April 2015 Green Fire Times

News & Views

from the

S u s t ai n ab l e S o u t h w e s t

T he N ew M exico H ealth E quity P artnership A N et -Z ero P assive H ouse

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W ater C onservation in S anta F e U ranium C oncentrations in N ew M exico G roundwater C onnecting April 2015

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Northern New Mexico’s Largest Circulation Newspaper

Vol. 7 No. 4

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

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Vol. 7, No. 4 • April 2015 Issue No. 72 Publisher Green Fire Publishing, LLC

Skip Whitson

Associate Publisher

Barbara E. Brown

Editor-in-chief

Seth Roffman

Art Director

News & Views

from the

Sustainable Southwest

Winner of the Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Outstanding Educational Project

Contents

Anna C. Hansen, Dakini Design

The New Mexico Health Equity Partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Copy Editors Stephen Klinger Susan Clair

Uranium Workers at the Roundhouse . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 8

Webmaster: Karen Shepherd Contributing Writers

Drug Addiction: A Rising Scourge in Northern New Mexico . . .. . .. . .. . .. 11 Everyday Green: Are You a Nutritarian?. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .13

Consuelo Luz Aróstegui, María Gallegos, David Gaussoin, Susan Guyette, Jessica Jensen, Alejandro López, George Mandel, Quita Ortiz, Rachel Preston Prinz, Seth Roffman, Jinelle Scully, Bianca Sopoci-Belknap, Stephen Wiman

A New Generation of Sustainable Aging: A Net-Zero Passive House in Taos . . .. 16

Contributing Photographers

Acequias Are for Everybody. . . . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 20

Anna C. Hansen, Alejandro López, Seth Roffman, Elise Trott, Raven Wolfe

PUBLISHER’S ASSISTANTs Azlan White, Cisco Whitson-Brown

Advertising Sales

Solar Newsbites . . .. . .. . .. . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 18 Water Conservation Connects Santa Fe to Surrounding Communities . . .. . .. 19 Three Case Studies of Elevated Uranium Concentrations in Groundwater . . . . . 22 SF Community College Programs Offer Hands-On Experiences and Field Trips.

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Sustainable Santa Fe Update. . . . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 29

Skip Whitson 505.471.5177 skip@greenfiretimes.com

“Breaking Bueno” Transition Training in Albuquerque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Anna C. Hansen 505.982.0155 dakinidesign@newmexico.com

Sustainable Santa Fe Awards Announced. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 29

Robyn Montoya 505.692.4477 robyn.greenfiretimes@gmail.com Aurore Loranger, 505-699-0461 MistyMountainPanda@gmail.com Albuquerque: Shelley Shilvock, 505-492-5869, ShelleyShilvock@gmail.com

Remembering Carol Decker . . . . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 33 Newsbites . . .. . .. . .. . .. . ... . .. . .. . .. . .. 13, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, 28, 35 What’s Going On. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 38

Distribution

Barbara Brown, Susan Clair, Co-op Dist. Services, Nick García, Andy Otterstrom (Creative Couriers), Tony Rapatz, Wuilmer Rivera, Mark Schumann, Andrew Tafoya, Skip Whitson, John Woodie

Circulation: 30,000 copies Printed locally with 100% soy ink on 100% recycled, chlorine-free paper

Green Fire Times

c/o The Sun Companies P.O. Box 5588, SF, NM 87502-5588 505.471.5177 • info@greenfiretimes.com © 2015 Green Fire Publishing, LLC Green Fire Times provides useful information for community members, business people, students and visitors—anyone interested in discovering the wealth of opportunities and resources in the Southwest. In support of a more sustainable planet, topics covered range from green businesses, jobs, products, services, entrepreneurship, investing, design, building and energy—to native perspectives on history, arts & culture, ecotourism, education, sustainable agriculture, regional cuisine, water issues and the healing arts. To our publisher, a more sustainable planet also means maximizing environmental as well as personal health by minimizing consumption of meat and alcohol.

Green Fire Times is widely distributed throughout north-central New Mexico. Feedback, announcements, event listings, advertising and article submissions to be considered for publication are welcome.

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Santa Fe City Reservoir Under Construction

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cClure Reservoir is one of two municipal reservoirs in the Santa Fe Watershed that ser ves Santa Fe utility customers. It has a 3255 acre-foot capacity. When capacity is reached, excess water is captured by the downstream Nichols Reservoir. Water is treated at the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant.

McClure Reservoir is currently empty for a construction project to replace its intake structures, leaving Nichols Reservoir, which is 1/5 the capacity of McClure, to capture the 2015 run-off. Based on flow projections, Nichols is expected to be at full capacity by May. Photo of McClure Reservoir taken March 27, 2015. (See articles on Water Conservation on page 19)

COVER: Top of the Stalk, gouache on paper © Douglas Johnson Green Fire Times • April 2015

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The New Mexico Health Equity Partnership Collaboration in Support of Healthy Children, Families and Communities

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ealth doesn’t just happen as a result of visits to the doctor’s office, diet and exercise. Policy and planning decisions that shape where people live, work, learn and play impact quality of life, as well as physical, mental and spiritual well-being. In New Mexico, the quality of health of many individuals, as well as communities, can be traced to economic, environmental and social conditions that are deeply rooted in historical trauma and the pronounced imbalance of geographic resources.

The New Mexico Health Equity Partnership (NMHEP), funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Santa Fe Community Foundation, is working to strengthen the capacity of low-income New Mexico communities and communities of color to advocate for systemic and policy changes that address institutionalized inequities based upon race, class, gender and geography. The Partnership’s goal: healthy children, families and communities.

The NMHEP comprises local, state and national partners, including the National Collaborative for Health Equity, New Mexico Alliance of Health Councils, New Mexico Community Data Collaborative, New Mexico Department of Health– Health Promotion, Human Impact Partners and Con Alma Health Foundation– Healthy People, Healthy Places. The Partnership’s extended network includes a broad base of community members, advocacy groups, civic organizations, youth groups, faith-based organizations, nonprofits, legal service providers, universities and other educational entities, government agencies and other allies working closely

© Seth Roffman

The partners evaluate how a proposed plan, project or policy will affect community health if implemented.

L-R: The NMHEP team: Jessi Jensen, David Gaussoin, Jinelle Scully, María Gallegos

with NMHEP-affiliated organizations. NMHEP also recognizes that effective policy change must have the support of key decision makers, powerbrokers and other leaders.

Based on the belief that the solutions to New Mexico’s challenges lie within the resilient fabric of the state’s diverse communities, the NMHEP strives to create healthy conditions for families by actively engaging in advocacy that informs decision-making processes. NMHEP’s work is structured around three key efforts: • PLACE MATTERS (PM): national initiative of the National Collaborative for Health Equity. There are four PM teams in the New Mexico counties of Bernalillo, Doña Ana, McKinley and San Juan.

• New Mexico Tribal and Community Health Councils: Health councils work with communities to address important local health issues based on local health needs and resources.

• Health Impact Assessments (HIAs): There are 10 HIA teams in New Mexico.

HIAs are a structured process where NMHEP’s diverse partners come together to evaluate how a proposed plan, project or policy—in a variety of domains ranging from transportation to housing—will affect community health if implemented. Recommendations based on community knowledge, narratives and quantitative data are provided to inform and improve decision-making processes.

Community Informed Decision Making

NMHEP uses a unique, multi-stakeholder statewide approach tailored to grassroots community assets and need. This approach draws on the collective strengths of diverse partners and allies. Cross-sector relationships foster the leveraging of expertise and resources. Decisions are made collectively and transparently. The Partnership highly values cultural knowledge and engages communities by building on their assets to advocate for policy change. Groups directly affected by proposed policies and projects are afforded a seat at the table, so they can participate from planning to implementation. Community members directly impacted by health inequities hold active leadership roles.

Community Narratives

The following recent cases demonstrate how NMHEP’s partners are actively engaged in educational policy and advocacy in their communities to ensure that health is considered in decision-making processes. continued on page 8

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NM Health Equity continued from page 7 McKinley County: Looking Within – An HIA on Uranium Mining

Uranium Workers at the Roundhouse

McKinley Community PLACE MATTERS uses a health-equity lens to address environmental health disparities and explore how institutional racism and multigenerational trauma impact community health. Over the course of two years, great strides have been made in elevating community voices and concerns about the health impacts of the uranium legacy in the county.

© Seth Roffman (4)

The soon-to-be completed HIA took into consideration health impacts related to environmental contamination and pollution, relocation and displacement, community efficacy and cultural relevance of the land. During the recent state legislative session, McKinley Community PLACE MATTERS was one of the sponsors of Uranium Workers’ Day at the Roundhouse, organized to focus public attention on New Mexico’s uranium legacy. Over 200 people shared their stories, advocated for policy change, and spoke about the health impacts of uranium mining and milling.

San Miguel County: A Health Impact Assessment of the Proposed Northeast New Mexico Adult Reintegration Center

Communities in San Miguel, Mora and Guadalupe counties struggle with higher-than-average rates of unemployment, substance abuse, DWIs, poverty, lack of access to health care and other basic services. These conditions lead to higher incarceration and recidivism rates. The health inequities among those who end up incarcerated are especially apparent. In spite of these challenges, these communities demonstrate deep partnerships and embody diverse skill sets and strengths, resiliency and determination to come up with solutions.

San Miguel County Health Impact Assessment Team

In 2014, the San Miguel County Detention Center and its Citizen Advisory Committee, Las Vegas Peace and Justice Center, San Miguel County Family and Community Health Council, New Mexico Highlands University Foundation, NMHU School of Social Work students, community members who were formerly incarcerated, and other stakeholders, with assistance from Human Impact Partners and the NMHEP team, worked together to conduct an HIA on a proposed adultreintegration center in northeastern New Mexico. The assessment considered potential impacts of the proposed center on addiction, violence and recidivism.

The assessment process served as a mechanism to develop evidence-based recommendations for how the reintegration center should be implemented in order to improve health in northern New Mexico. The group’s report made it possible to effectively communicate with the San Miguel County Commission.

Proposed Lobos CO2 Pipeline HIA

Sometimes, the most unanticipated events can spur a group of previously nonaligned—and even adversarial—individuals and organizations to respond to a call to action and galvanize around an issue perceived as potentially harmful to all. Such is the case with the proposed Kinder Morgan Lobos CO2 pipeline.

The landowners and Manzano Land Grant heirs of a sparsely populated frontier county would be most impacted by the project.

It is a David-and-Goliath tale that pits the third-largest global corporation and continued on page 26

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Former uranium miners and workers and people from impacted communities held a press conference on Uranium Workers’ Day at the New Mexico State Capitol during the recent legislative session. They aired their concerns about continuing negative health and environmental effects of uranium mining. The event was sponsored by the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE), a coalition of 23 organizations.

In the state Legislature, Rep. Doreen Johnson (D-McKinley, San Juan) introduced House Memorial 70, calling for expanded compensation for all uranium workers through proposed amendments to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Rep. Georgene Louis (D-Bernalillo) introduced a memorial requesting a baseline health study in impacted communities. On the federal level, U.S. senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich have cosponsored reintroduction of U.S. Senate Bill 331, to amend RECA. U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján is cosponsoring a U.S. House companion bill. RECA is designed to assist those directly affected by work in uranium mines and those who were exposed to above-ground nuclear testing in the United States. The amendments seek to expand the eligibility to affected individuals in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. When RECA was first passed in 1990, it was limited to individuals in certain counties in Arizona, Colorado and Utah and it excluded uranium workers who worked after 1970.

Speakers at the New Mexico capitol included: Linda Evers, of the Post ’71 Uranium Workers Committee.

Evers, who lives in Milan, New Mexico, has been working for decades to gain fair compensation for uranium workers not covered under the current version of RECA. Larry King, a volunteer with Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining, who was working for United Nuclear Corporation in 1979 when the largest uranium tailings spill in the U.S. breached an earthen dam in Church Rock, spilling millions of gallons of radioactive tailings.

Edith Hood, a former mine worker, who lives between two massive uranium tailings piles in the Navajo Red Water Pond Road community.

Jordon Johnson, a coordinator for McKinley Community Place Matters.

Johnson has been working with community health agencies to study long-term health impacts of uranium exposure such as increased risk of hypertension and autoimmune diseases. Johnson says, “Research has documented that exposure to dust, gases, exhaust and fumes, as well as lack of protective clothing and safety measures, can result in nonmalignant and malignant respiratory diseases. The disastrous effects of uranium mining and milling are stressors for individuals and families.”

For more information, contact MASE: 505.577.8438 or susangordon@earthlink.net

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Drug Addiction: A Rising Scourge in Northern NM Criminal Problem or Health Crisis?

Consuelo Luz Aróstegui

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Santa Fe-born Melissa Santos, 39, is worried that, when her 24-year-old daughter, Yesenia, gets released from jail next week, she will relapse—or worse—because she has nowhere to go, she has no money or job, and she has lost custody of her two children to their fathers. Additionally, Melissa cannot allow her daughter in her home anymore because it creates an unhealthy enabling situation that has brought chaos into her and her family’s life. Melissa’s fears are exacerbated when Yesenia informs her on the phone from jail that an Española woman, who was released the week before, was found dead in an Albuquerque parking lot.

Poverty, cultural destruction and disempowered communities play a large role in the addiction epidemic in northern New Mexico.

Yesenia is a bright, articulate, talented young woman, with a powerful presence and shining eyes, who wants to change her life, go to school and make the world a better place, but the odds are against her. Natalie and Yesenia are two intelligent, vibrant women who were traumatized by events in their childhood and never received the vital therapy and counseling that could have helped them avoid their ill-fated choice to ease their pain with hard drugs.

Poverty, cultural destruction and disempowered communities play a large role in the addiction epidemic in northern New Mexico, as do the resulting rape, abuse, alcoholic and addicted parents, domestic violence and dysfunction, and mentalhealth issues that arise out of these traumas, although this last group of root causes knows no boundaries across the social spectrum. Wealthy families have tended to provide financially, so their addict family members don’t have to steal to support

© Alejandro López

t’s like they want you to fail,” Natalie Martínez says, her voice breaking as if trying to keep despair at bay. Natalie, a 35-year-old college-educated Santa Fean, recently released from her umpteenth jail stay, is clean and sober and trying to pull her life together. But, with a court-ordered monitoring bracelet that allows her only one hour outside of her mother’s home, she picks up her daughter from school and goes to the bank but does not have enough time to shop for groceries, let alone go to the doctor, therapist, support groups, or find a job and her own place to live. Natalie yearns to develop her writing skills and take responsibility for her life and her two kids, 13 and 9. Because her options for treatment and recovery are so limited and her probation requirements so restrictive, it is hard for her to remain optimistic.

