement between the United States and Mexico allowing for “the creation and operation of International Parks, Forests, and Wild Life Preserves along the United States-Mexican International Boundary.”  The Chamizal event was cosponsored by Forgotten Frontiers and the Greater Big Bend Coalition, in cooperation with the National Park Service.

On November 24, 1935, the United States and Mexico passed a joint resolution in El Paso creating an International Parks Commission to study “adjacent areas of outstanding scenic beauty on both sides of the International Boundary.”  The largest area under consideration was a project including the Big Bend of Texas and adjoining lands in the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila.

The Chamizal event marks the first-ever commemoration by the National Park Service of the 1935 El Paso conference.   Superintendent F. Gus Sanchez made park service history by reading an unpublished correspondence from President Truman to President of Mexico Manuel Avila Camacho–discovered in the National Archives by Forgotten Frontiers.  In April 1946, Truman called for the creation of the international park–on behalf of both himself and “the late President Roosevelt.”

The Lone Star Chapter supported the international park movement in the 1990s and now the El Paso Group of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club has initiated a new effort to help gain public support for a Big Bend International Park with Mexico.  The Sierra Club believes that establishing this park will initiate an international celebration of the successful effort by the United States and Mexico to protect, preserve, and restore the Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem.

If established today, the Big Bend International Park would preserve and restore 2.3 million acres of protected Chihuahuan desert.

The Chamizal National Memorial celebration also acknowledged the contributions of Albert W. Dorgan (1887-1985), a Rotarian and the first person to submit an international park development plan for Big Bend to the federal government.  Framed copies of two unknown international park maps–drafted by Dorgan in 1935 for President Roosevelt–were presented to Supt. Sanchez by Forgotten Frontiers cofounders Jason Abrams and Zach Abrams, who are reprinting these hand drawn color maps as part of a Kickstarter campaign titled “Forgotten Frontiers: Texas and the Battle for Big Bend National Park.”

Less than a third of the history of the Big Bend International Park is known to the public and Forgotten Frontiers cofounders Jason Abrams and Zach Abrams are planning a gorgeous, professionally designed, full color hardcover coffee table book revealing this unknown story not only in words, but through the eyes of those who witnessed the early years of the international park campaign firsthand.

The dream of an international park in Big Bend endures, and Greater Big Bend Coalition is circulating a change.org petition to make the Big Bend-Rio Bravo International Park a reality.  Details and a link to the petition are available at www.greaterbigbend.org.

El Paso – State Sen. José Rodríguez today announced his opposition to a proposal by El Paso Electric (EPE) that would create a new fee for customers who have solar panels installed on their homes as well as increase their rates by 24 percent. He urged the El Paso City Council to reject the proposal.

“I have long been an advocate for advancing public policy that incentivizes the growth of renewable sources of energy in Texas, including solar. To that end, I passed legislation in 2011 (S.B. 1910) that established solar net metering in EPE’s Texas service area,” Rodríguez said. “Consistent with that history, I cannot now remain silent when the utility’s current proposal may well undo the deliberate progress El Paso has made in truly realizing its potential as the ‘Sun City,’ a leader in solar energy for the rest of Texas.”

Solar energy is a growing field in El Paso, with nearly 300 customers added since August alone, bringing the number of households with rooftop power generation to nearly 800. Additionally, some builders in the area have begun to add solar panels as standard equipment on new affordable housing. This helps reduce a homeowner’s electric bill while also reducing the power load on the grid, which benefits everyone. It also promotes economic development with high-paying jobs.

The Senator outlined his opposition to the proposed increase in a letter to City Council; the Council will review EPE’s proposal targeting solar customers in early December. The proposal is part of a rate case in which the company seeks to raise overall residential rates by about 12 percent. It is based on the assertion that customers with rooftop solar energy generation burden the power grid because they require service from EPE during times when the sun is not as strong—in winter, or on cloudy days, for example. However, rooftop solar customers also lessen demand on the grid because they produce energy during the hottest times of year—in the summer, when the sun is shining during periods of peak demand.

“To be clear, I would not oppose charging solar customers in a different manner, provided that manner fairly and accurately accounted for a customer’s actual cost to EPE while also taking into account the value these customers add,” Rodríguez said. “However, at present, I do not think it’s appropriate to apply a steep demand charge, usually reserved for commercial actors, to a neighborhood home. This effectively punishes that customer for choosing to invest in solar.”