Protest of zoning request on Leasburg sewage plant: homeowners near the proposed plant don't believe it will be odorless, despite assurances to the contrary

From the Las Cruces Sun-News - By Diana Alba Soular - LAS CRUCES — County officials will vote later this month on a zoning change needed for a wastewater plant proposal that has raised hackles in Leasburg. Residents of the rural community north of Las Cruces contend that a neighboring water district in the village of Doña Ana is unfairly trying to build the plant in Leasburg's backyard —miles away from Doña Ana's own constituents and voters. And Leasburg homeowners who live near the proposed plant on Hope Road don't believe it will be odorless, despite assurances to the contrary, said Tom Austin, president of the Leasburg mutual domestic water association. "We know what this sewer plant is going to smell like," he said. "I don't believe them when they say it won't smell." Austin and a group of Leasburg homeowners said they're concerned their property values will drop sharply if the plant is built. The Doña Ana Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association, which is proposing the plant, is seeking a zoning change that would allow it to be constructed, county officials said. It's also asking the county for a variance, to allow for a narrower road to the facility than county rules require. The association is based in the village of Doña Ana, about seven miles from Leasburg, and is separate from Doña Ana County government. Read more

Protest of zoning request on Leasburg sewage plant: homeowners near the proposed plant don't believe it will be odorless, despite assurances to the contrary

Straight party vote off N.M. ballots in November

From the Santa Fe New Mexican - by Barry Massey, The Associated Press - A fixture on ballots for decades, the option to vote a straight party ticket is disappearing in New Mexico and won't be available when people head to the polls in November.  Voters historically could easily choose to support a party's entire slate of candidates by making just one mark on the ballot or pressing a single button. But Secretary of State Dianna Duran has decided not to allow that in this year's general election because there's no provision in state law specifically authorizing it.  "Her job is to follow the law," said Ken Ortiz, the secretary of state's chief of staff.  What remains unclear is whether elimination of the straight-ticket option will disproportionately help or hurt Democratic or Republican candidates.  "This could have major implications," said Brian Sanderoff, an Albuquerque pollster and longtime observer of New Mexico elections.  It's far from certain whether voters who cast straight-ticket ballots in the past will continue to support only the candidates of their favored party by marking ballots in each individual race. People may simply skip voting in lower-profile races as they go through a potentially long ballot.  Read more

Straight party vote off N.M. ballots in November

U.S. wants 9/11 health program to include 50 cancers but nothing for downwind residents in New Mexico

New Mexico contaminated by Trinity
explosion. No compensation, yet.

News New Mexico Swickard: nothing against the people of 9/11 but where is the compensation for the folks who became sick from the first atomic test at Trinity - the so called  downwinders? Where indeed. From the Alamogordo Daily News - by David B. Caruso, Associated Press NEW YORK -- People who were stricken with cancer after being exposed to the toxic ash that exploded over Manhattan when the World Trade Center collapsed would qualify for free treatment of the disease and potentially hefty compensation payments under a rule proposed recently by federal health officials. After months of study, the National Institute for Occupa Health said in an administrative filing that it favored a major tional Safety andexpansion of an existing $4.3 billion 9/11 health program to include people with 50 types of cancer, covering 14 broad categories of the disease. People with any of the cancers on the list could qualify for treatments and payments as long as they and their doctors make a plausible case that the disease was connected to the caustic dust. The decision followed years of emotional lobbying by construction workers, firefighters, police officers, office cleaners, and many other people who fell ill in the decade after the terror attack, and were sure it had something to do with the many days they spent toiling in the gray soot. Read more

U.S. wants 9/11 health program to include 50 cancers but nothing for downwind residents in New Mexico