Therapist Dr. Arturo Ornelas (l) with northern New Mexico community members battling substance abuse: an embrace to help strengthen their sense of connection to others.

their habits. They can also hire better lawyers to keep them out of jail, but even that class difference is breaking down as the drug epidemic spreads, and middleand upper-class families become more aware of the harm they are causing by their codependent enabling of the addict. In the end, drug addiction is a baffling disease because two people can be brought up in the same family under the same apparent conditions, and one will follow a healthy path while the other will turn to drugs.

But the key word here is disease. For the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s full definition of this disease, go to http://www.asam.org/for-the-public/definitionof-addiction.

Genetics, brain circuitry dysfunction, family environment, history of trauma, individual pathology, social stressors and lack of opportunities for cultural, human and spiritual connections can combine to manifest drug addiction. The consensus in the medical community is that without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and will likely result in disability or premature death.

© Seth Roffman

Some Local Programs and Resources HOT LINE: Toll free 1.855.662.7474, www.nmcrisisline.com DETOX Care Connection, 505.913.4350, Mats Detox Program, Albuquerque, 505.468.1555 TREATMENT Santa Fe Recovery Center, 505.471.4985, Hoy Recovery Program, Española, 505.852.2580 SOBER LIVING www.thelifeLink.org, includes counseling and case management, 505. 438.0010, www.oxfordhouse.org HOUSING St. Elizabeth’s Shelter—Sonrisa,2-year family transitional housing, 505.982.6611, Casa Familia Women & Family Shelter, 505.983.2042, Family Promises, 505.268.0331, www.familypromiseabq.org WOMEN’S SERVICES Crossroads for Women, 505.242.1010, www. crossroadsabq.org Maya’s Place, life skills, treatment, residential, reentry, 505.266.0110 NEW MEXICO HUMAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT, Behavioral Health Services Division, 505.476.9266 TWELVE-STEP PROGRAMS, Daily meetings, www.na.org for addicts Al-Anon, for family members of addicts and alcoholics, www.al-anon.org

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Wendy Johnson, medical director of La Familia Medical Center in Santa Fe, discusses drug overdose death rates in New Mexico at the Santa Fe Art Institute, March 2015

As chaplain and volunteer-services coordinator at the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility, Robert Ortiz’s life mission is to help the inmates see their worth and value, that they are not what society calls “criminal” and worthless. At the volunteer orientations he leads, he reminds us, “I would say 95 percent of the population at the facility are here because of drug-related causes, and many of them have had horrifically traumatic childhoods.” Ortiz believes our community would be better served if resources were diverted to treatment rather than punishment.

Yes, there are those for whom a stint in jail works to turn their lives around, but the vast majority are caught in the revolving door and vicious cycle of drug use, crime and jail, which goes on endlessly, creating wasted lives, parentless children, continued on page 12

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Drug Addiction

continued from page 11

mourning families, stretched county and state budgets and a U.S. prison population that has exceeded in number any in the history of the world and one that is disproportionately black and Hispanic.

In the year 2000, the government of Portugal, facing an out-of-control drug problem, convened panels of doctors, scientists and judges and agreed to follow their recommendations. The result was decriminalization of drugs, diversion of funds from criminal prosecution and imprisonment to excellent drug treatment and, most importantly, the inclusion of programs to reconnect addicts to their communities, such as subsidizing jobs or microloans, thus helping to overcome the stigma and the low self-esteem that prevents addicts and felons from reintegrating into society.

Fifteen years later in Portugal, injection drug use is down by 50 percent, all addiction is down, and overdoses and HIV transmission are also significantly lower.

Meanwhile, if there is an addict in your life who is expressing a desire to change, you can direct them to the programs and resources available locally. A few are listed on page 11. i Consuelo Luz Aróstegui is a Santa Fe musician, activist and writer whose life has been deeply affected by a family member’s drug addiction and who volunteers at the Santa Fe Detention Facility, leading support groups and creative writing workshops.

The names in this article were altered for anonymity.

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© Alejandro López

Johann Hari, author of a book on the history of the war on drugs, believes that the root cause of addiction is humans’ existential thirst for connection. This idea triggers excitement in Natalie and Yesenia, the two women introduced at the beginning of this article. It shifts their self-perception and motivates them to try hard to satisfy that thirst without the use of drugs and, in spite of the obstacles the criminal and court system puts up for them, not to mention the lack of therapeutic services and support programs. Maybe it’s time to follow the example of Portugal here in northern New Mexico, and shift our strategy to supporting their recovery efforts rather than sabotaging them.

EV ERY DA Y GREEN

Are You a Nu tritarian?

Susan Guyette and George Mandel

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nterested in vibrant health, lots of energy, less pain and a slim figure?

Now that we have your attention, here’s the simple solution: you can eat as much as you want, if your choices are nutrient-dense. A nutritarian eats lots of the maximum nutrient-rich foods.

The Bottom Line—Nutrition

While many diets are touted as the solution to losing weight and keeping it off, most are not healthy—truly— and can even be damaging. Avoid radical diets that do not follow a balance of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, meat or fish. Eating whole, unprocessed foods, drinking lots of water and exercising are the keys to a healthy body.

Avoiding sugars, alcohol and transfats—predominant in processed foods—is essential for maintaining intestinal health, absorbing nutrients and gaining the most from the food you eat. You have heard the expression,

You are what you absorb.

“You are what you eat.” It’s really a matter of, “You are what you absorb.”

In other words, a person can eat good foods, but if the intestines are wrecked f rom eating sugars or consuming alcohol, then the nutritious foods aren’t absorbed. So this is an overall program for eating well, absorbing well and feeling well.

A Local Superfood Example

Blue corn might well be considered a local superfood. Agribiz has developed modern varieties of yellow or white corn that contain up to 40 percent sugar and are lower in phytonutrients than the corn of several decades ago. We are fortunate in northern New Mexico to have ready

access to local blue corn, a sacred plant that is high in anthocyanins—with 30 times more antioxidant value than modern white corn.

In her book Eating on the Wild Side, Jo Robinson explains the nutritional benefits. One of the anthocyanins continued on page 14

Healthy Eating Guidelines May Align with Agricultural Policy

U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary recommendations, released every five years, may, for the first time, in addition to addressing calories, sugars, fats and sodium, take into consideration what constitutes a “sustainable diet,” how food is grown, and what is healthy for the environment. An advisory panel to the USDA and Health and Human Services (HHS) Department has been considering an approach that is “more health promoting and associated with lesser environmental impact than the current average U.S. diet.”

That may mean recommending that people consume more fruit, vegetables and other plant-based foods, and less meat and dairy, a perspective backed by a 2014 National Academy of Sciences study that evaluated greenhouse gases produced, nitrogen pollution of water, and the amount of water and land required for beef production. The panel’s draft report, released last month for public comment, cites many studies.

Miriam Nelson, professor of nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy at Tufts University, is one of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Council members. She said, “We need grazing animals, as they are important for the ecosystem. But Americans eat too much meat.” Nelson also said that since the dietary guidelines were first developed in 1980, providing access to safe, affordable, quality food has been a focus. She added, “A sustainable diet is essential and a key link to food security. Food security includes sustainable supply chains.”

A sustainable supply chain may require environmental and animal-welfare stewardship. The idea of the government including broader sustainability considerations as part of diet recommendations and integrating that approach into school lunch and federal eating programs has outraged the industrial agriculture, meat and dairy industries and those of like mind in Congress.

What are whole, unprocessed foods?

Whole foods look exactly like they do in nature, when picked. Processed food is any food that is altered from how it appears in nature; that includes highly refined flour—yes, that includes bread and pasta—and sugars and highly refined oils. Not all processed foods are bad for us. Healthy processing methods include smoking, drying, freezing, refrigeration and dehydration. But we should always be on the lookout for hidden sugar, sodium and fat. Look at the overall picture. It’s important to read the nutritional facts label. Food is a complex subject.

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In his new book, The End of Dieting, Joel Fuhrman, M.D., explains the basis of being a nutritarian—that it’s not the quantity of what we eat but rather the quality. Diet plans with an emphasis on processed foods and animal products are usually unhealthy.

Fuhrman’s new food pyramid suggests a diet of 90 percent daily calories from nutrient-dense whole, unprocessed plant foods, including leafy greens and nonstarchy vegetables. Leafy greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, chía, hemp seeds and flax seeds are the eight foods richest in anti-inflammatory and healing micronutrients.

The USDA and HHS departments will review the proposed changes to the dietary guidelines, then finalize and release them by the end of 2015. To read the report, visit www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015-scientific-report/

María Benítez Institute Partners with Healthy Kids/Healthy Communities

The María Benítez Institute for Spanish Arts (ISA), in partnership with the Santa Fe Public Schools, has joined the statewide Healthy Kids/Healthy Communities initiative. The program is designed to increase physical activity to support obesity prevention among vulnerable communities and to increase nutrition awareness. ISA is working with five elementary schools to teach 3rd-5th graders techniques, dances and guitar classes based on the long tradition of Spanish dance. Nearly 100 students from mostly Southside schools are participating in ISA after-school classes.

ISA is also utilizing the Department of Health’s Healthy Kids 5-2-1-0 Challenge curriculum. Students learn about healthy eating through experiencing Spanish, Mexican, Central American and South American cuisines. Chef José Rodríguez of La Boca and Chef Martín Ríos of Restaurant Martín will bring quality ingredients and food preparation demonstrations to classrooms.

All the partner schools will participate in the ISA’s performance on May 17 at 2 p.m. at the Santa Fe Performing Arts Theater, 1050 Old Pecos Trail. For tickets, visit www.institutespanisharts.org

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Everyday Green continued from page 13 in blue corn, a compound known as cyaniding-3-glucoside (CG3), has multiple health benefits. In studies, CG3 slowed the growth of colon cancer, blocked inflammation, lowered cholesterol and blood sugar and even reduced weight gain. White and yellow corn varieties have no anthocyanins and no CG3.

are more nutritionally dense, better satisfying your hunger. The broader the range of foods, the greater the range of nutrients gained. Locally grown foods are fresher than imported foods because of the loss of nutrients due to the additional time from farm to table.

A general rule to follow is, if it has a bar code—the sign of commercial processing—avoid the food. Eating organically is crucial. Because pesticides are hormone disruptors—think weight gain— avoiding GMOs (genetically modified organisms) is essential to your health. The added-expense excuse just doesn’t hold water. You can eat an organic, simplified, nutritious, whole-foods diet for the same price as a diet consisting of processed food, eating out, soft drinks and alcohol.

Factoring in the hidden costs, processed foods are actually very expensive.

Blue corn foods include tortillas, posole, tamales and atole for breakfast.

Look in the bulk bins of local natural food stores to find a wide variety of cornmeal and organic corn products.

ICF Warehouse Inc. (Formerly Reward Wall Systems of NM)

• NUDURA stocking distributor • Scaffold Bracing & Ancillary products • Same great service as always • Phone (505) 474-4389 • Visit: ICFWarehouseNM.com

Simplify and Carry Along

One of the key ways to avoid the fastfood temptation is to carry your food.

My recipe made from local indigenous foods is a good food for carrying with you, and it’s nutrient dense.

Blue Corn Cakes

Eat well. Eat locally. And be well. i

1 cup (C) blue corn meal ¼ C quinoa flour ½ C piñón nuts ½ C currants 1 teaspoon salt 1 egg, beaten ¼ C oil ½ C water

Susan Guyette, Ph.D., is of Métis heritage (Micmac Indian/Acadian French). She is a community planner specializing in cultural tourism, cultural centers, museums and native foods. She is the author of Sustainable Cultural To u r i s m : S m a l l Scale Solutions and Planning for Balanced Development and coauthor of Zen Birding: Connect in Nature. www.susanguyette.com

1. Grease or butter a large muffin pan.

2. Preheat oven to 350o.

3. Mix dry ingredients, and then add in the egg, oil, and water until dough is sticky.

4. Divide dough into 8 cakes, and pat down with fingers.

5. Bake 15 minutes or until solid in the middle.

6. Cool before removing from pan for best results.

George Mandel is a nationally certif ied Doctor of Oriental Medicine. He practices a wide range of healing modalities: acupuncture, detoxif ication, Reiki, Chinese and Japanese diagnostic techniques, pulse assessment, moxibustion, tuina (Chinese medical massage), herbal formulas and Chinese nutritional therapy. www. drgmandel.com

The answers to losing weight and feeling good are connected to knowing our place in nature. Wild and local foods

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A New Generation of Sustainable Aging Net-Zero-Energy Passive House Moves into Taos Senior Housing Community

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ongtime Taos residents Ross and Kristin Ulibarrí are looking to the future with their new, contemporary prairie-style Passive House, designed by the Santa Fe firm NEEDBASED, Inc. Sited within a senior cohousing community, their 3-bedroom/2-bath “TAOhouse” will allow the couple to actively enjoy the mountain town they love and live at home surrounded by engaged neighbors for decades to come.

The Ulibarrís have filled their life pursuing diverse business, educational and environmental endeavors. “Our house was built with our spirit of activism,” Ross Ulibarrí said. “We not only wanted a beautiful home; we were also interested in furthering sustainable housing by building a

cutting-edge home that can be used as an educational tool.”

Natural light spills through expanses of glass that frame majestic views of Taos Mountain and invite the outdoors inside. The house’s open-concept

The development of cohousing and retirement aspects along with zero-energy building is compelling. floor plan features earth-pigmented plaster walls, floor-to-ceiling bamboo cabinetry and stained-concrete floors.

A photovoltaic solar system, along with in-floor hydronic radiant heat, is employed. An energy-monitoring gauge allows monitoring of the house’s efficiency. TAOhouse is exceptionally well insulated, tightly built and fitted with high-performance windows.

It is one of only a handful of North American buildings to be certified by the Passive House Institute in Germany.

As a net-zero-energy building, on-site energy production zeroes-out its total energy use on an annual basis. This is accomplished by prioritizing conservation techniques— passive strategies—over complex mechanical systems that require active operation and maintenance.

“Mechanical systems cost money to repair and replace,” says Jonah Stanford, NEEDBASED’s principal, who has been board president of Passive House Institute U.S. and helped found Passive House New Mexico. “The fundamental performance of a Passive House is just based on physics and conservation,” Stanford explained. “It is more enduring and less expensive to conser ve energy than it is to create it.”

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

Extreme energy conservation is the foundational focus of the International Passive House Association’s building standard, a global vanguard of efficient design, demonstrating energy savings of more than 90 percent relative to conventional buildings.

The Ulibarrís are part of a burgeoning trend of homeowners who want the ability to live at home well into their old age. Their TAOh o u s e i n c o r p o r a t e s aging-in-place design, which increases a home’s flexibility— and thus usability—through the broadest range of ages, ambulatory abilities and life stages.

Social connectivity is an important aspect of successful aging-in-place design. A balanced relationship between public and private spaces

is an aspect of project planning that Stanford finds especially compelling; that is, how architecture and design can help create social sustainability by being sensitive to how people

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experience their homes and how the surrounding communities do, too.

