La Jicarita

We’ll be talking about Ike DeVargas’s remarkable political life and reading passages in his own words of his many battles for justice: La Raza Unida Party’s conquest of a corrupt political machine; the struggles that ended corporate logging;  the removal of the Juan de Oñate statue; and challenging the prison industrial complex. Those who knew Ike can share their stories and others can learn about a complex history of northern New Mexico.

Opportunity for Public Support Comments to clean up Los Alamos Labs, until June 8th

 By email to: HWB-WIPP-Comment@env.nm.gov
By postal mail:
Megan McLean, WIPP Program Manager
Hazardous Waste Bureau – New Mexico Environment Department
2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505-6303

On April 23, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued a Draft Permit proposing to require a minimum percentage of legacy shipments from Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, (WIPP).

NMED’s action would help stop LANL plans to leave 1 million cubic meters of radioactive and hazardous waste buried above our regional aquifer in a seismic zone between a rift and a dormant super volcano. The action would also limit waste from new pit production.

Here are some of the provisions of the Draft Permit that we must support in our comments –

* From January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2031, at least 55% of the total volume of all waste emplaced at WIPP from all generator/storage sites must be LANL legacy waste.

* Beginning January 1, 2032, and until all LANL legacy waste has been emplaced at WIPP, LANL legacy waste must be at least 75% of the total volume of waste emplaced from all generator/storage sites.

* Legacy waste currently stored above-ground at LANL Material Disposal Area-G shall be shipped and emplaced at WIPP by July 1, 2028.

* If at any point any of those conditions are not met, all generator/storage site shipments (with the exception of LANL) must cease until all deficiencies are cured.

Written public comments can be submitted until 5:00 p.m. MT, on June 8, 2026. The NMED Draft

Permit, Public Notice, and Fact Sheet are on the WIPP News https://www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/wipp/.

For more info: http://www.stopforeverwipp.org,

http://sric.org/ , http://nuclearactive.org/,  http://www.nukewatch.org

Opinion by KAY MATTHEWS

Kudos to Rio Arriba County for passing Resolution 2026-057 opposing any uranium mining in the Carson National Forest and requesting a full environmental impact assessment by the Forest Service. A Canadian corporation, Gamma Resources, has filed for a permit to do exploratory drilling in the Canjilon area of the Carson. The New Mexico congressional delegation is on board with the county’s opposition: Senator Ben Ray Lujan is drafting legislation to withdraw the Chama watershed from mineral development with Senator Heinrich and Representative Leger Fernandez’s support.

Several administrative concerns give pause, however. The US Forest Service, which would ordinarily be the agency overseeing the request for a permit is currently being dismantled  by the Trump administration, with the Washington headquarters moved to Salt Lake City, home of the movement to privatize public lands, all regional offices shut down, and fifty research facilities closed. The administration had already eviserated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by allowing actions on federal lands to proceed with expedited or curtailed environmental review. Individual agencies are making the decision whether to allow public comment via scoping or draft environmental assessments (EA). Kit Carson Electric Coop released an EA on the proposed “green energy” solar array and hydrogen facility in Questa with no public input.

The other worry is that the administration will supplant the NEPA process with the FAST-41 program that allows the fast-tracking of environmental reviews for infrastructure projects, as established by Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. Now Trump has directed that mineral production projects be accelerated under the FAST-41 program. We don’t know how this is going to proceed regarding the Canjilon mining permit request, but Luis Peña submitted a request to the county to inspect public records regarding anything related to Gamma Resources.

Mount Taylor is also under siege. After years in the works, Laramide Resources company submitted the La Jara Mesa Mining application to New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division for the proposed uranium mine north of Mount Taylor early this year. During the initial public comment period the state agency received over 200 letters opposing the mine; in light of this strong opposition it extended the comment period and committed to holding a public hearing, but not until it receives answers to questions that will be submitted to Laramide. Because the proposed plan is on the Cibola National Forest, that agency is also responsible for a NEPA analysis, as in the proposed Canjilon uranium exploration. Unfortunately, the La Jara Mesa mine has already been listed on the FAST-41 fast-track.  This is the rationale, as stated in the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council press release: “The Permitting Council is committed to working closely with the National Energy Dominance Council and other Federal partners to advance President Trump’s bold agenda to make America energy dominant again, and use all necessary resources to build critical infrastructure.”

Uranium mining in the Mount Taylor area in the 1970s led to legacy waste from the open-pit Jackpile Mine on Laguna Pueblo, a Superfund site, and the mining and milling operations at Ambrosia Lake, Kerrmac, and Homestake north of Grants. The Navajo Nation suffered extensive uranium ore extraction and in 1979 the Church Rock spill unleashed 94 million gallons of radioactive waste into the Rio Puerco. As mining booms always do, it kept miners employed during the boom, then out-of-work and contaminated after the bust. The Trump administration is doing everything in its power to enhance nuclear energy production with already compromised accountability from the mining industrial complex and the federal government.

The Navajo Nature currently has a moratorium on uranium mining. Diné activist Leona Morgan and others were out on the streets in Bernalillo a week ago protesting the Nuclear in New Mexico conference where industry and its proponents were advocating for not only uranium mining but SMRs (small modular nuclear reactors), reprocessing, enrichment facilities, and more. They’re pushing nuclear reactors as “renewable energy” and, as NM State Representative Meredith Dixon stated, “I would really like to see New Mexico as a leader in all things nuclear.” Virginia McLemore of the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources called New Mexico’s supposed one billion pounds of uranium “world class deposits . . . [that are]  going to keep going until we have exploited all of it.”

The idea of drilling rigs crisscrossing the forests of Canjilon is anathema to all of us. Carson National Forest, if it proves to be the decision maker via the NEPA process, has a huge responsibility, not only to the Chama Valley but to the state of New Mexico, to protect our forests and watersheds from an industry that enables nuclear bombs, desecration of the environment, and unhealthy people.