New Mexico
Preventable heat injuries and deaths rising in New Mexico • Source New Mexico
Heat and degraded air quality harming New Mexicans is projected to worsen in the coming years, as climate change fueled by burning and extracting fossil fuels cranks up the planet’s temperature.
State lawmakers heard that message from panels of experts from government and outside groups in an interim Water and Natural Resources Committee meeting Monday held in Albuquerque.
Extreme heat is the deadliest natural disaster, killing more people in the U.S. than flooding and hurricanes combined. Hotter, drier conditions also increase and intensify wildfires. It leads to arid conditions causing dust storms and increases air pollution.
The data shows the Southwestern U.S. is the fastest warming area in the lower 48 states, and New Mexicans are feeling the consequences, with 50 people going to emergency rooms between April and May.
With extreme heat growing more frequent and intense, New Mexico has to transform its approach, said heat public health expert Nathaniel Matthews-Trigg, a co-founder of advocacy group Healthy Climate New Mexico.
“The stark reality is this: every summer, New Mexicans are dying preventable deaths,” Matthews-Trigg told lawmakers. “It’s time we shift our focus from individual actions to collective community efforts.”
Extreme heat is killing more people crossing the border
He said New Mexico’s current model treats extreme heat as a matter of personal responsibility, which ignores both science and experience from people who shoulder the brunt of heat exposure.
And while New Mexico has made more efforts to track data on heath injuries and deaths – which are difficult numbers to pin down – members of state agencies said they still required more funding and staffing.
Requests for money by agencies and policy experts included adding six more staff to collect heat injury and death data for the New Mexico Department of Health.
Mann-Lev said that New Mexico’s application for federal funds for $2.5 million to track public health and environment was rejected because of a lack of staff at state agencies to spend it down.
Shelley Mann-Lev, the Executive Director of Healthy Climate New Mexico said the group has been working to establish a statewide public health and climate program.
Supporters said the program would deal with heat, wildfire smoke, drought, flooding, dust and severe storms.
Mann-Lev also supports establishing a $10 million fund to help towns and cities address climate needs.
“That fund would be dedicated at least 50% to communities with populations of less than 100,000 (people),” Mann-Lev said. The proposal has failed the past three sessions.
Deadly heat
Emergency room visits due to heat stress have nearly doubled since 2010 in New Mexico, said Lauren Reichelt, New Mexico Environment Department’s director at the Environmental Health Division.
When temperatures rise above 90 degrees, so do visits in southern and northwestern NM, many of them outdoor workers, men between 18- and 44-years-old, Reichelt said.
Heat stroke and heat exhaustion in New Mexico emergency rooms rose from 200 visits to over 400 visits. Those are only for those specific conditions, Reichelt said, the real impacts are much larger since heat exacerbates heart and kidney conditions.
“If you wanted the real number, you’d have to add a zero at the end and either double or even quintuple it,” she said about estimates on heat-related injuries.
The New Mexico Environment Department ascribed 900 emergency room visits to heat in 2023. This year, there have already been 600 visits due to heat, Reichelt said.
Matthews-Trigg said most existing interventions on extreme heat are ineffective and a waste of money.
“Telling someone to get somewhere cooler, if they don’t have access to transportation is pointless,” he said. “Setting up cooling centers that are not welcoming, that don’t allow pets or in inaccessible locations will mean the people that need them are unable to go to them.”
Facing the heat head on
Matthews-Trigg offered recommendations based on surveys with state agencies, community groups, local governments and research to better prevent deaths. Those include:
Tailoring messages for elderly, children, outdoor workers
Getting better data; treating heat like a mass-casualty event for first responders
Ensuring governments have support, if a blackout happens during a heatwave
Establish a heat emergency hotline to take pressure off of 911 centers
Offer more water bottles, cooling towels to smaller communities
Give more funding and training to rural and tribal communities
Another recommendation is to offer people help with energy bills, since some research shows people don’t use air conditioning or swamp coolers out of financial hardship.
“People literally cook inside their homes because they can’t pay a few dollars to stay cool. This is an incredible injustice,” Matthews-Trigg said.
Gerilyn Antonio, the tribal liaison for the New Mexico Alliance of Health Councils, requested that the state work to consult with tribes, provide tribal-level data, rather than just county-specific data.
“There’s not a comprehensive picture of how tribal communities in our state are affected,” Antonio said about heat.
She said the legislature needs to increase funding for state agencies and work to improve communications to Pueblos.
Sen. Liz Stefanics (D-Cerillos) said the legislature might consider combining the state agencies with climate bureaus or divisions under one office.
“If we could bring together the entities that are working in this, we might be able to better fund something as a whole, rather than piecemeal,” Stefanics said.