Achieving these goals is largely dependent on the location. The Ulibarrís chose Valverde Commons (valverdecommons.com), a senior cohousing community, located a 15-minute walk from Taos’ historic plaza. Valverde Commons’ bylaws encourage sustainable building.

Twenty-eight home sites loosely ring a commonly held 4-acre meadow and border 10 acres of farmland, community gardens and public-access open space protected by a conservation easement that will never be developed.

Horses, cows and goats graze in nearby fields. Walking paths, just

steps beyond a patio wall, meander between the homes, serving to connect community buildings with the private spaces, creating opportunities for natural and healthy social exchange.

A common house—a cohousing standard—includes a kitchen and space for meals, classes and events. i For more information o n t h e Pa s s ive House, contact Jonah Stanford at 505.577.4295, Jonah@needbased. com or visit the North American Passive House Network website: www. aphnetwork.org or www.needbased.com

New Mexico Builders Create Water-Efficiency Rating System

The HERS (Home Energy Rating System) rating has become the standard across North America for measuring a home’s energy efficiency, where the lower the number, the more energy-efficient the home. A HERS index of zero would be a net-zero-energy home.

Another way to quantify a home’s efficiency is to evaluate its water use—obviously, an important consideration in an era of ever-growing scarcity. Reflecting Santa Fe’s national reputation as a leader in water conservation, experts from the Santa Fe Area Home Builders’ Association’s Green Building Council put up some of the seed money to design and develop a new mathematical model for measuring and scoring a home’s water-efficiency performance. They worked in association with Santa Fe Community College, Build Green New Mexico and the Green Building Coalition.

The Water Efficiency Rating System (WERS) is an easy-to-use software program that gives consumers and builders around the country a way to compare the water efficiency of homes. The WERS calculates typical water consumption based on various appliances’ and plumbing fixtures’ gallons-per-minute or per-flush rating and the level of household occupancy. Based on this information, fixtures can be installed that will reduce water usage while suiting particular needs. The WERS also encourages the use of rainwater and greywater for outdoor irrigation, as well as—with proper health and safety protocols—for indoor use.

The pilot WERS tool is being discussed with the EPA and others regarding a likely national release.

Kreger Achieves Passive House Certification

Architect/home builder Bob Kreger, of Kreger Design Build, has been building innovative homes for more than 30 years. After rigorous training, Kreger is now certified as both a Certified Passive House Consultant and a Certified Passive House Builder, one of only two people in New Mexico to attain both certifications.

Kreger, who is based in Santa Fe, plans to help make New Mexico a leader in the zero-energy home-building industry. His performance-driven design concepts artfully incorporate the Passive House standard (www.PHIUS.org).

The Passive House standard targets a minimum of an 80 percent reduction in heating and cooling costs. “This performance-driven design and building process provides durable value, enhanced comfort and common-sense aging-in-place strategies,” Kreger says. “A Passive House provides a costoptimal solution for energy and water savings over years of ownership.”

Kreger, who produced the first custom LEED-Platinum home in New Mexico in 2008, has also developed architecturally enhanced and insulated rainwater-storage units, called RainVessels, informed by the newly released WERS (Water Efficiency Rating Score) standard. www.KregerDesignBuild. com, www.Facebook.com/RainVessels

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Renewable Taos Project Wins RMI Invite

The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and its Electricity Innovation Lab (eLab) Accelerator have selected the Renewable Taos project to join teams from throughout the United States who are “…leading the most impactful and innovative projects at the distribution edge of the electricity system.” The teams are creating groundbreaking system solutions based on new utility-business models for building and distributing locally generated renewable energy. The 12 teams met at Sundance Mountain Resort, Utah, from March 23-26.

Renewable Taos Project’s successful application was based on establishing the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative (KCEC) service area as a new Energy Innovation District. Renewable Taos began working with RMI in 2014 to determine ways to supply Taos-area energy demands with renewables such as a locally operated microgrid that could produce income from solar power generation in excess of demands. Renewable Taos co-founder Bob Bresnahan said that the group’s work also involves policy and contract changes plus community outreach to dispel misinformation about costs, reliability and grid impacts of renewable energy.

Core team members are Luís Reyes, CEO of KCEC; Valerie Espinoza, New Mexico Public Regulation Commission; Andrew Gonzales, Town of Taos councilor; Jay P. Levine, Levine Mesa Web; and two other business and industry principals who have not yet been announced. Energy consultant Bill Brown is the team coordinator. http://renewabletaos.org, http://www.rmi.org/elab

Green Fire Times • April 2015

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solar NEWSBITEs SolarCity Arrives in New Mexico

SF County Approves Two PNM Solar Arrays

SolarCity has a unique business model. It requires no money down to install the systems and uses long-term financing that works like a power-purchase agreement.

Based on a person’s credit rating, the company provides direct 30-year loans at 4.5 percent interest, making the payments seem more like monthly electric bills.

Payments are based on the amount of energy the customer’s system produces. If the customer sells the home, the loan agreement can be transferred to the buyer.

SolarCity owns the PV panels it installs. The homeowner buys the power the panels generate. The customers own their solar system when their loan is repaid. Thousands of homes generating electricity make SolarCity itself a utility. The company says it can ensure customers electricity at 15 to 20 percent less per kilowatt-hour than the fossil fuel-fired utility companies offer.

T or C Developing New Energy Grid

One of the nation’s top solar-power providers, SolarCity, has begun taking orders in New Mexico. The company will design, install, maintain and finance residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces and surrounding areas. Additional locations are planned.

Brothers Lydon and Peter Rive, cousins of Tesla founder Elon Musk, launched SolarCity in California in 2006. Musk chairs SolarCity’s board. The company also installs charging stations for electric vehicles and is partnering with Tesla to test battery systems for storing solar energy. Last month, the company announced the launch of “GridLogic,” a microgrid product with built-in energy-storage capability using new lithium-ion Tesla batteries. Software-based monitoring and control systems help manage power flows between the panels and batteries, as well as manage the connection with the utility grid. GridLogic can operate either in conjunction with or independent of the grid during blackouts or natural disasters.

New Mexico is the 16th state where SolarCity is operating. The company intends to initially hire up to 50 employees in New Mexico for sales, installation and related jobs. www.solarcity.com

Positive Energy Solar Reflects Solar Business Boom

Electricity from rooftop solar systems is now less expensive than utility rates in 42 of the 50 largest cities in the United States. From 2009 to 2014, the average cost per watt for installed solar systems declined from $4.34 to $1.60. In 2014, according to data released by the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD), New Mexicans spent $30 million installing rooftop solar panels, $23 million of which went to labor. Since 2008, New Mexico residents and businesses have spent more than $134 million on rooftop solar.

The EMNRD has recognized Positive Energy Solar as the state’s leading residential installer. The company employs 80 people in Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe and added 30 new employees in 2014 alone. On March 26, the employee-owned company opened a new facility at 3600 Pan American Freeway NE in Albuquerque.

Positive Energy is also the largest certified Benefits Corporation (B Corp) in New Mexico. The B Corp distinction is earned for things such as providing good wages, benefits and growth opportunities for team members, and contributing to schools and nonprofits. www.positiveenergysolar.com

Sol Luna Solar Expands Territory

Sol Luna Solar is now offering residential and commercial solar-integration options in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos and surrounding areas. The company has secured U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant funding for rural businesses, thus allowing commercial adopters of solar to fast-track their return on investment with the combined value of state and federal tax credits, accelerated depreciation and a 25 percent USDA grant reimbursement on the cost of a solar system.

“The USDA offers an attractive renewable energy program, which has not been utilized due in part to the fact that most consumers are unaware it exists,” said Megan Johnson, Sol Luna Solar’s marketing manager.

Founded by Los Ebanistas, Inc., Sol Luna Solar is part of an organization that has served New Mexico clients for over 30 years. “Providing coverage to Albuquerque and Santa Fe is a natural progression, which has allowed our company to grow positively,” said Sol Luna Solar Vice President Mark Johnson. “We pride ourselves on being a debt-free company with strong supplier relationships. This has allowed us to pass more savings on to the customer.” www.sollunasolar.com

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On March 23, the Santa Fe County Commission unanimously approved PNM’s plan to build two solar projects that will generate a combined 15 megawatts. One of those projects, a 10 MW solar farm south of Santa Fe that will be visible from Interstate 25, will use 40,000 rotating solar-tracking panels set on about 75 acres. The other project will use 20,000 panels on a 40-acre site west of Santa Fe, off of Caja del Río Road. The commission approved that project despite a list of concerns raised by neighboring landowners Philip Baca and his son, Matthew Baca, related to archaeological, zoning and other issues. PNM expects the two projects, at a projected cost of $30 million, to be completed by the end of this year or early next year.

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, has purchased 6,100 solar panels to develop a new energy grid. Two firms, Affordable Solar and Array Technologies, Inc., are jointly developing the project. It is the first utility-scale project they have worked on together in New Mexico. Array Technologies makes solar trackers for national and international markets at a 50,000-square-foot facility in Albuquerque.

Xcel Adds Solar to Its New Mexico Portfolio

Xcel Energy has signed power-purchase agreements with affiliates of NextEra Energy Resources, which plans to build two solar farms near Roswell. Xcel spokesman Wes Reeves says that the cost of solar has come down, and tax incentives have helped make it more competitive with gas-fueled generation. Most of the utility’s renewable energy currently comes from wind generation. Through its subsidiary Southwestern Public Service Co., Xcel serves nearly 385,000 customers in New Mexico and Texas. The agreements require the approval of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission.

Plug.Solar App Wins SXSW Competition

Plug.Solar, an Albuquerque company, whose products use smart-grid technology to allow you to plug into electrical outlets to demand solar energy from the grid anywhere, has won a major business competition. In March, Plug.Solar won the Fallon Starterkit event at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. The event featured five entrepreneurs pitching their business plan to a panel of judges. Plug.Solar will now work closely with Fallon, a Minneapolis-based advertising group, to create a crowd-funding campaign. Plug.Solar is also a candidate to appear on the television show “Shark Tank.”

Plug.Solar offers a new app that allows users to demand solar to charge their smart phone. The company’s technology uses the system of solar credits utility companies accumulate from energy produced by solar farms and allows consumers to specify that they only use that solar power. Plug.Solar hopes to have its product ready to sell by the end of the year. The device is expected to cost between $30 and $50 for a year’s worth of solar energy. www.plug.solarT or C Developing New Energy Grid.

Making Solar Power More Affordable

One unintentional aspect of the green movement in relation to clean energy is that it tends to be tied to a well-educated middle- or upper middle class demographic.

Most low-income Americans have not acquired solar power because they simply can’t afford it. Many don’t own their homes, so they can’t have solar power systems installed on roofs they don’t control. This population could benefit from solar power because they would pay less for electricity. In fact, solar power systems in community gardens could provide free electricity for some small neighborhoods.

The George Washington University Solar Institute has released a new study called Bridging the Solar Income Gap. Below are some of the study’s recommendations: 1. Emerging community and shared solar policies are a particularly promising pathway to further low-income solar and should be adopted by more states.

2. More tools are needed to enhance credit, lower credit risk, and leverage private capital including: establishing a federal low-income green bank; expanding state credit enhancement programs; expanding on-bill repayment and commercial property assessed clean energy financing options.

3. Solar should be fully integrated into existing energy efficiency and energy assistance programs, including the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

4. Solar deployments in lower income communities will require utility partners, whether directed through state legislation, utility commissions, or induced through creative value propositions.

5. Substantial outreach and education will be necessary to reach lower income communities.

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Water Conservation Connects Santa Fe to Surrounding Communities © Anna C. Hansen

Quita Ortiz

T

he city of Santa Fe has led the nation in water conservation with one of the strongest, most comprehensive water-conservation ordinances. Years ago, the city strategically implemented a rate structure incentivizing utility customers to drastically reduce water consumption. Our building and landscape codes have also become smarter about water. Since the mid-1990s, the city’s efforts have resulted in significant reduction of per capita water use among residents. Successful as it has been, the Santa Fe Water Conservation Office is encouraging folks to reinforce their dedication to water-wise practices. Collectively, we can continue to weave the path of exemplary water conservation and cultivate a deeper awareness and appreciation for water.

Nichols Reservoir When you consider that the hottest and driest years on record took place in the past four years and that tree-ring data illustrate that our region has experienced long-term drought in the distant past, it becomes reasonable to assume that the wet periods of the ’80s and early ’90s were unusual outliers and are unlikely to return any time soon.

We lack certainty about future precipitation, but it’s probable that we’ll be plagued with long-term water scarcity. So it is up to us to manifest a deep devotion to water conservation by planting seeds of contagious thought in the minds of all Santa Feans about the true nature of how limited our water supply is.

Lowering your water bill shouldn’t be the sole motivator for conservation. How we view water is ultimately a human choice. Some perceive it as a commodity with an attached dollar value, while others are humbled by their recognition of water as a precious, life-giving resource worthy of reverence. Santa Fe has the power to demonstrate its support for wildlife habitat, river and watershed health, and surrounding agricultural communities by exercising water-efficient lifestyles.

Although the city’s utility customers have done quite well with respect to reducing per capita water use, making Santa Fe a national leader in water conservation, long-term water scarcity implores us to challenge ourselves to become even more water wise. i Quita Ortiz, a water conservation specialist with the city of Santa Fe Water Conservation Office, is a geographer with a background in Geographic Information System, acequias and New Mexico water resources. maortiz@santafenm.gov

NM’s Water Checking Account Overdrawn

In 2014 the Santa Fe area received about 9.5 inches of rain, 30 percent below normal.

February’s snowstorms helped lessen what was initially a rather grim outlook. However, overall water availability remains limited, and the cumulative effects of drought are extensive and evident. So, although city water managers are relieved by the muchneeded, late-season precipitation and expect to meet demands this year, it remains ever critical for Santa Feans to exercise mindfulness of daily water-conservation habits.

New Mexico is faced with a scarce and coveted water supply that must navigate a path of a broad geography to satisfy many uses. Even if blessed with ample snowpack in a given year, conservation is absolutely critical because its effects have far-reaching implications. For example, Santa Fe has one of the best farmers’ markets in the nation and also boasts many restaurants dedicated to serving local food. There is clearly an increasing demand to support these endeavors, so it’s important to note that our local food system is reliant upon water availability. So, conceivably, water conservation among city residents can help safeguard a supply for irrigation in surrounding acequia communities to sustain their rural livelihood and local agricultural production. These greenbelt regions also contribute to groundwater recharge and support a riparian corridor along rivers and streams, providing wildlife habitat.

Santa Fe is rooted in a larger cultural landscape, valued for its enriching experiences.

Surrounding scenic mountain ranges and irrigated valleys are part of the treasured features of the area. All of these regional characteristics that we take for granted owe their existence to water.

