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.”
Loved ones filled Queen of Heaven Catholic Church as the state mourned musician Al Hurricane Jr., whose family said he died at 66 from a heart attack.
NEW MEXICO – Loved ones filled Queen of Heaven Catholic Church as the state mourned musician Al Hurricane Jr., whose family said he died at 66 from a heart attack.
Family members, friends and others gathered Saturday morning for his funeral service and honored the legacy he left behind. KOB 4 spoke with relatives as they said their final goodbyes.
“270 years we can still be listening to Beethoven, Mozart, Handel. Why couldn’t we in 270 year be listening to Flor de las Flores?” the priest said.
A voice that helped define New Mexico’s sound is now being remembered across the state. Al Hurricane Jr. started his musical career at age 5 and later followed in the footsteps of his father, Al Hurricane.
“Through the years, he was so sweet, he listens very well, very well. And he made a song, well, the song that was for him and I, that he always sang when we used to see him was Flor de las Flores,” Frances Lucero said.
Remembering his legacy
Lucero, whose husband Anthony Lucero is second cousins with Al Hurricane Jr., joined dozens of family members inside the church to pay respects.
“Al Jr.’s dad and I were first cousins, so I’ve known Al Jr. basically after he was born, after his dad passed away, we kept in touch with each other,” Jacob Sanchez said.
“People would see him, and he was so easy to get along with. For me, it was easy, because we were related, but I could see him relate to other people, and there was almost an immediate bond. I was very impressed by that all the time, and just had that ability to become close to people, complete strangers,” Sanchez said.
His relatives said that even with his fame, he never lost sight of who he was.
“Just his ability to have an impact on people, he was so humble, and he had this million dollar smile,” Sanchez said.
Will the music continue?
His family said his legacy will live on through his relatives and the music they continue to perform.
“It’ll continue on, because he still has a brother, Jerry D, Jerry Dean, and him and his sons are starting to come out too so that’s whats going to keep it alive, them and sparks is going to keep it alive,” Antonio Lucero said.
“I will always remember him. He’ll always.. there will not be a day in his years that no one will ever forget them, no. I guarantee you that so far,” Lucero said.
His family said he died at the age of 66 from a heart attack.
GALLUP, NEW MEXICO – AUGUST 13: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Dancers prepare to enter the contest powwow at the 100th Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial at Red Rock Park on August 13, 2022 near Gallup, New Mexico. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Historic Route 66 celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2026. While the so-called “Mother Road” defined classic Americana–tourist kitsch, neon signs, roadside motels–most of its mid-century fame has faded into memory.
Along a sun-drenched, 150-mile stretch of Route 66 between Albuquerque and the New Mexico-Arizona state line, however, thousand-year-old traditions remain vibrant. The Pueblo of Isleta. The Pueblo of Sandia. The Pueblo of Laguna. The Pueblo of Zuni. The Navajo Nation. The otherworldly Acoma Pueblo: Sky City.
Route 66 through western New Mexico offers a concentrated look at historic and contemporary Native America. See for yourself the highs and lows. Breathtaking cultural heritage. Astonishing artwork. Colonization’s heartbreaking legacy. Glitzy casino/resorts. Poverty.
Albuquerque
The corner of 4th Street and Central Avenue in downtown Albuquerque doesn’t seem exceptional. Look at the stoplights. Each one–all four–features the Historic Route 66 road sign. At this intersection, Route 66 intersects with itself.
This is the only place along its nearly 2500-mile stretch where it does that. The oddity is owed to political butt hurt.
The original 1926 path of Route 66 swung sharply northward at Santa Rosa in eastern New Mexico to include the state’s capital of Santa Fe before traversing back south to Albuquerque and then west toward Arizona. When Governor Arthur T. Hannett lost his re-election bid in 1927 to a candidate backed by the powerful Santa Fe political machine, he ordered a new highway constructed–a new Route 66–that would bypass Santa Fe and run straight from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque.