Pollution, wildfire smoke and dust
Extreme heat and drought are worsening New Mexico’s air quality said JoAnna Strother, who directs advocacy for the American Lung Association in the Southwest.
Ozone, also known as smog, worsens in high heat, causing a “sunburn” effect on the lungs and worsening or causing lung diseases.
Particle pollution means very tiny amounts of solids and liquids inhaled into the lungs. The pollution is sometimes due to wildfire, but also just emissions from gasoline, diesel or wood fuels.
“Particle pollution can be very dangerous to breathe, especially at higher concentrations. It can trigger illness, hospitalization, and premature death and can even cause lung cancer,” Strother said.
Just over half of New Mexicans live in a county with at least one failing air grade and 32% of New Mexicans live in counties with three failing grades for air quality, she said.
Las Cruces is the 15th most polluted city for ozone, and Albuquerque the 21st in national rankings. But it isn’t just urban areas affected, Eddy County ranked as the 17th most polluted county for ozone in the U.S.
Particle pollution has also worsened in both Albuquerque and Las Cruces, she said.
Maxine Paul, the former chair of the Albuquerque Air Quality Control Board said the legislature’s passage of a bill to reduce pollution from cars and trucks is still being implemented, but that it will work to reduce pollution.
The New Mexico Environment Department only has seven staff to travel around the state, measure, and collect data on air pollution, said Dana Bahar, the deputy director of the Environmental Protection Division.
‘There’s no future where our landscapes are not flammable’
Wildfires and smoke are inevitable in New Mexico, said Matthew Hurteau, a professor studying fire ecology at the University of New Mexico, but the state can do more to limit smoke exposure.
Climate change’s drying effect has made New Mexico’s forests more flammable, meaning the devastating 2022 fire season is projected to become “fairly normal,” as the atmosphere warms and dries, he said.
His research shows forest management is key to reducing pollution from these fires.
“If we restore frequent fire to these forests, through mechanical thinning, and prescribed burning, we can significantly reduce the amount of emissions that are happening, particularly in large doses,” he said.
Elimination of wildfire isn’t an option.
“There’s no future where our landscapes are not flammable in New Mexico,” Hurteau said. “Anyone who tells you that we can manage smoke impacts by putting out wildfire is delusional.”
He said the state needs to do more to clean people’s air, such as offering air purifiers in rural communities.
In addition to air purifiers, wearing properly fitted N95 masks filters out harmful particles and works to protect peoples’ lungs from wildfire smoke and other pollution, said Strother.
How you can protect your community from wildfire smoke
‘Albatross around our neck’
One top lawmaker expressed frustrations at New Mexico Environment Department Secretary James Kenney, saying the administration and agency is failing to display a sense of urgency.
Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) invoked 18th century poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” saying New Mexico had an inescapable burden in relying on fossil fuels.
“We all have this albatross around our neck, thanking oil and gas for giving us funding, at the same time trying desperately to keep them from destroying the Earth.”
She asked Kenney what is preventing the environment department from being at full staffing, asking if the governor requested the agency to keep its budget flat, if it can’t pay enough for staff, or a combination of issues.
Kenney said he feels Stewart’s sense of urgency, but the environment department lacks an office for 167 of its staff, and said state hiring remains slow.
“We have no shortage of people wanting to work there. We just need quicker processing to get them in the door,” Kenney said.
Stewart said she wants New Mexico to be seen by the rest of the country as a model for addressing climate change, boldly addressing public health and economic impacts.
“You can’t say that about us right now. Little tiny steps,” she said pantomiming footprints with her hands. “Little tiny steps while the Earth is burning.”
New Mexico’s small towns each carry a different angle on the Southwest. Truth or Consequences took its name from a 1950 radio show. Los Alamos built the first atomic weapons during the Manhattan Project. Roswell remembers a 1947 UFO incident. The eleven stops below stretch across the state with their own anchors, between Spanish-grant towns along the Rio Grande and ranching outposts on the Comanche plains.
Truth Or Consequences
Truth or Consequences shed its original name of Hot Springs in March 1950 after radio host Ralph Edwards offered to broadcast his show from any town that adopted the title. The town agreed, and Edwards returned every year for the rest of his life for the annual Fiesta. Around a dozen commercial bathhouses sit within walking distance of downtown, drawing on the same geothermal aquifer that ran the original spa economy from the 1880s forward. Elephant Butte Lake State Park sits five miles north for fishing, boating, and the largest reservoir in the state. The Geronimo Springs Museum runs the local history through the era of the Apache Wars, mining, and the Edwards broadcasts.
