New Mexico & El Paso
In a typical year, fewer than 10% of eligible Sierra Club members vote in the Board elections and the percentage has been declining. A minimum of 5% participation is required for elections to be valid, according to our bylaws. Please vote: it provides an opportunity for all members to have a say in the Sierra Club agenda and priorities.
On Friday February 21, Public Regulation Commission hearing examiners issued recommended decisions supporting allowing PNM to exit its ownership and operation of San Juan Generating Station coal-fired power plant and allowing bond sales to recover the remaining debt in the plant, along with recovery funds for workers and the surrounding Four Corners community.
The Rio Grande Chapter, in conjunction with Kirtland Air Force Base Outdoor Recreation has been offered the opportunity to convene a wilderness first aid course especially geared toward our members. This course includes both classroom and experiential learning techniques that make it fun and effective and no prior experience is required. This course is in high demand and typically fills-up months in advance.
Our Spanish-language outings program conducted 25 outings last year.
Oil and gas methane emissions are at an all-time high in the Permian and San Juan Basins. Childhood asthma has doubled since 2015 to almost 50,000 cases in the state, and billions of gallons of radioactive produced water from fracking operations are being injected into wells and held in impoundment ponds while the New Mexico Environment Department studies how to safely dispose of this new hazardous fluid. Northern New Mexico Group members Denise Fort and Teresa Seamster are members of the Environmental Public Health Network, with projects in water quality and community impacts planned for 2020.
By Terry Owen, Outings chair Jacques Cousteau famously said, “We only protect the things that we love,” and the Rio Grande chapter provides an abundance of opportunities for our members and non-members alike to fall in love with New Mexico’s wild
The Global Warming Express has been busier and bigger than ever this fall. By January we will have added new programs in Belen, Taos and Santa Fe and will have recruited five more mentors, in addition to our fall programs.
Southeast New Mexico has been targeted to become a Chernobyl wasteland! Our nation needs to constructively confront the radioactive waste our nuclear power plants are generating. We need a sound long-term disposal solution. There is not a need to ship waste to Southeast NM like Holtec is proposing, potentially getting stranded there forever.
As President Trump has circumvented Congress and diverted funds from other budget items to build his border wall, Sierra Club activists and attorneys have continued to stand up for our borderlands and families to stop the wall.
Why investing in carbon capture is wrong for PNM and wrong for the environment.