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Sam Fernald, director of the New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute, thinks that, if water were dollars and New Mexico a bank, the state’s checking account would be broke and digging into savings. “This situation is dangerously out of balance,” Fernald says. “We’ve been using our groundwater as a checking account. But, because of the drought and lack of surface water, the groundwater has not been recharging. So now we’re tapping into our reserves.”

Fernald made the comment at a news conference convened by the nonpartisan public-policy organization New Mexico First, requesting actions by state agencies in formulating water policy. Watershed restoration, brackish-water research, incentives for conservation and other policy priorities were discussed at a town hall that New Mexico First sponsored in Albuquerque last year. That event brought together more than 300 people from 31 counties, representing rural, urban and tribal interests.

Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Rainwater-Harvesting Pilot Project

Six applications have been selected from more than 100 individuals and businesses that applied to participate in the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority’s rainwater-harvesting pilot project. The project is part of the 2024 Water Conservation Plan Goal, which focuses on conserving water and lowering water bills by using stored rainwater, captured from rooftops, on landscapes. Rain barrels fill up quickly in storms. The project facilitates the installation of above- or below-ground cisterns and tanks that hold 1,000 gallons and are connected to an irrigation system.

The project is being presented in partnership with the New Mexico Water Collaborative, which, through donations, is paying some of the costs. Participants pay a fee based on a sliding scale according to household income. Based on information it gets from the program, the ABCWUA will launch a study to assess the feasibility of expanded rainwater-harvesting rebates and programs. For more information, visit www.abcwua.org or www.nmwatercollaborative.org

Green Fire Times • April 2015

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Acequias Are for Everybody

Rachel Preston Prinz

Some of the “lost” acequia water passes into the ground and finds its way into the aquifers.

The rains and snows that fall on the Rocky Mountains are the source. They flow as streams, pulverizing stone and leaves and wood, adding vitamins and minerals to the water as it carves its way through solid rock. Where the mountain joins the plain, almost a thousand years ago, the Puebloans built their communities. They were moving f rom a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled agricultural one, and they selected this place to build their village, partially because of the access to water afforded by such a stream. They paid attention to nature.

Beaver were abundant then, and maybe they learned from them that you could dam up a stream and save some water for later. And, in doing so, they created some of the earliest forms of irrigated agriculture in northern New Mexico.

they learned from the Moors, who learned it f rom the Romans, who learned it from the Greeks, Egyptians and Mesopotamians. The acequias we know derived from precedent ideas nearly 7,000 years old that were carried across four continents to get here. Most amazingly, we are but one branch on that enormous family tree.

Here, in the Hispanic villages, the acequias got their own day each year, at which time the men would clean and clear the ditches while the women would prepare a feast for the evening, when they came back together to celebrate another year of having access to the life-giving water.

The Americans that came 200 years ago often settled in the larger Hispanic towns on trade- and railroad routes, drawn there because of their sophisticated infrastructure. The only problem was, the traditional linear agricultural fields were often broken up into a patchwork of lots that people built fences around. And when they looked on the laterals and ditches starting to fall into disuse, it was easy to say, “I don’t have water rights, what’s in it for me?” But we know now that the value of the acequias is greater than that.

snow at the gauge at all, for the first time ever, or at least for as long as anyone alive could remember.

And yet, people keep coming to New Mexico and staying.

They drop great straws into our aquifers, taking water at unsustainable rates and, now, from Questa to Mora to Belen, wells are running dry because there is not enough water recharging the aquifers.

But what’s this got to do with acequias? Well, one of the interesting things about acequias is that an unlined ditch can lose up to 80 percent of its water. Some of that is lost to evaporation, which feeds the water cycle. Some is lost to too many trees and overgrowth. But some of the “lost” water passes into the ground and down through layers of rock and gravel and is scrubbed clean as it finds its way into the aquifers.

Working acequias promote local agriculture, access to water and flood control. They allow us to adapt to climatic variations, and they promote healthy ecosystems. If you look at a Our grandparents reminisce still about satellite image of New Mexico, the only the days of abundant snows in winter, green you will see is along the rivers, raging rivers in spring, fertile fields in streams and acequias. Ten feet or so summer and great harvests in fall. We on either side of the acequias, there are Further downstream in Hispanic all know that there is nowhere near as insects, birds, mammals, wildflowers, villages—some of which are now much snow feeding the cycle of life in fungi, trees and berries, which provide nearly 400 years old—they too chose New Mexico anymore. Recently, when a sense of place and beauty that we’d these places because of water, and they the mayordomos of Taos went up to otherwise not get. And healers trained built upon the older tradition. They the mountain in spring to check the in ancient traditions can wildcraft to designed acequias using surveying, snow gauge to see how much water harvest nuts, fruits, berries, leaves and agriculture and engineering, which they would have to allot, there was no roots to make medicines that address our health in sustainable th Taos’ Acequia de los Lovatos Celebrates its 300 Year ways.

In 1715, Gov. Flores Mogollón, in Santa Fe, received a letter concerning a petition for a land grant in the Taos Valley, submitted by Francisca Antonio Gijosa, the widow of Antonio Moya. The stipulation for receipt of the land grant was that it needed to be occupied as residence within six months.

On September 20, 1715, Taos Mayor Juan de la Mora Pineda wrote a letter of response to the governor that identified the boundaries of the land grant: south from the Camino del Medio going to Picuris, west to the black rocks, and east from the acequia, which was already in use, documented and identified as the Acequia de los Lovatos.

Celebrations are planned to celebrate this acequia’s history and impact on the community throughout the late spring. Look to upcoming publications for announcements.

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

The acequias were truly sustainable before sustainable was cool.

Being sustainable was necessary to survive. They worked then, and they can work again. Many of the acequias are completely overgrown and abandoned.

To restore them seems nearly impossible; they say there is not enough money

© Seth Roffman

T

hey would call the first irrigation ditch in each village the Acequia Madre, or Mother Ditch, as if the Hispanic settlers wanted to acknowledge the acequias as a source of life, of sustenance, and even the foundation of community.

and manpower. But we have the power to change it in our hands. Those ditches were built by the hard work of many people. It is said that the first ditch in New Mexico took 1,500 people to build. It will take the entire community to repair them, too. All we have to do is show up for work one weekend a year.

Then, we can share what we know, and we can align with the coalitions working to protect the acequias and approach lawmakers—at local, state and national levels—and ask for laws and policies that ensure that the acequias are included as part of an overall water-management plan.

We can look to the past and honor that rich history and then look to the present and the future. We can take a lesson from the Native Americans and think about access to water for those born seven generations from now, so that our grandchildren’s grandchildren can look to their working Acequia Madre—their Mother Ditch—and they can know that water is the source of life, of sustenance and of community.

And the bonus is, by approaching the acequias as a part of how we perceive sustainable community, we put ourselves on the path to become one.i Rachel Preston Prinz is an architectural researcher and preservationist. Her newly released book is Hacking the Earthship: In Search of an EarthShelter That Works for Everybody. Archinia.com

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Museum of the Acequia Interest Sought

Acequias are beautiful, functional and fragile systems integral to northern New Mexico’s past and vital to our future. They are glistening examples of time-tested, sustainable water management that not only provide water for agriculture but also allow us to directly engage with our environment.

Communities that developed around acequias—their history, customs, legends and laws—are unique to the Hispanic world.

Celebrating their rich history, as well as their contemporary role in protecting Earth’s natural water cycles, fosters a public more informed about how we all benefit from the acequias, which leads to their preservation.

Taos entrepreneur Mary Domito and some friends came up with the idea of starting a Museum of the Acequia (MOTA) in Taos, to tell the story of these important resources. The vision of a modern repository for preservation and interpretation of historic, acequia-related artifacts and research includes year-round programming for local residents and schools, as well as an attraction for Taos’ many ecotourists. The educational offerings would bring direct exposure and support to the functioning acequia systems irrigating more than 25,000 acres of the Taos Valley. With multiple oral-history and living-history opportunities that could be led by parciantes and mayordomos, as well as modern botanists, healers, landscape architects and designers, the possibilities for how this museum could protect, preserve and promote the use and preservation of our acequias are limited only by our imaginations.

This proposal announcement is offered here to help the MOTA team measure public sentiment for this project. If sufficient support is evident, subsequent efforts will require the setup of a more formal group structure and professional leadership. If you are interested in supporting this effort with your time, funding or expertise, contact Mary Domito at taosmary@gmail.com or Paul Figueroa at pcf1947@yahoo.com

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

21

Three Case Studies of Elevated Uranium Concentrations in Groundwater

Stephen Wiman, Ph.D. Introduction

T

he mention of dissolved uranium in drinking water supplies brings to mind its most infamous use: enrichment for producing nuclear devices.That is particularly true in northern New Mexico because of Santa Fe’s geographic proximity—about 23 miles, straight-line distance—to Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL), which was founded in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project and for the express purpose of building the atomic bomb. This paper presents the results of several technical projects in which my company has participated with LANL and New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) scientists to characterize the distribution of uranium in this area, efforts to differentiate naturally occurring uranium from anthropogenic (man-made) occurrences, characterization of an area with multiple sources of natural uranium and uranium uptake in garden vegetables.

More than half the wells tested in the Santa Fe and Española areas contain concentrations in excess of the drinking-water health standard.

The uranium forensic work may be applied to other areas where anthropogenic uranium might be present in conjunction with natural uranium—such as at the abandoned nuclear-production facility at Rocky Flats, west of Denver, Colo.—or where uranium mining has occurred and uranium-rich tailings may be redeposited by surface runoff or by subsurface water movement in shallow aquifers, as well as human involvement in the movement of uranium. A recent example is radioactive leakage from a storage drum in an underground limestone cavern developed by the U.S. Department of Energy near Carlsbad, New Mexico. That anthropogenic uranium was transported by truck from LANL and placed for storage in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility. Because we live in the shadow of nuclear production in northern New Mexico and also happen to have natural uranium derived from several sources, many consumers want to know the origin of the uranium in their water and how we know that it did not originate at LANL.

Health effects of uranium and remediation options

For information about the toxicology of uranium, which varies primarily with the type of exposure, the reader is referred to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and specifically the ATSDR website on uranium. According to the CDC, most uranium dissolved in water is eliminated from the body, but a small amount can be absorbed into the bloodstream and carried to organs. The CDC identifies the kidney as the organ of greatest risk from uranium ingested in water.

Most residents associate uranium risk with its radiation properties, but the CDC downplays the risk of acquiring cancer from uranium radioactivity other than by increasing the overall risk of developing cancer over a lifetime. Customer reactions to the presence of uranium in drinking-water supplies range from acceptance to panic, particularly from residents who have recently moved to this area and appreciate our geographic proximity to LANL. It is not uncommon for customers to request a quote for whole-house uranium removal, even when labtested concentrations are below the MCL.

What is uranium?

Uranium is a radioactive element that is naturally present in nearly all rocks, soils and air. It can be redistributed in the environment through wind and water erosion and can be released through volcanic eruptions. Natural uranium is a mixture of three isotopes: U-234, U-235 and U-238. The most common is U-238, constituting over 99 percent of natural uranium. All three isotopes behave the same chemically, but they have different radioactive properties (ATSDR [Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry] ToxFAQs™ for Uranium).

The U.S. EPA has set a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for (total) uranium at 0.030 mg/L (30µg/L, micrograms per liter or ppb). Figure 1 is an illustration of how the agency’s MCLs for arsenic, fluoride, nitrate and uranium—the four most common health-risk constituents in local groundwater—compare with the commonly more protective standards in other developed countries. These MCLs are not the most protective of human health—and especially so for uranium—but, rather, are established to balance human health-risk considerations with the costs to achieve compliance, bearing in mind that many small public water systems are financially challenged. Because of the high cost of uranium remediation, most smaller public systems in this geographic area are noncompliant for uranium.

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

Figure 2. Constituents found in northern New Mexico groundwater and the efficacy of membrane filtration in remediation

Figure 2 is an illustration of the constituents that commonly occur in local groundwater, illustrated in relative scale proportional to their molecular weight.

The diagram also indicates whether individual constituents are classified by the U.S. EPA under either national primary drinking-water regulations (MCLs) or secondary regulations, that is, cosmetic and aesthetic effects. Constituents are also color coded as to the percent reduction expected by membrane filtration, according to the Water Quality Association. This diagram has been particularly useful in explaining which contaminants may exist in local groundwater and, to a lesser extent, in our municipal water supply, to which the contribution of city wells ranges from 20-40 percent per year.

Uranium is a relatively large molecule, easily removed from drinking water with an under-counter reverse osmosis (RO) or nanofiltration drinking-water system.

The state-of-the-art Buckman Direct Diversion system (http://bddproject. org/), the local water-treatment facility that came online in 2011, extracts and treats surface water from the Río Grande,

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including Colorado River Basin water from the San Juan-Chama Project, and filters it down to only 0.1 micron. When customers compare the removal capabilities of RO and nanofiltration membrane filtration, membrane filtration drinking-water systems are very seductive (see Figure 2). But when customers seek point of entry (POE) or whole-house solutions, the recommended option for uranium remediation is adsorption media.

For many well customers, whole-house RO is widely used because there are also a multitude of other contaminants, including iron, manganese, silica, high hardness and high TDS (total dissolved solids). The secret to success with membrane systems lies in specifying the pretreatment array to match the water-chemistry parameters.

A current lab test, or a waiver, is always required prior to specifying treatment for a private well. But unless other constituents in the lab test indicate that membrane filtration is warranted, the recommendation is for adsorption over whole-house membrane filtration because of the initial and maintenance costs of RO systems and the requisite pretreatment system(s).

Case study 1: natural or man-made?

From participation in regional testing programs and from collecting lab tests for clients, it is clear that the highest concentration of elevated uranium levels occurs in wells along the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains east of Santa Fe. But elevated uranium levels are not confined to the foothills area and, despite public presentations, published articles and newspaper columns on the subject, at least half of local residents assume that elevated levels of uranium in local groundwater originate at LANL—never mind the geologic impossibility of conveying it through aquifers that are not stratigraphically connected.

Occurrences of uranium in groundwater on the 25,000-acre LANL property itself are very well documented and clearly associated with nuclear production activities during and after the Manhattan Project. But is anthropogenic uranium found outside LANL and on the opposite (eastern) side of the Río Grande? Several parties interested in answering this question put together a research project to use the latest technology, plus redundant sample testing, to replicate the results of a 1995 NMED investigation in which the authors concluded that the uranium in rocks and groundwater east of the Río Grande—in the Santa Fe-Española area—is naturally occurring. The well waters contained U-234 to U-238 ratios that were consistent with natural geologic uranium.

The maximum contaminant levels balance human health risks with the costs to achieve compliance.

