MISSION: Southwest Research and Information Center is a multi-cultural organization working to promote the health of people and communities, protect natural resources, ensure citizen participation, and secure environmental and social justice now and for future generations

Environmental Justice Awareness Day at the State Capitol

Organizers were a bit nervous about the turnout for the Third Annual Environmental Justice (EJ)Awareness Day at the New Mexico State Legislature. It was scheduled for January 18th, the first Friday of the first week of the New Mexico Legislature, and is also a day that many legislators traditionally take off as not many bills have moved on the committee and floor calendars. As it turned out, many legislators, lobbyists, and legislative staff were at work. Many leaned against the railings on the upper floors to listen to speakers, others came to have lunch and mingle. It soon became clear that community folks were coming to the capitol to bring their concerns about environmental justice to the seat of state government, as well as their poster boards and information.

EJ Awareness Day emcee Sofia Martinez.

Emceeing the presentations were Nadine Padilla from Sage Council, and Sofia Martinez for the Concerned Citizens of Wagon Mound and Mora Country, welcoming a crowd that reached more than 300 people. This year’s EJ Day at the Roundhouse had legislative tours, great music, food, and speakers from around New Mexico, including legislators friendly to EJ causes such as Senator Linda Lopez. In addition, Santa Fe Mayor David Coss issued a proclamation declaring EJ Day in Santa Fe. Music provided a nice break from talks and a transition between speakers.

New Mexico’s own Grupo Sangre de Cristo from Taos performed the traditional tunes close to the hearts of land-based New Mexicans. And a special treat, Los Alacranes, a well-known Chicano Movement band from San Diego, California provided additional entertainment. Los Alacranes are most known for their song “Chicano Park” which documents the struggle of a Chicano community against a freeway that cut through their barrio. Today there is a park with beautiful murals that commemorate that struggle. It is also a struggle ironically symbolic of one of the major environmental justice health effects suffered by children of color – high rates of asthma, exacerbated not only by polluting industry in their communities, but by their proximity to freeways and other transportation routes and depots. The two groups jammed together, New Mexico and West Coast, learning and sharing through music, illustrating how culture is an integral part of our resistance.

Founders of the Desert Rock resistance Bonnie Wethington, Emma Long, and Luci A. Willie, along with Dine CARE's Dailan Jake, Lori Goodman, and Anna Frazier, presenting their report on Desert Rock.

There were victories to share: The Concerned Citizens of Wagon Mound and Mora County (CCWMMC) recently won a second decision from the Secretary of the New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED) to keep special waste from throughout the United States coming to a private municipal landfill near Wagon Mound. In 2003 they won a New Mexico Court of Appeals decision on this same issue. Although our friends from Clovis were unable to be there, their victory in keeping an ethanol plant that would have impacted a predominantly Black and Chicano community was noted.

Arturo Uribe from Mesquite shared his community and organization’s struggle against a chemical plant in southern New Mexico. The group was recently successful in exposing air quality violations by the Helena Chemical Plant in Mesquite. Funds collected from the first violation in 2005 went back to the community under a Supplemental Environmental Program, an option by which a cited industry may divert money back to the community. Since then, the company has been cited an additional 11 times for air quality violations. Uribe stated that the fine for these latest violations is “$270,000, only $70,000 more for all these violations.” The Company has operated in Mesquite since 1989.

Dooda Desert Rock's Elouise Brown and Alfred Bennett.

Leona Morgan, lead organizer of Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) spoke about the struggle against new uranium mining threats on indigenous lands. Javier Perez from the Unión de Trabajadores Agrícolas Fronterizos (UTAF, Union of Border Agricultural Workers) shared the valuable work of those that produce our food yet are cut out of minimum wage laws, precisely because they are agricultural workers.

The last speaker on EJ Day was Dailan Jake speaking for Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment (CARE). Diné CARE utilized their position on the agenda to host a press conference releasing a report that they had recently completed with Ecos Consulting. The report titled, Energy and Economic Alternatives to the Desert Rock Coal Plant (see page 4) was a challenge to the Navajo Nation’s plan to open a new coal-fired plant in the Four Corners area of New Mexico. There are two other coal-fired plants in the area. Green house gases and mercury contamination from these plants are major concerns to many in the area and throughout New Mexico. Twenty-six of New Mexico’s water bodies have been identified as having high concentrations of mercury. Unfortunately, as with the other coal-fired plants in the area, the locals get the pollution, and other states benefit from the energy created. Today, throughout the Navajo Nation, many still do not benefit from the electricity produced on their nation that creates pollution that contaminates their natural resources and people.

The report concludes that a mix of wind, solar and energy-efficient technologies are more cost-effective and would provide greater economic development and lower cost of electricity to the Navajo Nation than the proposed Desert Rock Project. In addition, clean energy would bring fewer negative consequences such as air pollution, excessive costs due to carbon emissions, intensive water use, mercury emissions, health problems, impact to tourism and grazing than “boom and bust jobs”. These stories are what environmental injustice and justice are all about.

That evening groups again came together for dinner, as many of the organizations had traveled from throughout New Mexico to attend EJ Day. The evening was a time to share a relaxed dinner, network, connect with old and new friends and sister organizations, and solidify our collective struggle. Los Alacranes and El Grupo Sangre de Cristo expanded as other musicians and vocalists found ready accompaniment. Jaime Chávez and Andrea Serrano shot out some great critical poetry; others had words of encouragement, solidarity, and spoke of the importance of building collective struggle and resistance. One thing was clear, environmental injustices will no longer go unchallenged in New Mexico. !Ya Basta!

– Sofia Martinez

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Southwest Network for Economic and Environment Justice
Bianca Encinias: (505) 242-0416

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"Well, what's a little radioactivity alongside the riches to be made, the jobs to be offered, in a resurgent uranium market? State Senator David Ulibarri, who's also Cibola County manager, figures that, what with soaring uranium prices, a $50 billion industry is just waiting to open between Grants and the Navajo Reservation whose leaders, we've noted, have the good sense to say not on our land."
— Editorial:
"Governer, be wary of 'U-cleanup' bill"
The Santa Fe New Mexican,
March 1, 2008




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