Bob Endlich on other option in New Mexico forest fires

A regular guest on News New Mexico is Col. (RET)  Bob Endlich, a retired Meteorologist. Here is what he says about the issue of drought and the danger of forest fire. He says: There is some more information which might be considered in this case. Yes, hot temperatures and high elevations have detrimental effects on small aircraft and helicopters when they run out of “density altitude” under such conditions. Density altitude is easily forecast by experienced weather forecasters. Please consider this: There is a fire fighting system which can be put on the C-130 Hercules called the MAFFS; read more about it here: 
You can see how it works in this video:

I served as a crew member in the C-130 in Vietnam and doing weather research. I can assure you that the C-130 will not “run out of density altitude” fighting fires anywhere in New Mexico. Last year C-130s from Peterson AFB’s 302d Airlift Wing were deployed to Kirtland AFB to support the forest fire fighting efforts in northern New Mexico: Story is here  So, to me, the thrust of this story and situation should not be with the use of helicopters to support a fire at high elevation in the heat of the day. Rather, it should be along these lines: New Mexico is in multi-year drought, and the bark beetles have provided a large supply of dead timber for fuel for any forest fire. In June, the monsoon thunderstorms have not yet appeared on the scene, temperatures are highest of the year and fire fuel is abundant in the forests. Because of the high density altitude in the high mountains of New Mexico, and the inability of helicopters to support fires at high elevations, why not think out of the box to ask the Air Force to sit alert for a few days or weeks with MAFFS –equipped C-130s to provide rapid response to high elevation forest fires. Why does not New Mexico have a contingency plan to request such support rather than quibble with Michael Swickard’s suggestions? ROBERT W. ENDLICH, Lt Col, USAF, (Retired), Meteorologist.

Bob Endlich on other option in New Mexico forest fires

Green Path to Poverty

Peter Ferrara

Townhall - What would you do if gangs of robbers roamed your neighborhood at night, breaking into your neighbors' houses and stealing their family jewels and life savings? You would arm yourself, and your family members of sufficient age, to defend your property. Or you would move to a safer neighborhood.
But if the robbers formed gangs called Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, or the Natural Resources Defense Fund, and assaulted your standard of living, the Che Guevara Democrats expect you to greet them with open arms, and gleefully turn over bushels of your cash, until your life savings is gone, and your standard of living has been reduced to the level of Argentina.
That third world destination is where Obama's "green energy" economic strategy is taking America, all while he tells us sweet fairy tales about how this path is the road to 21st century prosperity. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Green Path to Poverty

Courtesy of Conservative Daily News

     

janice2012.us

Keys To Prosperity

Russell Allen

NMPolitics - I recently attended a Democratic candidate’s forum in the south valley hosted by the Anthony Chamber of Commerce. Fortunately there was time for a question-and-answer period where a woman, in Spanish, asked the candidates what they would do to provide public transportation for her.

Each candidate responded by telling her that they would work with both the cities of Las Cruces and El Paso to provide public transportation services to those areas that were in need. This solution sounds easy enough, plausible right? Ask an existing government entity to do more for the citizens of rural Doña Ana County. There is one significant problem with this Band Aid solution — not enough money.

If the funds were there and if it were a priority for the existing legislative and county representatives, transportation would already be provided in the south valley. In a Democrat perfect world, the government will provide transportation at a bus stop that might only come two or three times a day, controlling how often and where you can travel.

Republicans, however, if you give us the chance, would provide a dynamic economic climate where small and large businesses alike will set up shop in and throughout the south valley and New Mexico. This climate will usher in a period of prosperity because business will be able to expand, hiring and providing more jobs for our family, friends and neighbors; it would also be the time for some of us to pursue our own small-business ventures. Read More News New Mexico