Upon completion of the new section in 1938, Santa Fe–and Hannett’s political enemies–were cut off from the economic engine of Route 66.
Begin your exploration of Native America along Route 66 in Albuquerque at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Here, an introduction to the 19 Pueblos in present-day New Mexico is made through artwork, food, and dance. Admire the IPCC’s remarkable courtyard murals and special exhibitions. Most days, and particularly on weekends, Pueblo artists sell their work direct to visitors around the courtyard which hosts dance groups from the Pueblos every Saturday and Sunday. This is the only place in North America where Native American dances are performed every weekend. Be sure to see one.
IPCC also houses a fantastic Indian Pueblo Store selling museum-quality pottery, jewelry, and textiles, each treasure complete with a certificate of authenticity. The superfood blue corn griddle cakes at the on-site Indian Pueblo Kitchen are worth a visit themselves.
Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque protects one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America. The ancestors of today’s Pueblo people carved these images. While the Rio Grande Valley here has been inhabited by Indigenous people going back 10,000 years, most of the petroglyphs were etched between 1300 and 1650.
As with any outdoor activity in New Mexico, prepare for a harsh sun, alternately scorching heat or freezing cold depending on the season–this is desert–and potential dehydration. Albuquerque sits at 5,300 feet elevation and the combination of that elevation, the heat, and the dry desert air can take a toll on newbies.
The Pueblo of Sandia gets all the love in ABQ. Sandia Mountain, the aerial tramway to the peak, the fancy resort and casino, but don’t sleep on little Pueblo of Isleta south of town. Isleta has a spiffy resort and casino as well, but it’s Yonan Cultural Center is the gem here with a fantastic photography archive and two short films, one from 1898, the first moving images taken in New Mexico. Isleta also maintains one of the most well-preserved Catholic churches–a remnant of Spanish colonialism–and plazas among all the Pueblos.
Back in town, the Albuquerque Museum presents an excellent special exhibition related to Route 66’s centennial through January 3, 2027. The focus is Petroliana and car culture, not Native America, but it provides good context. Admission is free Sundays from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM.
Take a cruise up Central Ave.–Route 66–before leaving. Admire the modestly sized, historic Native murals at 510 Central Ave., and Nani Chacon’s building-filling pottery lowrider three blocks away at the Arrive hotel.
Native Art Galleries In Albuquerque:
(A partial list)
Gallery Hózhó
Arrowsoul Trading Post
Allen Aragon Gallery
Penfeld Gallery
Gertrude Zachary jewelry
ABQ Eats:
Sadie’s
El Pinto
Tiny Grocer ABQ
Curious Toast Cafe
Barelas Coffee House
Church Street Café
Downtown Saturday Growers’ Market
World Famous Laguna Burger
The San Jose de la Laguna Mission, built in 1706, overlooks the Laguna Pueblo. (Photo by Steven Clevenger/Corbis via Getty Images)
Corbis via Getty Images
Interstate 40 has subsumed what was once Route 66 across stretches of New Mexico. The “Mother Road” was decommissioned in 1984. Progress.
Forty-five miles west of Albuquerque at Exit 114 along I-40 find the Pit Stop convenience store and world famous Laguna Burger. Burgers became part of feast day celebrations at the Pueblo of Laguna in the mid-20th century. Their popularity grew. In 2005, the Pueblo began sharing its green chile cheeseburger with the world.
Today, multiple Laguna Burger locations can be found around the state–including across the street from the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center–but a visit to the Pit Stop location at Exit 114 is worth your while. As is taking Route 66 through the village of Laguna.
The story of Native America is not so easy here. Houses surrounding the hilltop Mission Church a couple minutes’ drive from Laguna Burger have seen better days. The community persists; prosper lies in the eye of the beholder. All the more reason to see for yourself. Travel as witness. Native America beyond the Vegas-style casinos and chic cultural centers.
Look at the cars. Look at the homes. Look at the roads. Look at the schools. Think about it. Pull off the side of the road and think about it.
