New Mexico Mercury

Wildfire: Private Rights vs. Public Safety

With two wildfires in the past couple of weeks, the East Mountain Area has already entered the heart of the long fire season. It will not end until the onset of the summer monsoon rains, usually in early July.

The early fires, at the Doc Long Picnic Area on the lower mountain and near Placitas on the west side, were both in the Sandias, both small and both quickly brought under control.  But even such minor events were enough to frighten residents and firefighters alike. The U.S. Forest Service says the Sandias have not had a major wildfire in a century and has a buildup of vegetation that could ignite at any time...

Provincial Matter, 5-4-2015

V.B. Price's weekly collection of observations and appreciations.

The One Book: Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything”

If you are planning to read a book this year I strongly suggest Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything. Climate change and global warming are real, tangible, and undeniable, the evidence is concrete, and it is planet-wide. The only serious question remaining is whether or not something can be done to slow or otherwise mitigate it in the face of powerful political opposition. This book reminds me of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed. The sounding of an alarm reflexively resisted by vested interests but of vital interest and value to everyone else...

A Return to Past Mistakes

Proposed In-Situ Leach mining of uranium in New Mexico touts new promises amidst a festering legacy.

Semolina

Semolina is a nearly 14,000 acre new proposed community in Southwest Bernco named for coarse, purified wheat middlings, a very romantic association, if I do say so.

If approved by the Bernco Commission, Semolina could maybe possibly potentially bring in 38,000 imaginary residents for 75,000 existentially deficient invisible jobs. Good deal and just in time.  These ghosts will bring their own water from wherever, so not to worry. The water thing is just a Trojan horse anyway, or a horse of another color, so back up your hard drive and get over it...

Provincial Matters, 4-20-2015

V.B. Price's weekly collection of observations and appreciations.

What kind of plant is “Santolina”?

The devil is in the details as Albuquerque and Bernalillo County grapple with the unfamiliar process and scale of Santolina.

Provincial Matters, 4-6-2015

V.B. Price's weekly collection of observations and appreciations.

Provincial Matters, 3-30-2015

V.B. Price's weekly collection of observations and appreciations.

Oil and gas industry ‘run amok’ on New Mexico’s highways

Route 285, which runs near our home south of Eldorado near Santa Fe, is a big part of my life.  Last week, my wife and I looked forward to traveling home on it from its southernmost point, a small Texas town called Sanderson, 20 miles from the Mexican border. We expected a beautiful drive through sparse cattle country. Instead, we found ourselves in a Western version of Mad Max meets Dante’s Inferno meets L.A. freeway at rush hour. The culprit: our oil and gas industry run amok...