Los Alamos
Los Alamos served as the headquarters of the Manhattan Project during World War II, where physicists led by Robert Oppenheimer designed the first atomic weapons. The Manhattan Project National Historical Park preserves several of the original buildings including Oppenheimer’s house, the Fuller Lodge, and the V-Site assembly buildings. The Bradbury Science Museum operates as the public face of the still-active Los Alamos National Laboratory with exhibits on weapons history and current basic-science research. Bandelier National Monument sits twelve miles south of town with ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings carved into volcanic tuff and a 33,000-acre canyon system to hike. Pajarito Mountain Ski Area runs the lifts about ten minutes from downtown during winter.
Chama
Chama sits in north-central New Mexico at the foot of the southern Rocky Mountains, just shy of the Colorado border. The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad anchors the town as a narrow-gauge steam railroad with National Historic Landmark designation, running the original 1881 Denver and Rio Grande line over Cumbres Pass into Antonito, Colorado. The route crosses the Toltec Gorge at 800 feet above the river below. El Vado Lake and Heron Lake State Parks sit a short drive south for boating and fishing. Elk herds move through the meadows around town in fall when temperatures drop and aspen turn yellow on the surrounding peaks.
Jemez Springs
Jemez Springs sits along the Jemez Mountain Trail National Scenic Byway about an hour northwest of Albuquerque. The commercial hot springs and bathhouses cluster along NM-4 through the village, ranging from soaking tubs at the historic Jemez Springs Bath House to the Giggling Springs Hot Springs along the river. Free natural hot springs require some hiking to reach. Spence Hot Springs takes a half-mile climb to terraced pools above the Jemez River, and McCauley Warm Springs requires a longer two-mile hike from Battleship Rock in the Santa Fe National Forest. The Jemez Historic Site at the south end of the village preserves the 17th-century ruins of San José de los Jémez Mission alongside the ancestral Puebloan settlement of Giusewa.
Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa calls itself the Scuba Diving Capital of the Southwest, which sounds improbable until you see the Blue Hole. The natural artesian spring runs 80 feet straight down through limestone with a constant temperature of 62°F and visibility regularly past 80 feet, supporting casual swimmers and open-water dive certification at the same site. The town sits on Route 66 in Guadalupe County, with Park Lake, Tres Lagunas, and Perch Lake also drawing weekend visitors. Joseph’s Bar and Grill, established 1956 along the old Route 66 alignment, serves green-chile enchiladas to passing travelers. Puerto de Luna twelve miles south preserves a Spanish colonial village along the Pecos River with one of the oldest continuously inhabited parishes in New Mexico.
Mesilla
Mesilla preserves the look of a mid-1800s New Mexico town with adobe storefronts wrapping a central plaza two miles southwest of Las Cruces. The Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoaches stopped here between 1858 and 1861 on the long route connecting eastern American cities to California. La Posta de Mesilla operates as a restaurant in one of the original adobe buildings from that era. The Basilica of San Albino faces the north side of the plaza, designated a minor basilica in 2008 and built on the foundations of an 1851 adobe church. Billy the Kid stood trial in the Mesilla courthouse in 1881 for the killing of Sheriff William Brady, with the conviction and death sentence later voided when he escaped custody in Lincoln County two weeks later.
Taos
Taos lies at 7,000 feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, north-central New Mexico, with the Rio Grande Gorge cutting the western edge of the valley. The Taos Pueblo holds UNESCO World Heritage status as one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America, with multi-story adobe structures built between roughly 1000 and 1450 AD. The artist colony established in the early 1900s drew Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, DH Lawrence, and Mabel Dodge Luhan to the area, and the legacy continues through more than 80 active galleries today. Taos Ski Valley operates 60 minutes northeast in the mountains as one of the steepest lift-served terrains in North America. The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge spans the canyon at 565 feet above the river, the seventh-highest bridge in the country.
Chimayó
Chimayó sits along the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway about an hour north of Santa Fe. El Santuario de Chimayó, built between 1813 and 1816, draws roughly 300,000 visitors annually for the small back chapel where the floor exposes a hole of consecrated earth that pilgrims collect for its reputed healing properties. The shrine holds National Historic Landmark status from 1970 and remains an active parish. Trampas Lane runs east from the village past family weaving shops including Centinela Traditional Arts and Ortega’s Weaving Shop, both operating Spanish-colonial Rio Grande weaving traditions across multiple generations. Rancho de Chimayó serves the town’s most established restaurant with carne adovada and sopaipillas in an 1880s hacienda kitchen converted to a dining room in 1965.