Keys To Prosperity

Farming Recharges Aquifer

Greg Daviet

Greg Daviet - Recently, there has been a significant number of discussions regarding agricultural groundwater pumping in Dona Ana county. Much of these centers around the concern that agricultural users are pumping too much and the Mesilla groundwater basin is rapidly being drained.  Like the most recent article on groundwater pumping, the impression given implies the sky is falling and we will soon run out of water.  As an agricultural water user, I would also be worried if I didn’t already know the missing pieces of information.  It is my sincere hope I can dispel the “sky is falling” myth by telling the rest of the story. Allow me to start by reassuring you that we have been through this before.  The droughts of the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s also required extensive groundwater pumping.  Because the 1980’s and 1990’s had more than adequate surface water supplies, it is understandable that most of us don’t have a clear memory of what a drought period looks like, or that the groundwater aquifer rapidly recovers when surface water availability increases. Agricultural use of surface water has built and maintained our aquifer over the last century.  When water flows from Elephant Butte Lake to local farms, more than 1/3 of that water seeps from irrigation canals back into the groundwater.  When a farmer puts water on a field, more than 20% (on average) of that water also ends up as groundwater.  Because our surface water supply comes from north of Espanola, the only way this ‘outside’ water is brought into our aquifer is through its use by farmers in the Lower Rio Grande. Read More News New Mexico

Farming Recharges Aquifer

Former Columbus Mayor Gets 51 Months

NewsNM note (Spence) How ironic that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder obstructs justice by refusing to comply with subpoenas and submitting false statements during the Fast and Furious investigation....while his underlings successfully prosecute arms smugglers for also shipping guns to Mexico? KOAT - LAS CRUCES, N.M. - The former mayor of the New Mexico border town of Columbus has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for his role in a gun smuggling ring that prosecutors say shipped nearly 200 guns to Mexican drug cartels.
U.S. District Judge Robert Brack in Las Cruces on Thursday sentenced 52-year-old Eddie Espinoza to 51 months in federal prison. Espinoza, former Columbus Police Chief Angelo Vega and former town trustee Blas Gutierrez were among a dozen defendants who have pleaded guilty in the case. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Former Columbus Mayor Gets 51 Months

Sunland Park Derby a Major Player in New Point System on "Road to Kentucky Derby"

Paulick Report - The new “Road to the Kentucky Derby” series will be divided into two phases, each offering different points to the Top 4 finishers of each race over geographically diverse and historically significant paths:
•The “Kentucky Derby Prep Season” includes 19 races on dirt or synthetic surfaces over distances of at least one mile that are typically run between late September and late February. The lone exception is England’s Royal Lodge, an international juvenile steppingstone that is carded at one mile on turf at Newmarket. These races traditionally serve as foundation-building races in advance of the “Kentucky Derby Championship Series.” Points will be awarded to the Top 4 finishers in each race on a 10-4-2-1 scale.
•The “Kentucky Derby Championship Series” is a three-part series of 17 marquee races on dirt or synthetic surfaces over distances of at least one mile that are traditionally run over a compact, 10-week run up to the first Saturday in May:

•The first leg, which mostly includes races that feed into the major Kentucky Derby launching pads, includes eight events – the Risen Star (Fair Grounds), Fountain of Youth (Gulfstream Park), Gotham (Aqueduct), Tampa Bay Derby (Tampa Bay Downs), San Felipe (Santa Anita), Rebel (Oaklawn Park), Spiral (Turfway Park) and Sunland Derby (Sunland Park) – with a 50-20-10-5 point scale;

•The second leg features seven stakes races – the Florida Derby (Gulfstream Park), UAE Derby (Meydan Racecourse), Louisiana Derby (Fair Grounds), Wood Memorial (Aqueduct), Santa Anita Derby (Santa Anita), Arkansas Derby (Oaklawn Park) and Blue Grass (Keeneland) – that are worth 100-40-20-10; and
•The final leg is two “Wild Card” events, the Lexington (Keeneland) and The Cliff’s Edge Derby Trial (Churchill Downs), which offer some hope for horses to increase their point totals with a 20-8-4-2 scale.
The Top 20 point earners will earn a spot in the Kentucky Derby starting gate if more than 20 horses enter the race. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Sunland Park Derby a Major Player in New Point System on "Road to Kentucky Derby"