Wells known to have a wide range of uranium concentrations from previous testing were selected. One method used to distinguish between natural and man-made uranium is to test water for its different isotopes. The uranium isotopes U-234, U-235 and U-238 are naturally occurring, but U-236 is a man-made isotope that does not occur in nature. The ratios of natural isotopes and the presence or absence of U-236 can be used to fingerprint sources of uranium. A technical proposal was put forth and financing secured for this uranium-isotope work through the New Mexico Small Business Assistance (NMSBA) program at LANL. Thirteen wells from Santa Fe north to Española were sampled and analyzed by the New Mexico Scientific Laboratory Division—the sole public health, environmental and drug laboratory for New Mexico—and by two different water-testing labs at LANL. There was close agreement of test results among the three labs. Uranium concentrations ranged from nine to 776 ppb. Ratios of U-234 to U-238 confirmed naturally occurring ratios. Ratios of U-235 to U-238 also were consistent with natural geologic sources.

Anthropogenic U-236 was not detected in any sample; there is no reason to believe that the elevated uranium levels in the wells was man-made or originated at LANL.

Case study 2: explaining elevated uranium levels concentrated around Nambé

It has been known by geologists for decades that sandstone outcrops in the Santa Fe and Española areas contain levels of uranium sufficient to set off a Geiger counter (see Figure 3). The orange, yellow and brown mineral coatings on sand grains are not rich enough to be mined at the present time, but virtually all water wells in the area contain detectable uranium. More than half the wells tested in that area contain uranium continued on page 24

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New EPA Storm Water Requirements for Los Alamos

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that storm water discharges from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and urban areas of Los Alamos County may be contributing to the degradation of water quality and therefore require a Clean Water Act permit. The EPA’s preliminary decision was in response to a petition filed by the Taos-based conservation organization Amigos Bravos, which outlined the connections between storm water discharges from urban areas to tributaries that drain directly into the Río Grande.

A March 5 response to the petition stated, “EPA has made a preliminary determination that discharges of storm water from municipal, separate storm sewer systems on LANL property and urban portions of Los Alamos County result in or have the potential to result in exceedances of state water quality standards, including impairment of designated uses, or other significant water quality impacts such as habitat and biological impacts.” The EPA also found that Los Alamos canyons are “impaired” with radioactive materials and other contaminants.

“This preliminary decision by EPA is an important first step towards protecting the Río Grande and tributaries on the Pajarito Plateau from contaminants such as gross alpha (a measurement of overall radioactivity), heavy metals and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenals),” said Rachel Conn, interim executive director of Amigos Bravos.“Regulation of these discharges will help ensure that downstream communities receive clean water for drinking, agriculture and recreation.”Two of New Mexico’s largest cities—Santa Fe and Albuquerque—divert drinking water downstream from Los Alamos.

If the designation is finalized, EPA will issue a draft discharge permit, which is subject to a public comment period and public hearing that will outline steps and deadlines that LANL, the county and the New Mexico Department of Transportation will have to take to ensure storm water discharges are not causing water-quality violations. Los Alamos County Manager Harry Burgess, in a statement responding to the EPA finding, said, “A full-time engineer would be needed to plan, design and complete a project of this magnitude.” A statement from LANL said, “The Laboratory has an extensive storm water monitoring and control system in place for regulated industrial activities and construction sites, including extensive use of storm water control structures…The Laboratory will determine whether additional corrective actions are needed to manage runoff from the urbanized sections of Laboratory.”

Groundwater Pollution in Southern NM

According to NMSU’s Dairy Extension Program, 7.1 billion pounds of milk are produced annually in New Mexico, mostly in the southern part of the state.

The New Mexico Environment Department says that shallow groundwater beneath and beyond boundaries of dairies along the Interstate 10 corridor between Anthony and Mesquite is contaminated with nitrate—nitrogen, chloride and dissolved solids, primarily from dairy operations. At a hearing the NMED held in March, a consortium of 11 dairies and the coalition Río Valle Concerned Citizens resolved that the industry will monitor additional wells and increase the frequency of sampling. The settlement is unrelated to hearings scheduled this month in Roswell regarding changes to the state’s groundwater rule that governs any entity that discharges water.

Mining Water-Cleansing Technology Released

Each year, the oil and gas industry generates about 70 billion barrels of water contaminated with oil and gas particles, chemicals, metals and salts. Current technologies to clean “produced” water mostly just filters out the most toxic elements before the water is reinjected underground. The process is energy intensive and expensive, accounting for up to 10 percent of production costs.

After three years of development, IX Power Clean Water, a Los Alamos-based startup, has begun to sell its breakthrough technology. IX Power (pronounced “Nine Power”) claims its 1,500-lb., easily transportable OrganiClear machine can make wastewater clean enough for agricultural use and reduce costs for doing so by up to 90 percent. The machine, which is currently assembled at the Sandia Science and Technology Park in Albuquerque, sells for $225,000 and can treat up to 1,000 barrels of water per day. The company has scheduled commercial demonstrations to oil and gas firms up and down the Río Grande and from West Texas to Wyoming and is also looking to international markets.

The OrganiClear machine filters water with an absorbent mineral called zeolite, cleanses it in a bioreactor with micro-organisms and then cleanses it further through a vapor-phase bioreactor that removes volatile, or airborne, organic compounds. The system was developed by LANL in collaboration with the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and the University of Texas.

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Three Cases continued from page 23

concentrations in excess of the drinking-water health standard of 30µg/L, and some wells contain hundreds of ppb of uranium.

The area with the greatest number of wells with elevated uranium levels is around Nambé, about 15 miles north of Santa Fe on highway US 84-285 (see Figure 4).The Nambé area is well known for high uranium concentrations in private water wells, one of which was laboratory tested to be about 60 times the EPA’s MCL of 30µg/L (ppb). It seems unlikely that the preponderance of high uranium levels in this area is coming from a single natural source.

Geoscientists at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, New Mexico Tech, the NMED and LANL have addressed this issue and published the results in a New Mexico Geological Society Guidebook (McLemore et al., 2011. 62nd Field Conference, pp. 399–408).

The authors concluded that there are actually four potential sources of natural uranium in Española Basin groundwater that converge around Nambé: volcanic ash beds that accumulated within the Tesuque Formation (the principal aquifer); the alteration of volcanic and granitic detritus within the Tesuque Formation; uranium-bearing (albeit noncommercial at this time) igneous and metamorphic rocks in the San José Mining District northwest of Nambé and Nambé mining district to the northeast; and the Precambrian granitic rocks in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains east of Nambé.

While we would like to be able to say that there is a direct correlation between well depth and uranium concentrations, no such correlation has been confirmed, although relatively shallow wells near ancient streambeds do seem to have the highest concentrations of uranium. This is an old area of settlement, and many well owners do not have information about the depth of their wells, many of which were drilled before well records were required by the Office of the State Engineer.

Results of another uranium-uptake study from clients in Española, located about 25 miles north of Santa Fe, come from an area also known for elevated uranium concentrations. The clients had the uranium levels of three types of vegetables irrigated by uraniumrich water tested for their uranium content. From independent lab testing—two commercial labs, as well as a LANL lab—the average uranium concentration in the clients’ water, based on three uranium tests over two years, was 75.9µg/L. Three types of vegetables were dissolved chemically at a specialized lab, and the residues were run through a mass spectrometer. The residual uranium concentrations for each vegetable were as follows: potato - 17.9 µg; cucumber - 12.0 µg; and beet - 13.4 µg.

This concerned me because many of the vegetables, including those represented as organic at our local farmers’ market, are grown in the Nambé and Española areas. Informal research—speaking with vendors—indicated that most of the growers use a variable Figure 3. Uranium-bearing, sandstone channel deposit east of Oxide Buttes, blend of well water and acequia (irrigation ditch) water and were unaware of the uranium-uptake issue. An offer was made to the northern Santa Fe County, NM institute that oversees the market, explaining the possible problem and offering discounted uranium testing to market growers. No one accepted the offer. As such, growers may unknowingly use contaminated water to irrigate food crops. Is the public adequately protected against uranium contamination or other constituents of possible health concern when we purchase and consume certified organic fruits and vegetables? In a review of the criteria for U.S. Department of Agriculture’s organic certification, I learned that the use of sewage sludge and irradiation are prohibited, but water chemistry for radionuclides and metals is not specified. What we don’t know may hurt us!

Acknowledgements

e author gratefully acknowledges collaborators in this work: Th aqueous geochemist Dr. Patrick Longmire, Environmental Geochem LLC (formerly of LANL) and geologist Dennis McQuillan, NMED. LANL colleagues involved in these Case study 3: uranium up take in garden vegetables and commercial Figure 4. Occurrence of uranium in projects include Dr. Hakim Boukhalfa, Becky Coel-Roback, well water in the Nambé area, Santa Fe Michael S. Rearick, Michael T. Murrell and Lisa Henne food crops (formerly of LANL). i Customers express concerns about ingesting uranium County, NM through drinking water, but is water with elevated uranium Stephen Wiman, Ph.D., is owner of Good Water Company, which has been a leader in designing, concentrations safe for irrigating garden vegetables? The uptake of uranium in installing and servicing residential, commercial and industrial water-treatment systems in Santa garden vegetables irrigated with uranium-rich water is well documented in a study Fe and throughout northern New Mexico since 1988. He has a background in earth science (geology), is a member of the city of Santa Fe’s Water Conservation Committee, the Sustainable conducted near Nambé by two LANL environmental scientists and a researcher Business Roundtable, and he writes a monthly column, Our Water Quality, for the Santa Fe New from the Department of Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University Mexican. skwiman@goodwatercompany.com Reprinted with permission of Water Conditioning and published by LANL (Hayes, Frésquez and Whicker, 2000. LA-13614-MS). & Purification International. © Jan. 2015. Any reuse or republication, in part or whole, must In this study, uranium concentration in plants increased linearly with increasing be with the written consent of the publisher. uranium concentration in irrigation water.

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

CO2–Capture Technology Invented by New Mexico State University Researcher

A New Mexico State University researcher has patented a new technology to capture and store carbon-dioxide emissions from the air. Nasser Khazeni, a doctoral student, has secured a provisional patent for the sponge-like metal-organic material he’s developed that attracts and binds CO2 100 times more than other similar structures.

The captured CO2 can then be transported and reused.

Climate scientists blame excessive CO2 generated by burning fossil fuels as a major contributor—along with methane—to global warming. Two thirds of the CO2 generated in the United States is attributed to power plants alone.

Khazeni’s work was done in conjunction with NMSU’s Arrowhead Center business accelerator, which is working to commercialize the technology. Technologylicensing associate Theresa Lombard noted, “It’s going to radically impact the world, with regard to carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. It’s exciting.”

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Tierra Sagrada Pottery

Lia Lynn Rosen, MA, Clay Artist & Arts Educator

Classes, Tutorials and Workshops on the Turquoise Trail

505.428.0668 LiaRosen@Earthlink.net TierraSagradaPottery.com Connecting Communities through Clay & Culture

Scottish Rite Center Space available: • special events • weddings • meetings

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505.982.4414

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

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NM Health Equity continued from page 8 a federal agency against community members from a traditional Hispanic land grant. These families are steeped in a culture and way of life that are inextricably linked to the land, water, mountains and forests rich with sacred sites. Joining these land grant families are not only ranching families but also retirees who migrated to the area attracted by the availability of large tracts of unspoiled affordable land and an active arts community. Together, they formed a citizens group, “Resistiendo,” and reached out to other communities for support. The Partnership for a Healthy Torrance Community and the New Mexico Department of Health–Health Promotion specialist responded to the call. That initiated the HIA process. Human Impact Partners provided technical assistance and expertise.

The NMHEP team contributed mentorship and the opportunity to network with other HIA teams around the state. The local steering committee and all involved have given voice to a marginalized population, as well as purpose and direction to the Community Health Improvement Council. The participants report that a sense of empowerment has come from engagement in collective action around a common goal.

Other proposed plans and projects where HIAs are being used: • Bernalillo County Comprehensive Plan • Food and funding distribution formula within the Statewide Emergency Food Assistance Program Plan • Nuestra Santa Fe • Sunport Boulevard Extension (Albuquerque) • Taos place-based, strategic funding • Trail access from Cuba to the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail • Viva Doña Ana Comprehensive Plan (Doña Ana County) In 25 years, what will New Mexico look like as a result of NMHEP’s efforts?

Quotations from a few of NMHEP’s partners describe the Partnership’s vision: “… a New Mexico where there is widespread community leadership and engagement informing policy—all of it made under an umbrella of cultural competence and inclusivity; policy-making by the people for the people!”

Where… “everyone’s voices are heard…” and “residents see their solutions, vision and diversity reflected in neighborhoods, resulting in a sense of place and community that is resilient, empowering and nurturing of all its residents’ potential, from the very young to the oldest.”

The New Mexico Health Equity Partnership is based at the Santa Fe Community Foundation, 501 Halona St., Santa Fe, NM 87505. For more information about the Partnership and upcoming gatherings, visit www.nmhealthequitypartnership.org i Contributors to this article include NMHEP; Santa Fe Community Foundation Team; Jordon Johnson, coordinator, McKinley Community PLACE MATTERS; San Miguel County Health Impact Assessment Team; and Steering Committee of the Lobos CO2 Pipeline Health Impact Assessment Project.

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Santa Fe Community College Programs Offer Hands-On Experiences and Field Trips

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anta Fe Community College’s Alternative Fuels (biofuels) program prepares students for employment in science, agriculture and energy fields and for further studies in agriculture, biology and engineering. Hands-on applications and field trips to facilities in operation provide networking opportunities at potential job sites and universities. Instructor Luke Spangenburg sees the experiential aspects of the program as “a way to inspire the next generation to develop cross-disciplinary thinking skills to be able to face climate, food, energy and water challenges.”

A Trip to the New Mexico Consortium

A trip to the Biolab and greenhouse facility at the New Mexico Consortium (NMC) in Los Alamos gave students a look at current research in energy and food security. The NMC comprises a group of scientists from New Mexico’s national laboratories and universities, led by Dr. Richard Sayre. Some SFCC students have interned with the NMC.

Tour led by Dr. Richard Sayre (center). Students (l-r) Mauricio Mendoza, Matthew Encinias, Sam Pearson, Cisco Whitson-Brown and Kat Vindas

Student Comments

Giovanni Echave, inspired to do a summer internship with the NMC after visiting the facility: “Microalgae has the potential to produce more fuel than any other feedstock…They are doing some non-GMO selection. It is sort of like selective raising of sheep for wool.”

Matthew Encinias: “The NMC had a lot of information about where the algae industry is going. I now know more about potential problems to consider when I try growing algae.”

James Stapleton: “The trip tested my memory of SFCC’s genetics class.”