Aztec
Aztec carries a name based on a 19th-century misidentification. Early settlers and visitors saw the nearby ruins and assumed they had been built by the Aztec civilization of central Mexico. The ruins were actually constructed by Ancestral Puebloan people between 1110 and 1280 AD as part of the larger Chaco regional system. Aztec Ruins National Monument preserves the site at the north end of town with the only completely restored Great Kiva in the country, a 50-foot-diameter ceremonial chamber rebuilt in 1934 over its original walls. The downtown historic district along Main Avenue carries 19th-century commercial buildings on the National Register. Navajo Lake State Park sits 30 minutes east for boating, fishing, and cold tailwater fly-fishing on the San Juan River below the dam.
Alamogordo
Alamogordo sits at the base of the Sacramento Mountains in Otero County with what locals advertise as 287 sunny days each year. White Sands National Park lies fifteen miles southwest, where 275 square miles of pure gypsum dunes shift across the Tularosa Basin. The site was redesignated a National Park in December 2019 after eighty-six years as a National Monument. The New Mexico Museum of Space History rides the foothills above town with exhibits on the early rocket program at White Sands Missile Range, including the V-2 testing of the late 1940s. Holloman Air Force Base east of town houses the F-16 Aggressor squadron training mission alongside its static aircraft displays. McGinn’s Pistachio Tree Ranch sits along US-54 with the world’s largest pistachio statue, a 30-foot fiberglass nut commemorating the local pistachio industry that took root in the 1980s.
Roswell
Roswell turns its 1947 UFO incident into a permanent festival. The July 1947 reports from a ranch outside town set off a controversy that the government’s weather-balloon explanations have never fully closed, and the International UFO Museum and Research Center documents the entire timeline through declassified files and witness affidavits. The annual UFO Festival each July draws between 30,000 and 40,000 visitors for costume contests, lectures, and an alien-themed light parade. Beyond the alien angle, the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art houses works from the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program that has hosted painters and sculptors since 1967. Bottomless Lakes State Park sits a short drive east with karst sinkhole lakes formed in the Permian gypsum bedrock.
The Small Towns of New Mexico
The eleven towns above each commit fully to a single defining hook. Truth or Consequences keeps the radio-show name. Los Alamos owns the Manhattan Project. Chimayó draws pilgrims to a back chapel of consecrated earth. Roswell sells aliens. Aztec interprets its Ancestral Puebloan ruins. Across the state, each anchor pulls a different traveler, and most of these towns are within two hours of one of the others.
Sunday will bring the weekend’s warmest weather with highs in the 90s in parts of southern New Mexico before rain chances increase Monday.
NEW MEXICO – Sunday will bring the weekend’s warmest weather with highs in the 90s in parts of southern New Mexico before rain chances increase Monday.
Most of the state stayed dry Saturday, with isolated showers and a few thunderstorms that will decrease through the evening.
Sunday will bring near to above average afternoon highs statewide. Parts of southern New Mexico will reach the 90s for highs.
Most of the state will stay warm and dry through Sunday, but a few isolated storms could form Sunday afternoon and evening, mainly over the eastern third of New Mexico.
Rain chances may increase by Monday as a weakening storm system moves east into New Mexico. There could be a good chance for rain near the Albuquerque and Santa Fe metro areas by early evening into the night.
Meteorologist Alan Shoemaker shares all the details in his full forecast in the video above.
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New Mexico
Ansel Adams’ trust says AI-colorized version of his work was exhibited without permission – Engadget
The AI-generated version of ‘Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico’ was on display at AIPAD’s The Photography show.
The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust released a statement this weekend condemning the unauthorized use of the photographer’s name and work for the creation of an “AI-generated color version” of Adams’ “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.” According to the trust, the piece was up for sale last month at the Association of International Photography Art Dealers’ (AIPAD) The Photography Show. The exhibit by Danziger Gallery “exploited Ansel’s name, reputation, and his most iconic image, while failing to identify any human artist responsible for its creation,” the statement says.
Interestingly, the trust didn’t take issue with the involvement of AI, noting that Adams “was remarkably prescient about—and excited by—the potential of computers to transform photography.” The issue is that the exhibitor allegedly just straight up ripped off the artist’s work to make money off of it.
“The Trust was not consulted or notified before the work appeared,” the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust said. “Once alerted, we reached out to James Danziger in real time, notifying him of the Trust’s rights, and asking for the work to be removed. Correspondence shared with the Trust shows that, despite our formal notice, Mr. Danziger subsequently leveraged Ansel’s name, ‘Moonrise,’ and the AIPAD presentation while pursuing a proposed commercial AI colorization venture involving other artists’ estates.” The statement goes on to denounce the nonconsensual use of an artist’s name and work for commercial purposes, calling the incident “a gross failure of ethical and professional judgment.”
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