Ask before taking photos or videos. At all the Pueblos. Error on the side of not. The Pueblo and the people are not living history props. Here’s a handy guide to Pueblo etiquette.
September is a big month for feast days at Laguna with the 19th being the largest event.
Gallup And The Navajo Nation
WINDOW ROCK, AZ – MARCH 18, 2017: A bronze statue of a Navajo ‘code talker’ stands in front of the ‘window’ eroded from a sandstone formation at Window Rock, Arizona. The small Arizona city, named after the natural landmark, serves as the seat of government and capital of the Navajo Nation. It is home of the Navajo Nation Code Talker World War II Memorial which honors the Navajo soldiers who used their native language during the war to send messages which could not be understood by the enemy. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
Getty Images
From Laguna, make the 90-mile trip west to Gallup skipping by the Pueblo of Acoma for now. Continuing to follow Route 66 has its own rewards, but using the interstate cuts driving time in half.
Gallup represents the most Route 66 town among all the Route 66 towns in New Mexico. Six thousand tourist cars per day used to stream through Albuquerque and Gallup at the “Mother Road’s” 50s and 60s peak. Not anymore. Not after I-40. The flood of tourists and tourist dollars has slowed to a trickle. Abandoned storefronts in Gallup equal those occupied.
Gallup can be hard to get your head around. Not only the businesses that have gone out of business–motels advertising color TV as an amenity–but those that remain operating, primary among them, the trading posts. Gallup is famous for trading posts.
Trading posts continue a system born out of the horrific Navajo livestock reduction program. Navajo people had their sheep–their food supply and source of income–slaughtered by the federal government. No good reason. Settler colonialism. As a result, the Navajo became economically dependent upon government subsidies. The subsidies, naturally, operated through white traders.
Navajo people purchased goods from traders on store credit or in trade for items they made. The relationship was exploitative from the start. Trading posts have become more equitable over time, but hardly equitable in all circumstances.
Gallup remains the epicenter of trading posts for tourists traveling along Route 66 looking to pick up a Native American souvenir. The caliber of those items ranges from counterfeit to museum-quality. How to know the difference?
Whether you’re purchasing pottery, Katsinas, fetishes, jewelry, paintings, even textiles, authentic, high quality Native American art being sold in a retail location should have an artist’s name attached to it. Not “authentic Indian art.” Not “Native made.” Remember the store at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center; every piece had an artist’s name and tribal affiliation connected to it.
Also, remember the store display at IPCC. Respectful to the objects. It looks like a Tiffany’s. If you walk into a trading post in Gallup and see thousands of objects crammed together on shelves like a going out of business sale at the Dollar Tree, then you’re buying Dollar Tree caliber tchotchkes. Curios. Trinkets. The Route 66 version of a snow globe.
If a trading post primarily uses discounts to sell merchandise, keep moving.
With pottery, if there are dozens of objects of the exact same size and shape, or multiple sizes of the same form, that pottery is most likely molded and kiln fired, not hand coiled and wood fired; you want the latter if you’re looking for a treasure. The molded pieces are often hand painted by Native artists, technically/legally rendering them “Native art,” but it’s shady. Note that Native artists do sell molded pottery as well.
If all you want is a souvenir, whatever; if you’re looking for heirloom quality Native American fine art you can cherish in your home for decades, be careful. Error on the side of caution. More knowledgeable shoppers than you have been fooled.
Purchasing turquoise jewelry can be tricky as well.
If the price seems too good to be true, it’s fishy. Again, remember pricing at IPCC to gauge. There are a thousand good places in New Mexico to purchase authentic Native American art of the highest quality–including numerous opportunities to do so direct from the artist–and you can do that in Gallup, but be careful.
Recommended Native American Art Retailers In Gallup:
(A partial list)
Silver Dust Trading
Zuni Fetishes Direct
Yazzi’s Indian Art
Direct from artists during annual Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial.
