‘the economic argument holds a lot of sway in eclipsing the moral argument’
Coming up this Friday, you can watch an all-new Our Land special, “Loving Our Changing Homelands.” The show features visits and interviews with some of my favorite New Mexicans, including Paula Garcia (New Mexico Acequia Assocation), Theresa Pasqual (Pueblo of Acoma), Phoebe Suina (Pueblo of Cochiti), Sister Joan Brown (New Mexico & El Paso Interfaith Power and Light), and Aaron Lowden (pictured here, and a farmer from the Pueblo of Acoma). It’s an awesome show, and I can’t wait for folks to watch it. You can check out more about the show on our Instagram page.
If you missed the show last week, you can look online for my conversation with Searchlight New Mexico investigative reporter Alicia Inez Guzmán. She covers New Mexico’s nuclear legacy and future — and the New Cold War. And we had an in-depth conversation about her award-winning story, “Buried secrets, poisoned bodies,” the illegal autopsies scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and doctors at the Los Alamos Medical Center performed on people for over 35 years, and the unique challenges of being a reporter on the 21st century atomic beat.
One of the things I’m most fascinated by when it comes to nuclear weapons is the lack of dialogue around the moral implications of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Guzmán and I talked about this a bit, and she offered her thoughts about why the “economic argument holds a lot of sway in eclipsing the moral argument.”
During that interview, Guzmán and I also spoke about Myrriah Gómez’s book, “Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos.” You can watch last year’s interview with Gómez as part of our 2023 show, “New Mexico’s Nuclear Underground.”
And you should also read The New York Times article from last week, “Trump Advisers Call for U.S. Nuclear Weapons Testing if He Is Elected.”
Some of the news:
• “Feds, N.M. investigators say lightning caused South Fork Fire; Salt Fire still under investigation” (Shaun Griswold, Source NM)
• “A closer look at the SCOTUS ruling on the Rio Grande” (Danielle Prokop, Source NM)
• “Decision on pinyon jay protections pushed to 2028” (Geoffrey Plant, Taos News)
• “Conservation enforcement on Santa Ana Pueblo lands expected at end of July” (Austin Fisher, Source NM)
• “Violations could come down on 60% of oil and gas facilities inspected in NM’s Permian Basin” (Nash Jones, KUNM)
• “Wildlife Protections Take a Back Seat to SpaceX’s Ambitions” (Eric Lipton, The New York Times)
• “Coffee, eggs and white rice linked to higher levels of PFAS in human body” (Tom Perkins, The Guardian)
Also, check out this piece from Reuters, featuring a quote from New Mexico’s Rhea Graham, “US miners push Washington to revive long-dormant Bureau of Mines.”
And take some time to read the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s new report on prescribed fire. The GAO began that review after the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon Fire to examine what the U.S. Forest Service has done since then to reform its prescribed fire program and also the “extent to which it has followed selected leading practices for effective agency reforms.” You can read the report yourself — and also check out Susan Montoya Bryan’s Associated Press story, “Review of prescribed fires finds gaps in key areas as US Forest Service looks to improve safety” and Patrick Lohmann’s, “Federal review prompted by NM wildfire warns of staffing shortfalls for future prescribed burns.”
On Monday, the state of New Mexico fired another shot at the U.S. Air Force over its contamination of groundwater with PFAS. (As an aside, as far as I can tell, the U.S. Department of Defense just continues to ignore, punt on, or otherwise neglect any of its admitted responsibilities for having contaminated vast amounts of New Mexico’s groundwater with “forever chemicals.”)
According to a press release from the New Mexico Environment Department, that agency, the New Mexico Office of Natural Resources Trustee, and the New Mexico Attorney General have amended their lawsuit against the Defense Department: “the amended lawsuit utilizes a newly-finalized U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that went into effect on July 8, 2024 that allows the State of New Mexico to recover the costs of clean-up actions and monetary damages for natural resources.”
That new EPA rule categorizes two types of PFAS — perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) — as hazardous substances under federal law. Now, under the amended lawsuit, the state is seeking all “past and future clean-up costs” at Cannon Air Force Base, Holloman Air Force Base, Kirtland Air Force Base, White Sands Missile Range and Fort Wingate.
Lastly, I’m reading and re-reading, “All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis” (edited by Anaya Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson). I’m going to talk more about it in an upcoming conversation with a guest later this month, but for now, I just want to point you all toward the All We Can Save Project and one of the poems included in the anthology, Dead Stars by Ada Limón.
Oh, and maybe one more thing, since the mainstream media is already whipping us all up into an election frenzy. Here’s Joy Harjo’s poem, “For Those Who Would Govern,” which I also found on the NMPBS YouTube page!
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