Diana Melin: “We had three presentations from working scientists. I was excited to be able to understand what they were saying and see that there is work in this field. I felt inspired to be in a science degree program. It seems like finding ways to manufacture end products out of a cell is a new ‘industrial revolution.’ ”

A Trip to ABQ’s Wastewater Treatment Facility

SFCC’s Biofuels and Microbiology for Wastewater Technologies class toured the Albuquerque Southside Wastewater Treatment and Anaerobic Digester Facility. The field trip was an informative look into the orchestra of turning waste into water. The plant treats 55 million gallons a day; that is, approximately 636.6 gallons a second, 24 hours a day. They followed the water from entry to the exit that drains into the Río Grande and saw where the treated water comes out. They noticed that, because the river was so full of sediment, there was a visual boundary between it and the treated water.

Student Comments

Cisco Whitson-Brown, a student in the Biofuels II and Microbiology for

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Wastewater classes, has completed the Greenhouse Management program, is working toward an associate’s degree in Sustainable Technologies, is an intern with the Biofuels program and is also providing research data for the NM-EPSCoR Bioalgal Research Team.

His design for a mobile water-purification station won a poster prize at the New Mexico Academy of Science Research Symposium. Whitson-Brown said that the field trip was “a very interesting and stinky adventure. I never knew processing poop could be so complicated. Each acre of structures is integral to the overall success of the final result: clean water. It is a long process of solids removal, bacterial cultures, fatskimming, aeration, anaerobic digestion, ultravioletlight cleaning stations, chemical additions, thousands of miles of pipe and tubing, along with billons of tons of concrete.”

Biofuels II student Sam Pearson: “Albuquerque’s wastewater-treatment plant generates up to 70 percent of its energy requirements through a pair of massive combustion generators fueled by methane produced during anaerobic digestion of sludge that is removed In the belly of the digester from the sewage. Instead of having radiators cool the engines, heat is pumped away to maintain optimum temperature in the digesters and other components of the treatment process.

Digestate is sent off to be used as fertilizer, soil or compost inoculator.”

Kat Vindas: “Methane runs one engine full-time and the other engine about eight hours before switching to natural gas.

Heat from the engines is also used to keep the sludge at the desired temperature through the use of boilers. In addition, this hot water Southside Wastewater Treatment Facility tour guide with is used for radiant heat SFCC students in the winter.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Feb. 27, about 6 million gallons of partially treated sewage spilled into the Río Grande at the Southside Treatment Plant when a power surge knocked out the facility’s power and the backup system failed to come online. The spill put high levels of E. coli into the river, creating a health risk and also violating the plant’s EPA permit. continued on page 28

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SFCC

continued from page 27

A Trip to Tesuque Pueblo Farms

Tesuque Pueblo Farms is a 40-acre Certified Organic farm and orchard. William Torres Longo, an agronomist from Puerto Rico and an SFCC Biofuels intern, has been working with the farm to incorporate hydroponic greenhouses to make possible a longer growing season and alleviate yearto-year inconsistencies in fruit production. Torres Longo led a collection of students from the Greenhouse Management and Biofuels programs on a work-study visit to the farm last November.

Tesuque Pueblo Farms: Orchards grow fruit incorporating medicinal plants under the trees.

Student Comments

Cisco Whitson-Brown: “This farm project’s director is a plant geneticist named Emigdio Ballón, a Quechua from Bolivia. The farm primarily serves the people of Tesuque Pueblo. It has 40 acres of traditional Native American crops, some found only in this part of the world. There are 10 beehives that pollinate the farm.”

SFCC Alternative Fuels students’ work-study visit to Tesuque Pueblo Farms. Hydroponic greenhouse: (l-r) Israel Tercero, James Stapleton, Sam Pearson, Matthew Encinias, Giovanni Echave, Cisco Whitson-Brown, instructor Luke Spangenburg and Feliciano Vargas.

April 13—Natural Agriculture Presentation

a simple, sustainable method that cooperates with nature “Natural Agriculture,” developed by Mokichi Okada in Japan in the 1940s, is an approach to farming and gardening matched to local environments, without using fertilizers, manure, compost, aggressive pest control, or crop rotation. Natural Agriculture—also known as Nature Farming—encourages continuous cropping, rather than crop rotation, based on the understanding that each generation of seeds improves and adapts to its particular soil and environment and that soil also adapts to particular crops. Farmers are encouraged to experiment to see which crops work well for the soil, rather than trying to force the land to produce an unsuitable crop for their own economic designs. By paying close attention to the cycles of nature, crops prone to infestation can be harvested slightly earlier or grown in greater quantities to allow for losses.

Alan Imai in Zambia with a farmer and her Natural Agriculture maize (the main crop of rural, semiarid Zambia)

e results, according to Alan Imai, director of Th the Shumei Institute’s International Natural Agriculture programs (www.shumei-na.org), are nutritious food, abundant yields and the promotion of biodiversity and without pollution of soil or groundwater. This method has been successfully applied in small backyard gardens and large commercial farms in Japan, the United States and Europe. Imai has spent 11 years widening the scope of Natural Agriculture, helping indigenous people in Zambia, Nepal, Brazil and other countries break free of the economic burden of GMO seeds and fertilizers and to develop sustainable farming based on local crops.

Imai will explain Natural Agriculture and tell stories of its successes at a free presentation on April 13, at 7 p.m., at the First Unitarian Church, 3701 Carlisle Boulevard NE, Albuquerque. For more information about the presentation, call 505.281.4888, or email seraphim@ocoy.org

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

Giovanni Echave: “Tesuque Farms was built to help sustain the native people in the area. The underground seed-storage facility was built completely out of wood, mud, sand and hay.”

Sam Pearson: “Tesuque Pueblo Farms is a good example of a minimalist, oldfashioned agriculture operation. Seeds have been accumulated from both native and nonnative crops to create a very impressive heirloom seed bank. Two orchards produce fruit. Medicinal crops are planted in alternating seasons in these orchards as a biological soil-remediation process. Two greenhouses are home to a highly productive strawberry horticulture operation. A variety of peppers and other medicinal plants are also grown there. A beautiful passive-solar adobe building with a water-catchment system provides a permanent location for SFCC Biofuels students assisted in the the seed bank, which also includes a south- design and construction of the greenhouse, facing greenhouse for year-round crop installing hydroponic vertical systems for growing strawberries even in November. production. Most of the water for the farm is supplied by a well. Compost and other waste are used as fertilizer.”

Santa Fe Community College offers Sustainable Technologies degree and certificate programs in Alternative Fuels, Water Technology and Greenhouse Management, as well as Solar Technologies and Green Building. For more information, email Biofuels@sfcc.edu or visit www.sfcc.edu/programs/biofuels i

NMSU Offers Sustainability Minor

New Mexico State University has caught on to the universal movement transforming the job market for graduating students – a movement that benefits the student, the university and the planet. By implementing four sustainability minors in the colleges of Engineering; Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences; Business; and Arts and Sciences, management professor and faculty coordinator David Boje is “greening the curriculum.” The 18-credit, university-wide undergraduate minor offered in three tracks allows students to explore challenges in local and global sustainability.

A graduate minor in sustainability will serve as a master of business administration minor and will eventually be added to any NMSU graduate program degree.

A graduate certificate offering an integrated series of courses that comprise a multidisciplinary study of the environmental, social, cultural and economic dimensions of sustainability will be available soon.

“Accounting, Engineering and Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management are really focused on getting their students placed at major institutions and corporations,” Boje said. Sustainable careers are expanding in agriculture and forestry, energy, environmental protection, governmental and regulatory administration, green construction, manufacturing, recycling and waste reduction, research, design, transportation and consulting services.

The program was tailored after the Arts and Sciences’ existing sustainability minor in NMSU’s Anthropology Department. Boje’s goals are to expand the courses in the College of Health and Social Services and to help the College of Education identify courses to implement into their curriculum. http://greening.nmsu.edu/

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Sustainable Santa Fe Update

Climate Action Task Force Makes First Recommendations Bianca Sopoci-Belknap

O

n March 11, former Mayor David Coss presented to the Santa Fe City Council a set of recommendations developed by Santa Fe’s Climate Action Task Force focused on the energy efficiency and renewable energy the city can undertake to help it prepare for future impacts of climate change. The task force is co-chaired by Coss and Councilor Peter Ives, and its sub-committees are comprised of over 70 energy and environmental experts from throughout the community, including members of the Sustainable Santa Fe Commission.

The task force made six recommendations: 1. Establish goals and benchmarks to reduce citywide energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Pursue energy savings performance contracting for city facilities with an energy service company.

3. Scale-up solar distributed generation projects on city facilities.

4. Strengthen and expand energy-efficiency programs and solar-energy projects in the commercial and residential sectors of our community, in addition to supporting policies and regulations that would help to scale-up those industries, as well as opposing policies and regulations that would have a negative impact on them, such as PNM’s proposed rate increase.

5. Educate and inform the public about available programs.

6. Utilize creative financing options to pay for programs and projects.

During the presentation, former Mayor David Coss told the governing body, “It’s been the goal of the task force to identify the types of strategies and programs the city should consider undertaking to create a healthier, more resilient, adaptable and vital community. Many of these can be undertaken within six months and can be fully implemented by the end of the year.”

“Breaking Bueno” • Transition Training: April 10-11 transition from oil dependency to community resilience Echanting, elusive 360-degree views, sunshine, Georgia O’Keeffe clouds, art and culture. These are among the reasons we love our home in New Mexico.

And then there is the underbelly, the social indicators of poverty: DWI, teen pregnancy, low literacy rates, job losses and dropping GDP. How does New Mexico move up from 47th, 48th and even 50th among other states? What are the factors and behaviors necessary to improve our rankings and our quality of life?

It will take a new vision. Government and business interests will not solve New Mexico’s problems. Citizens, that is, local folk, working together have the potential and inspiration for re-visioning New Mexico.

Transition is an international movement that began in 2005 in Totnes, United Kingdom.

It postulates that the current economic crisis, coupled with climate change, has created a challenge that can only be addressed locally. Reducing our addiction to oil means building strength and resilience in our neighborhoods through methods that minimize reliance on fossil fuels. More gardens, beekeepers, farmers’ markets, local business development, public transit, bicycling, water collection, barter and time banks are some of the things that have come to the fore as people grapple with the challenge of how to stay local and become sustainable.

Transition Training is a big cauldron to collect various community efforts. It will take place in Albuquerque April 10-11, at the Unitarian Church, located at Comanche and Carlisle NE. The Open Space Technology process will be employed, to allow everyone a voice in the examination of “What steps do we take now to create sustainability— personally, in our community, in our state?” Mark Juederman of Transition Houston (Texas) and Kat Steele of Transition Big Sur (Calif.) will join Dr. Bruce Milne of the University of New Mexico and Maggie Seeley of Transition New Mexico in facilitating the dialogue. WWW.TransitionABQ.org is the place to register for the two-day training. For more information, call Maggie Seeley: 505.268.3339. i

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Santa Fe City Council: March 11, 2015 After the presentation, Mayor Gonzales introduced a resolution directing staff to work with a variety of stakeholders in the community, including the task force and Sustainable Santa Fe Commission, to develop and draft a 25-year Sustainability Plan that would include a variety of strategies to reduce Santa Fe’s carbon emissions and energy consumption on a yearly basis to achieve the city’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2040. The Sustainable Santa Fe Commission has been drafting the Santa Fe Sustainability Scorecard, a report containing several sustainability and energy related data benchmarks that will serve as a basis of the plan’s development.

To learn more or get involved, visit www.sustainablesantafe.wordpress.com. The commission can also be found on Facebook at SustainableSantaFeNM. Monthly commission meetings are open to the public and take place the third Tuesday of every month from 2:30-4:30 p.m. in the Councilors’ Conference Room at City Hall.

More Solar for the City of Santa Fe

The city of Santa Fe’s latest solar installations are now fully operational. The 600 kilowatt (kW) photovoltaic (PV) array at the Genoveva Chávez Community Center is providing about 40 percent of the facility’s electricity, and the 81 kW array at the City Water Division includes two solar-powered electric car-charging stations to serve the division’s growing electric vehicle fleet. The two installations are expected to help avoid many gallons of water use and reduce carbon emissions.

2015 Sustainable Santa Fe Award Winners Announced april 8, 5:30-7 pm • awards gala at la fonda hotel This year’s Sustainable Santa Fe Awards Gala, hosted by Green Drinks, will celebrate projects that are helping Santa Fe reduce its ecological footprint, mitigate carbon emissions and build resilience in the face of climate change.

The award winners will be on hand to share their projects and answer questions.

The partners who sponsor the awards are the city of Santa Fe, Sustainable Santa Fe Commission, the Green Chamber of Commerce, Green Fire Times and La Fonda Hotel. The free event in La Fonda Hotel’s New Mexico Room is open to the public.

The 2015 Sustainable Santa Fe Awards have been selected and the winners are:

• Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity for Affordable Green Building • Fruit of the Earth Organics for Green Economic Development • Four Bridges Traveling Permaculture Institute for Environmental Justice • Tesuque Pueblo Agriculture Department for Ecosystem Adaptation • Eldorado/285 Recycles for Solid Waste Reduction •Ann Alexander and Richard Khanlian for Renewable Energy • Fiberspan Concrete Elements for Green Product or Technology • Water Efficiency Rating System Development Team for Water Adaptation • AlphaGraphics Santa Fe for Triple Bottom Line • S anta Fe Public Schools and Reunity Resources for Outreach and Education • NM Dept. of Transportation District 5 for Low-Carbon Transportation • Santa Sidra Hard Cider for Food System Adaptation • New Energy Economy for Environmental Advocacy • Student Wellness Action Team for Youth-Led

Green Fire Times • April 2015

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Eco-Delivery Services • 505.920.6370

The Zanjeras continued from page 25

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

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Remembering Carol Decker A Cultural Bridge Alejandro López

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northern New Mexico’s demographics were now so complex that to not work at creating areas of deep commonality was to forfeit the opportunity to create a flourishing culture of mutual respect and compassionate understanding.

Like an iconic landmark, Carol Decker—teacher, writer, cultural interpreter and celebrated Santa Fe Living Treasure—always seemed to “be there,” especially at community gatherings, many of which she planned herself. Through several decades and the comings and goings of an entire era, she worked at the things she loved best:

© Raven Wolfe

any people come to northern New Mexico looking to find something akin to the Holy Grail or the philosopher’s stone, and when they don’t find it, they leave feeling disillusioned. Carol Decker, a selfproclaimed “white, overeducated, New England Puritan Yankee female,” who recently passed away at age 87, was originally from Massachusetts, resettling in Santa Fe about 35 years ago. She did not come here looking for anything; rather, she came to give something. As a result of her deep, personal investment in the place, she stayed.

Carol’s cheerful disposition aided her desire to massage points of tension within Santa Fe and northern New Mexico’s body politic, much like a masseuse works to release blockages on a human body. Carol was motivated by her ardent desire for the people of the region’s varied cultures to grow in sensitivity and understanding toward one another rather than resorting to the poisons of racism, disdain and injustice, which she had witnessed on more than a few occasions in her beloved City Different.

teaching the Spanish language, writing books, talking with people and keeping up with her copious correspondence and a newspaper article-clipping mania.