Gallup Eats:
Jerry’s Café (406 W Coal Ave, Gallup, NM 87301; no website)
Stop for anyone selling tamales or burritos along the road or from their house. Have cash.
Navajo Code Talkers
Navajo Code Talkers mural in Gallup, NM.
Chadd Scott
When the Navajo Code Talkers left their homeland bound for Japan and the essential communications work they performed in World War II, they departed from the train station in Gallup. The free Gallup Cultural Center next to the train station provides an excellent introduction to the Code Talkers as well as Navajo sand painting. Find the Code Talkers mural a couple blocks away.
Gallup’s Works Progress Administration courthouse is a wonder with spectacular–and mysterious–examples of Depression-era Native art. Take a tour if you’re able.
A thirty-minute drive north from Route 66 takes road trippers to Window Rock, AZ, capital of the Navajo Nation. Go there. See Window Rock. Visit the Navajo Nation Museum. The Navajo count 300,000-plus members among the tribe, second most populous in the United States behind only the Cherokee.
Pueblo of Zuni
Forty miles south of Route 66 from Gallup sits the Pueblo of Zuni. The Zuni have a stronger tourism infrastructure than most Pueblos with a visitor and arts center, tours, restaurants, shops, accommodations, and public feast days and celebrations.
Opportunities to purchase artwork directly from the makers abound. Look up Raylan and Patty Edaakie for A++ jewelry.
Acoma Pueblo: Sky City
The most alluringly named visitor destination in America belongs to Acoma Pueblo: Sky City. Hearing it described seems like something out of a dream. A village continuously inhabited since roughly 1100 AD–the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States–perched 360 feet atop a mesa with commanding views of the surrounding valley.
Acoma’s reality equals the fantasy of its moniker.
Begin your exploration at the exceptional visitor center and museum where most days artists will be selling their work direct to visitors. Guests can only access Sky City by taking a tour. Tours run hourly, 9:30 AM until 3:30 PM, seven days a week.
Tours visit the mesa-top Catholic church. The Acoma people were enslaved to construct the building. The violence of European colonization across the North American continent may have achieved a grisly apex at Acoma when, following a siege by Spanish conquistadors in 1595, a massacre occurred killing hundreds. Male survivors of the slaughter over age 25 had their right foot cut off. Women and children were enslaved. The Acoma Massacre.
Acoma eventually merged the Catholicism forced upon it with its traditional spirituality–as many Pueblos have–and today, Christmastime is a major celebration. The Pueblo is closed to visitors on Christmas Day, but on Christmas Eve, one of the most remarkable sights you will ever witness has a thousand luminarias lining the road to Sky City.
Acoma’s annual schedule of closures and public events can be found here.
The Pueblo operates Sky City Casino Hotel 60 miles west of Albuquerque just off the interstate. The interstate that rendered Route 66 mostly obsolete after only 60 years. Sixty years in America can seem like a long time. Not in Native America, where time is measured by seven generations and thousands of years.
Route 66 through western New Mexico represents a remnant of a bygone American past, and more importantly, a passageway through Native America’s dynamic present.
More From Forbes
-
New York32 minutes agoVideo: Fans Celebrate Knicks’ First N.B.A. Title in 53 Years
-
Los Angeles, Ca37 minutes agoKamala Harris surprises diners at The Abbey in West Hollywood
-
Detroit, MI59 minutes agoReview: Ambitious chef’s second restaurant brings promise to Midtown
-
San Francisco, CA1 hour agoWhere to watch Chicago Cubs vs San Francisco Giants: TV channel, start time, streaming for June 14
-
Dallas, TX1 hour agoQuiet Cowboys free agent signing may not survive the summer
-
Miami, FL1 hour agoAuthorities searching for person who may have gone overboard in Biscayne Bay
-
Boston, MA1 hour ago
Where to watch Texas Rangers vs Boston Red Sox: TV channel, start time, streaming for June 14
-
Denver, CO2 hours ago‘Full send, full speed;’ Red Bull brings Soapbox racing back to Denver