Carol reasoned that New Mexicans of all persuasions now live in such close proximity and in such numbers that it is highly unlikely the clock will ever be turned back to a time when Nuevo México—like Tibet or Afghanistan— was at the edge of the world and the Native American and Indo-Hispano people were once again left alone to resolve their own affairs. To Carol,

Most of her time, however, she dedicated to trying to crack the ageold dilemma of how different ethnic groups living side by side can come to value, honor and support one another instead of exploiting, oppressing or annihilating each other, as has so frequently happened throughout the history of the world. To this end, she founded her own organization, Vecinos

www.GreenFireTimes.com

She worked to dispel prejudices and stereotypes, and to forge new relations of trust and respect among different ethnic groups.

del Norte (Neighbors of the North). Its mission was “to bring people together across cultural lines, to explore and celebrate our respective heritages, to consider current issues, to build personal relationships and to help us all in working together for our common future as more sensitive and caring neighbors and vecinos.”

For years, Carol organized many gatherings of people from the various cultures of northern New Mexico to dialogue on issues that both join and separate us. She formed alliances across the region’s cultural spectrum and often provided direct material, moral support and assistance to individuals and families undergoing hardship.

Through Vecinos del Norte, Carol and her co-workers organized visits to Pueblo, Navajo and Nuevo Mexicano communities to dispel prejudices and stereotypes, as well as to forge new relations of trust and respect. Carol participated in many service-learning projects, such as the replastering of the Pajarito family chapel near Black Mesa, and serving as a docent at Pecos Pueblo National Monument.

Just as important, she kept a record of her findings and insights over several decades. Her efforts recently culminated in the publication of Connecting Across Cultures – Turning Neighbors Into Friends and Allies, a 170page book that delves deeply into the hopeful workings of the intercultural mosaic that is northern New Mexico.

This document, now more than ever, can serve as a valuable guide for those wishing to continue her work.

It is likely that had Carol not mastered the Spanish language at an early age and traveled to many Spanish-speaking countries, she would not have tackled the work to which she ultimately dedicated her life. Her associations took her to a world she did not wish to leave, that is, a world in which one continuously learns from all one’s experiences and not just from those in one’s comfort zone with those who are like ourselves.

Carol recognized that, as cultures intersect, there was bound to be conflict. In one section in her book, she

The book delves deeply into the hopeful workings of the intercultural mosaic that is northern New Mexico. ©2015 Sunstone Press, www.sunstonepress.com

describes a series of meetings between Navajo people and Anglo county government officials. Although both groups wanted to work toward the same ends, the meetings had mainly been exercises in futility, owing to seemingly unbreachable approaches to communication. It was not until an elderly Navajo woman took charge and began a meeting by sharing her life and her people’s lives on the reservation that the energy shifted.

Following her open sharing, she asked the Anglo officials to do the same.

After two shaky attempts, they revealed themselves from behind their titles.

The meal that followed was the first the groups had shared that was jovial and full of life. A spirit of common understanding, mutual appreciation and respect marked the proceedings that ensued. Not surprisingly, that day they reached the accord they had been seeking for weeks. Like the elderly Navajo woman in her story, Carol was unafraid to venture into uncharted territory, to take risks that would soften and humanize interactions among groups and individuals, all the while hoping to make a difference. And that she did. i Alejandro López is a writer, photographer and educator.

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NEWSBITEs Proposed Santolina Development Draws Opposition

A large crowd of demonstrators that included farmers arriving on tractors held a rally and march through downtown Albuquerque on March 25. About 150 of them then packed a Bernalillo County Commission meeting to oppose the proposed Santolina development west of Albuquerque. The development would cover nearly 22 square miles and include an urban center, industrial park and residential villages for 90,000 or more people.

Court Rejects Navajo Mine Expansion

Last month, a judge in Colorado rejected a federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) plan to expand coal mining at the 13,000-acre Navajo Mine near the San Juan River in northwestern New Mexico. Navajo and conservation groups had sued the OSM over the plan, which would have allowed strip mining of 12.7 million tons of coal on a 714-acre expansion.

U.S. District Judge John L. Kane held that the OSM environmental assessment violated the National Environmental Policy Act by ignoring cumulative impacts and indirect effects that would result from the expansion, including mercury from burning the mined coal at the nearby Four Corners Power Plant and disposing of coal ash waste.

“With this decision, we hope OSM seizes the opportunity to address the legacy of pollution from the Navajo Mine and Four Corners Power Plant,” said Mike Eisenfeld of San Juan Citizens Alliance. “With so many of New Mexico’s lakes and reservoirs contaminated by mercury and other coal pollution, we are pleased that the court agreed that it is essential to take a serious look at the intertwined impacts of mining and burning coal,” said Rachel Conn of the water conservation advocacy group Amigos Bravos.

© Elise Trott

“The Diné people who reside near the power plant and Navajo Mine have suffered the burden of coal impacts for far too long,” said Colleen Cooley of Diné CARE. “This is our home, and we cannot just move away from our communities, so we are grateful that the court rejected this plan.”

ABQ to Launch Bike-Share Program Opponents say it would divert important—and limited—water resources, negatively impact the river, bosque, acequieros, ranchers, farmers and nearby communities.

The developers have objected to a recommended water-use limit on the area and have hired a high-level public relations firm. At the hearing, a spokesman said that the development team might pursue financing mechanisms such as tax-increment development districts (TIDDs), which would allow tax revenue to be diverted to reimburse the developer for building infrastructure.

After more than 11 hours of comments over two days, the commission postponed making a decision. The next hearing will be at 4 p.m. on May 11. https:// contrasantolina.wordpress.com

Groups Sue Over Drilling in Northwest NM

A bike-share program makes bikes available for short-term rentals. Austin, Denver and Phoenix have such programs. In a first of its kind for New Mexico, a bike-share will be launched with stations in downtown Albuquerque by May 15. Payments may be processed on a website or by smartphone apps. Some sites offer memberships or discounts for 30- to 45-minute uses.

Downtown ABQ MainStreet Initiative, the Mid-Region Council of Governments, the city of Albuquerque, the incubator FatPipe ABQ and private businesses are among those partnering on the pilot program, which will begin with 35 to 50 durable, lightweight bikes designed for city streets. A $15,000 PNM grant is helping to start the program. The bikeshare may eventually go citywide and help support Albuquerque Rapid Transit.

A bike-share program for Albuquerque fits in with other initiatives such as the 2030 District; Urban ABQ, which advocates for more walkable and bikeable city corridors; and the city’s Complete Streets legislation, which requires that streets be designed to serve pedestrians, cyclists and mass-transit users, as well as vehicles. Lola Bird, with Downtown ABQ Mainstreet, the project’s organizer, says that cities with bike-share programs report increased residential and commercial property values. For more information, visit www.abqmainstreet.org/bici

Last month, a coalition of environmental and Native American groups filed a federal lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Department of the Interior, challenging the BLM’s approval of at least 130 oil and gas drilling permits in northwestern New Mexico. The groups cited alleged violations of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. They contend that additional development and fracking could harm the area, which includes the Chaco Culture National Historic Park and Navajo communities.

Many archaeological sites and areas sacred to tribes lie outside the park boundaries.

Environmental and tribal groups have also been fighting a proposed 130-mile-long oil pipeline that would pass through the region.

On April 23, WESST Santa Fe is launching a free series of workshops to help creative entrepreneurs generate supplemental income by starting an online shop to sell handmade products to an international audience.

Faced with an expected Mancos shale oil boom, the BLM is in the process of updating its management plan for the San Juan Basin. The coalition wants the agency to postpone approving drilling permits until the new plan is in place.

Applicants should have the ability to develop a line of products to make their website competitive. Fifteen qualified artisans will create their ETSY site while learning business basics like accounting, research, pricing, competitive marketing, shipping and more.

Santa Fe Startup Weekend – April 17-19

The next Santa Fe Startup Weekend will take place April 17-19 at the Santa Fe Business Incubator. Passionate people will come together to network, bridge the gap between trades, expose potential and see actual results. “This type of innovative collaboration is extremely important to the economic growth of all of northern New Mexico,” said SFBI’s program director, Sean O’Shea.

Anyone can pitch an idea on Friday evening. Teams are then formed around the ideas that elicit the most excitement from the registered participants. The rest of the weekend will be spent turning the idea into a startup that is pitched to a group of local investors and startup experts. The winning team receives a prize package from the incubator and the ABQid accelerator program, among others. Registration is $50, with some discounts available from community sponsors, including the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, Santa Fe Economic Development Division, Creative Santa Fe, IN Santa Fe, MIX-SF and First Citizens Bank. For more information, email soshea.sfbi.net or visit www.santafe.startupweekend.org

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Craft Entrepreneurship Workshops for Creative Entrepreneurs

The workshops will be held on six consecutive Thursdays. The classes will be taught

by Charlene Jacka, who has been instrumental in the development of the ETSY network, NewMexiEtsy. The network has nearly 250 members statewide. WESST is the only New Mexico organization teaching the ETSY Craft Entrepreneurship Program. Contact rperea@wesst.org to receive an online application.

Spring Harvest Festival at Tierra Wools, April 25

Renovations have recently been completed at Tierra Wools in Los Ojos, New Mexico, just in time for the annual Spring Harvest Festival, which will showcase spinning, weaving, dyeing tours, music and local food.

Founded in 1983, Tierra Wools is a hand-weaving and dyeing workshop, local wool marketing shop, as well as a place for local artisans to consign their goods. Thanks in part to a grant from the Northern Río Grande National Heritage Area, local workers’ renovations included walls and door repairs, finer gravel for easier, safer walking, a new propane tank, new hoses for the natural dye setup, restroom renovation and, most important, replacement of the kiln for hand-dye heat.

Green Fire Times • April 2015

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G.L. Runer Electric Inc. Honest Quality Work at Competitive Prices

505-471-3626 We provide testing, and troubleshooting for Santa Fe, NM and the surrounding areas.

www.glrunerelectric.com

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

Green Fire Times is available at many locations in the metropolitan Albuquerque / Río Rancho area!

For the location nearest you, call Nick García at 505.203.4613 www.GreenFireTimes.com

www.GreenFireTimes.com

Green Fire Times • April 2015

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What's Going On! Events / Announcements April 16, 11:30-1:30 The Tao of Quirky: Unleashing the Economic Power of Uniqueness Hotel Andaluz, 125 2nd St. NW

ALBUQUERQUE

April 1, 5:30-7 pm Green Drinks Hotel Andaluz, 125 Second St. NW

Network with people interested in doing business locally, clean energy alternatives and creating sustainable opportunities in our communities. Presented the first Wednesday of each month by the ABQ and Río Rancho Green Chamber. info@nmgreenchamber. com, www.greendrinks.org

April 4, 11 am–12:30 pm Composting with Worms Open Space Visitor Center 6500 Coors Blvd NW

Food scraps, junk mail and paper products make up about 30% of garbage. Learn vermicomposting; how to use red worms to turn organic waste into high-quality compost. Free. Registration: 505.897.8831 or register@nmcomposters.org

April 10 Merchants of Doubt Century 14 Downtown

Entertaining exposé about professional deniers who manipulate public perception and help block progress on climate change. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ii9zGFDtc

April 10-11 Transition Training First Unitarian Church 3701 Carlisle NE

Presentations, workshops and training on transition from oil dependency to local resilience. $180. Info & registration: info@ transitionabq.org, www.transitionabq.org

April 11, 10 am-5 pm Vegetarian Food Festival ABQ Rail Yards, 777 1st St. SW

“Naked Food Fair” with local restaurants, chefs, cooking demos, seminars, yoga classes, vendors. 10 am-12 pm: Tasting ($30/$10 ages 12 & under) General admission: $10. Free parking. 505.510.1312, Dean@BlueRiver Productions.com, www.nakedfoodfair.com

April 12, 1-3 pm; April 18, 1-2:30 pm Rainwater Harvesting Basics

Free classes with Joanne McEntire of Querencia Green. Learn essential water-harvesting strategies. Conserve water, support healthier plants and restore ecological processes in your landscape. 4/12: Open Space Visitor Center; 4/18: Juan Tabó Library. querenciagreen@ gmail.com, Querenciagreen.org

April 13, 7-9 pm Natural Agriculture Presentation First Unitarian Church 3701 Carlisle Blvd. NE

Learn the science and methods of this Japanese approach to farming and gardening in semi-arid areas from Alan Imai, director of Shumei International Natural Agriculture programs. Free. (See newsbite, page 28) Info: 505.281.4888, www.shumei-na.org

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Urban Land Institute NM luncheon presentation by Ed McMahon, Charles E. Fraser Chair on Sustainable Development at the Urban Land Institute, Washington, D.C. He will present an argument for economic, psychological and social value of a community’s uniqueness. $55/$20. Registration: http:// newmexico.uli.org

April 23, 7:30-9:30 am Reinventing Our City 2.0: Growing ABQ’s Startup Economy ABQ Convention Center 401 2nd St. NW

Join ABQ Business First and a group of high-profile startup entrepreneurs, funders and experts. 505.348.8326, tfenstermaker@ bizjournals.com, www.bizjournals.com/ albuquerque/event/115931#register

April 25, 9:30–11:30 am Home Composting Basics Habitat for Humanity ReStore 4900 Menaul NE

Learn the science, materials and methods of drought-proofing your garden soil in order to grow vegetables, fruits and berries. Free.

Registration: 505.359.2423 or register@ nmcomposters.org

April 25, 8 pm Masters of Contemporary Dance Popejoy Hall

April 2 Business Expo & Job Fair SF Place Mall

12th annual event. One of the largest of its kind in NM. Presented by the SF Chamber of Commerce. 505.988.3279, www.santa fechamber.com

April 6, 6 pm Decline of the Chaco World: The Risks of Growth Hotel Santa Fe

Southwest Seminars lecture by author/ UNM Professor of Anthropology Dr. David E. Stuart. $12. 505.466.2775, Southwest seminar@aol.com, SouthwestSeminars.org

April 7, 8:30 am-12:30 pm Planned Giving Boot Camp SF Community Foundation

Fundraising workshop. Sliding scale: $15-$45.

Registration: 505.988.9715, www.santafecf.org

April 8, 5:30-7 pm Sustainable SF Awards Gala La Fonda Hotel, New Mexico Room

Celebrate the projects that have made SF more sustainable. Free public event. Hosted

by Green Drinks, city of SF, Green Chamber of Commerce, Earth Care, Green Fire Times

April 9, 6:30 pm Merchants of Doubt CCA Cinematheque

Martha Graham Dance Company. Tickets: $59-$20. 877.664.8661, Popejoypresents.com

Entertaining exposé about professional deniers who manipulate public perception and help block progress on climate change. $10. Trailer: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=j8ii9zGFDtc

May 11-13 Native American Economic Summit

April 11, 10 am-2 pm Plant Trees Río de las Vacas

9th annual event showcases successful Native American and non-native entrepreneurs.

Topics: government contracting opportunities, housing, financing and N.A. women politicians and leaders. High school student competition. Presented by the American Indian Chamber of Commerce–NM and the state of NM Indian Affairs Dept. Open to non-chamber members. Info: 505.766.9545.

Registration: www.nmnaec.com

Through May 31 El Agua es Vida: Acequias in Northern New Mexico

Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, UNM Groundbreaking, multidisciplinary exhibit.

Free. 505.277.4405, maxwellmuseum.unm.edu

Daily Our Land, Our Culture, Our Story Indian Pueblo Cultural Center 2401 12th St. NW

Historical overview of the Pueblo world and contemporary artwork and craftsmanship of each of the 19 pueblos. Weekend Native dances. 866.855.7902

SANTA FE

April 1, 7 pm Mary Chapin Carpenter The Lensic

Singer/songwriter. Benefits the Española Valley Humane Society. $55/$25. 505.988.1234, TicketsSantaFe.org

Green Fire Times • April 2015

Help WildEarth Guardians plant native riparian vegetation, which helps improve water quality and wildlife habitat. Additional dates available. cnickel@wildearthguardians.org

April 11, 18, May 2, 10 am Community Gardening Workshops Railyard Park Community Room

4/11: Seed starting with Abby Feria, agriculturalist; 4/18: Home water audit with Bob Wood, master arborist, city of SF Water Conservation Div; 5/2: Tree planting with Bob Wood. Free. Presented by Railyard Stewards. eric@railyardpark.org

April 13, 6 pm Decline of the Chaco World: The Risks of Growth Hotel Santa Fe

Southwest Seminars lecture by archeologist Larry L. Baker, co-editor of Anasazi Puebloan Adaptation in Response to Climatic Stress. $12. 505.466.2775, Southwestseminar@aol. com, SouthwestSeminars.org

April 14, 5:30-7 pm How Do We Increase Renewable Energy Use in NM? SFCF, 501 Halona St.

Panel presentation on the uses of renewables, the true costs of fossil fuels, legislative and regulatory policies. Free. The panel: Denise Fort, professor emeritus, UNM School of Law; Nellis Kennedy-Howard, Beyond Coal Campaign, Sierra Club; Doug Howe, former

PRC commissioner; Noah Long, Natural Resources Defense Council. Free Registration: www.santafecf.org/registration

April 14 Deadline Piñón Award Nominations

SF Community Foundation awards recognize excellence in the nonprofit sector. Awards ceremony dinner on Oct. 6. https://www.santafecf.org/document. doc?id=2379&erid=901292

April 14, 4-6 pm Eldorado/285 Recycles ECIA Conference Room

Eldorado area recycling advocacy group monthly meeting. All welcome. 505.466.9797, eldorado.285recycles@gmail.com

April 17-19 SF Startup Weekend SF Business Incubator 3900 Paseo del Sol

(See newsbite, page 35) Ph: 505.424.1140

April 18, 2-4:30 pm Green Our Schools Sustainability Education Summit Genoveva Chávez Center

Join students, teachers and community to learn about transforming curriculum, the green schools movement and environmental education. Free admission. Green Our Schools is fiscally sponsored by Partners in Education.

505.501.5826, GreenOurSchoolsNM@gmail. com, www.greenourschools.org

April 18, 2 pm; April 22, 6:45 pm Movies That Matter Jean Cocteau Cinema 418 Montezuma Ave.

“Lunch Hour” (www.lunchhourmovie.org) examines America’s National School Lunch Program, which exposes children to unhealthy foods at a young age. Wednesday screenings include a panel discussion. Presented by the SF Farmers’ Market Institute. Tickets: $10/$7/$5. 505.466.5528 or www.jeancocteaucinema.com/buy-tickets/

April 19, 11 am Efforts to Ban Fracking in the Chaco Canyon Area Collected Works Bookstore 202 Galisteo St.

Presentation by Rebecca Sobel with Les Lakind and Xubi Wilson. Free. http:// journeysantafe.com

April 22, 7 pm Jobs Not Jails The Lensic

An evening with Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries with SF Mayor Javier Gonzales. Presented by SF YouthWorks! Father Boyle works with disconnected youth and young adults in Los Angeles. Tickets $12: 505.988.1234, ticketssan tafe.org. Also, meet & greet Father Boyle, 5:306:45 pm at Manitou Gallery, 123 W. Palace ($75 includes Lensic admission)

April 23-May 28 (Thurs.)

ETSY Craft Entrepreneurial Workshops WESST, 3900 Paseo del Sol

A series of 6 half-day sessions. Qualified artisans can learn to start an online shop, as well as business basics like accounting, research, pricing, marketing, shipping and more. Application: rperea@wesst.org

www.GreenFireTimes.com

April 24, 10 am NM Acequia Commission Meeting La Ciénega Community Center 136 Camino San José, SF 87507

For agendas or for people with disabilities in need of aid or services to participate in the hearing, call Sandra Ortega at the Local Government Division: 505.827.4983, or visit www.nmacequiacommission.state.nm.us Additional info: 505.603.2879 or molino delaisla@gmail.com

April 25-26 Contemporary Clay Fair SF Women’s Club, Old Pecos Trail

Features 30 ceramic artists. contemporary clayfair.com

Through April 26, Th.-Sun., 11 am-3 pm Morphing Nature SF Botanical Garden, 715 Cam. Lejo

Students from IAIA and SFUAD have created site-specific sculptures made from recovered plant materials from the garden and found objects. Free. 505.471.9103, santafebotanicalgarden.org

April 26, 11 am Why NM Doesn’t Use More Renewable Energy Collected Works Bookstore 202 Galisteo St.

Presentation by public utilities attorney Bruce Throne with attorney Denise Fort.

Free. http://journeysantafe.com

April 28, 6-7:30 pm Practical Solutions for Safe Use of Electronics La Montañita Co-op Community Room

Discussion of potential health problems of wireless pollution and products to neutralize electromagnetic radiation. Free. 505.780.8283, jennifer@results-health-coaching.com

May 4, 6 pm Azlan in the Southwest: Archaeology and History Hotel Santa Fe

Southwest Seminars lecture by Stephen H. Lekson, University of Colorado professor or anthropology and author of A History of the Ancient Southwest. $12. 505.466.2775, Southwestsem inar@aol.com, SouthwestSeminars.org

May 9, 10 am-10 pm CommUNITY Day Santa Fe Plaza

El Día de la Gente. Nonprofit organizations and government agencies will have information tables and giveaways until 3 pm, and local talent will perform until 10 pm. Exhibit applications: 505.955.6979, bjmossman@ santafenm.gov, www.santafenm.gov

May 9-10 Kindred Spirits Open House 3749A Highway 14

Animal sanctuary for senior dogs, horses and poultry. Demonstrations by wellness caregivers. 505.471.5366, www.kindredspirtsnm.org

May 16, 8 am-3 pm 2nd Annual Green Festival El Museo Cultural 555 Camino de la Familia

Experience new renewable energy technologies, electric vehicles, organic food, water harvesting, interactive exhibits for kids and much more.

505.428.9123, glenn@nmgreenchamber.com

May 16, 2 pm; May 20, 6:45 pm Movies That Matter Jean Cocteau Cinema 418 Montezuma Ave.

Growing Cities, a documentary film that examines the role and potential of urban farming (www.growingcitiesmovie.com).

Presented by the SF Farmers’ Market Institute. Weds: $10/$8/$6; Sat: $7/$5/$6. Tickets: 505.466.5528, www.jeancocteaucinema. com/buy-tickets/

Saturdays, 8 am-1 pm Santa Fe Farmers’ Market 1607 Paseo de Peralta (& Guadalupe)

Northern NM farmers and ranchers offer fresh greenhouse tomatoes, greens, root veggies, cheese, teas, herbs, spices, honey, baked goods, body care products and much more. www.santafefarmersmarket.com

Through April Virgin of Guadalupe Exhibition Museum of Spanish Colonial Art 750 Camino Lejo, Museum Hill

Retablos, bultos and three-dimensional nichos. Admission: $5./under 16 free/NM residents free on Sunday. 505.982.2226

TAOS

April 9, 7:30 pm Scrap Arts Music Taos Community Auditorium, 145 Paseo de Pueblo Norte, Taos

Internationally renowned percussion ensemble from Canada. Music starts out as scrap, turns into art and then transforms into unforgettable sound. $20; TCA members: $17; 18 and under: $10. 575.758.2052, tcataos.org

April 10 2015 Taos County Farming & Ranching Fair Taos County Agricultural Center 202 Chamisa Road

“An opportunity for renewal.” Information booths, demonstrations, discussion regarding agricultural land classification, roundtable discussions with local farmers and ranchers (10:30 am and 1:30 pm), job opportunities. Entertainment, refreshments. Taos County Extension Service: 575.758.3982

April 17, 5-7 pm Reception Past, Present and Future: Celebration of the Taos Art Colony Taos Town Hall

Free reception. 60 entries from Taos County and northern NM artists in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Taos Society of Artists. Exhibition through July 17.

575.779.8579, http://taosartscouncil.org/ taos_art_colony_past_present_future/

HERE & THERE

April 9, 5:30-7 pm Green Drinks/NMSEA Little Toad Pub, 200 N. Bullard St., Silver City, NM

Monthly meeting of the Southwest NM Green Chamber of Commerce and the NM Solar Energy Association-Silver City Chapter.

Held every second Thursday of the month.

575.538.1337, swGreenChamber@gmail.com

April 10 Call for Papers Deadline Earth USA 2015

8th Annual International Conference on Architecture and Construction with Earthen Materials Conference will be held at the NM

www.GreenFireTimes.com

Museum of Art in Santa Fe, Oct. 2-4. Organized by Adobe in Action. Earthusa.org

April 11-May 15 “Women’s Work” María Saroni Community Gallery Rowe, NM

Women artists from NM celebrate the work done by women in our communities. Organized by the Tarnoff Art Center.

505.919.8888, info@tarnoffartcenter.org, www.tarnoffartcenter.org

April 15 Application Deadline Chautauqua Program Statewide

The NM Humanities Council is looking for individuals who perform living history and/or deliver a talk on an intriguing humanities topic. The free programs take place at nonprofit organizations. Applications: 505.633.7371, jbaca@nmhum.org, www. nmhum.org

April 17-19 Ecological Restoration Volunteer Project Cebolla Canyon, El Malpaís Conservation Area near Grants, NM

Join the ABQ Wildlife Federation to help build riparian restoration structures to restore a wetland area as part of a comprehensive ecosystem restoration effort. rioscial@ gmail.com, http://abq.nmwildlife.org/

Through April 19, 10 am-5 pm Traditional New Mexico Arts/Santos Show Tomé Art Gallery 2930 Hwy. 47, Los Lunas, NM

17th annual show features santeros and traditional NM artists. 505.565.0556

April 25, 9 am-4 pm Los Alamos Book Fair Fuller Lodge

Authors, publishers and talks including LPD Press/Río Grande Books co-founder Barbe Awalt, on Books 101: Tips and trends from the NM Book Co-op. Free. 505.344.9382, LPDPress@q.com

May 1st Drawing Chama Peak Land Alliance Raffle

Benefit raffle for conservation-minded landowners in the southern San Juan Mountains of Colorado and northern NM. 970.335.8174, chamapeak@gmail.com, www.chamapeak.org

May 3-6 International Seed Library Forum Tucson, Arizona

Diversifying Community Access to Healthy Foods. An effort to coalesce efforts by public libraries, nonprofits, universities and food banks to increase the quality of seed resources with free or affordable access to low-income households. Registration: saboressinfronteras@gmail.com

May 8 Application Deadline Paid AmeriCorps Opportunity

Join Rocky Mountain Youth Corps working on projects in NM. RMYC is looking for young adults 16-25 to work on conservation, historic preservation and trail maintenance.

Dedicated people are needed to supervise crews and projects. 575.751.1420. Program descriptions and applications: www.youth corps.org

Earth Day Events ALBUQUERQUE

April 22, 2:30–5 p.m.

Celebrate Earth Day 2015 NM Museum of Natural History and Science – Kiwanis Learning Garden, 1801 Mountain Rd. NW (east side of 18th St.)

After-school program for the whole family.

Discover urban native plants and animals, create an Earth flag, have fun with wind power, get your hands dirty planting and pulling. No registration required. Free with museum admission.

505.841.2800, www.nmnaturalhistory.org

SANTA FE

April 18, 9:30 a.m.–2 p.m.

Earth Day Celebration Genoveva Chávez Center,3221 Rodeo Rd.

Entertainment and educational activities for all ages. Solar art projects, free tree saplings, recycled art for kids, music, dance, yoga, archery, leave-no-trace games, green business expo. Free. Presented by Keep Santa Fe Beautiful and the Outdoor Recreation Section of the City of Santa Fe Parks and Recreation Department. 505.955.4000, lfgulotta@ santafenm.gov, www.chavezcenter.com

April 22, 9 a.m.–3 p.m.

Youth Service Earth Day Earth Care, Zona del Sol site, corner of Jaguar and Country Club Rd.

Healthy cooking, organic gardening, composting, mural making and climate action led by Earth Care’s Food Justice and Environmental Stewardship AmeriCorps members. SF Public School classes and community volunteers welcome. 505.983.6896, info@earthcarenm.org

HERE & THERE

April 18, 10 a.m.–2 p.m., Film at 6:30 p.m.

Earth Day Celebration Gough Park, Silver City, NM

Activities for all ages. Educational, nonprofit and governmental organization exhibits, craftspeople, food vendors. Drawings for prizes. Recycling will be a big focus. Film screening of “Wrenched,” about the late environmental activist Edward Abbey, at the Buckhorn in Piños Altos at 6:30 p.m.

Sponsored by the Gila Resources Information Project, Silver City Food Co-op, NM Wilderness Alliance and the Town of Silver City Office of Sustainability. 575.519.8987

April 25, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

Earth Day Celebration Aztec Ruins Visitor Center, 84 County Rd. 2900, Aztec, NM

Park staff, land management agencies, environmental groups, community organizations and local business will present activities and interactive displays on sustainable technologies, land and water conservation, alternative energy and fuels and sustainable agriculture. Games, crafts, Pueblo dancers.

Free admission. Lunch available for purchase. Morning “Not Quite 5K Earth Day Family Fun Run.” www.facebook.com/pag es/Aztec-Trails-Open-Space/241155326175

April 25, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

Earth Day Festival Los Alamos Nature Center, 2600 Canyon Rd., Los Alamos, NM

Entertainment, food, activities, planetarium shows, information booths and more.

Recycle Man will present two interactive shows. The Hill Stompers will present music and dance. Free. Park at the Aquatic Center, Mesa Public Library, take the free bus from the Justice Center on Central Avenue or ride your bike to the festival. 505.662.0460, www. peecnature.org

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Green Fire Times • April 2015

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