The transition from petroleum-based to renewable energy is complicated, expensive and a lengthy process.
Those three features were the prologue for a town hall about renewable energy and the path to assuring a “just transition” from an economy dependent on oil and gas production.
Two state legislators from Las Cruces, Democrats Angelica Rubio and Nathan Small, fielded questions from approximately 200 people who packed a small lecture hall at New Mexico State University on Aug. 14.
Among the attendees were a contingent of residents from Sunland Park up in arms about drinking water in their community, ranchers concerned about transmission lines crossing public lands and local residents who came to hear about efforts to mitigate climate change, expand the renewable energy grid and concrete steps available for ordinary citizens.
The nonprofit Semilla Project, a community organization with a focus on cultivating youth leadership and issues including climate and social justice, is holding a series of “GenGreen” town halls around the state during August. Wednesday’s session in Las Cruces was the second of four announced on the organization’s website. The sessions aim to gather lawmakers and community members together to share information about benefits and incentives for energy audits, retrofitting homes, and acquiring new appliances, electric vehicles or solar installations; to make sure all of that information is available in Spanish as well as English; and to provide lawmakers with feedback ahead of next winter’s legislative session and beyond.
The 90-minute event was emceed by Camilla Feibelman, head of the Sierra Club’s Rio Grande Chapter, covering New Mexico and west Texas.
“It's been another summer of extreme heat; another summer of disastrous fires followed by floods; (and) some of the more mundane stuff, like mosquitoes in our backyards that we haven't seen before, allergies getting worse, kids’ asthma, leading to days lost at school and days lost at work,” Feibelman told the Bulletin, before turning to the New Mexico Legislature and the larger picture of energy transition.
“We have had so many big successes: the Energy Transition Act, dealing with the electric sector, methane rules and oil and gas, new rules for how many (electric vehicles) come into the state, and updated building codes; but because of the Permian oil boom, the goalposts just keep getting pushed out further and further.”
But rather than focus on the frightening implications of climate change and the obstacles to mitigating it, the presenters focused on practical steps and solutions already underway. Feibelman recommended homeowners conduct energy audits and take preliminary steps to improve energy efficiency and replace older appliances such as gas-burning stoves before investing in solar energy systems.
Aline Castelan, a campaign and projects director at the Semilla Project, said the information would also be presented digitally on a web page for the GenGreen project and integrated with the organization’s door-to-door canvassing and other communication efforts.
“We really invite young people to talk about this work, and having them be the trusted messengers, to go out there and talk about it in their own words,” she said.
CRRUA, Sunland Park complaints
A panel that included representatives from the Semilla Project, Friends of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and New Mexico State University was joined later by Small and Rubio, to whom the attendees addressed questions and comments until after 7:30 p.m.
Sunland Park and Santa Teresa-area residents who receive their water from the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority rose one-by-one to appeal for help, saying CRRUA and the city were not doing enough to address discolored and smelly tap water in homes and at schools.
On Aug. 2, the New Mexico Environmental Law Center requested that the state Attorney General and Auditor both conduct investigations into whether the utility for water safety failures and delivering water with unsafe Ph levels and arsenic, and missing records that delayed changes in the utility’s governance. The utility operates under a joint powers agreement with the city of Sunland Park and Doña Ana County.
“Your local government failed you,” Rubio said. “As a state legislature, we are paying attention to what’s happening … part of the reason that it's taking so long for a lot of the things that need to happen is because there's just so many entities that are involved, and folks like CRRUA and others, who are making things much more challenging.”
Small, who chairs the House Finance Committee, suggested more governance changes were called for while noting $5 million had been appropriated in Santa Fe for water and wastewater systems in southern Doña Ana County.
“Ultimately, we're going to have to drill to access better water, to bring a whole lot of funding for cleanup of the current water sources, the wastewater … It has to be an investment shared by the state,” he said.
A ranching family in attendance also raised concern about proposed corridors for electric transmission lines and potential use of private land, which is a federal program not overseen by state government. Small said that some developers, such as those behind the SunZia transmission project, had participated in reclamation efforts for their projects’ affects on wildlife habitat.
He also returned to the difficult balance and tradeoffs involved in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to head off catastrophic effects of climate change, even as demand for energy rises: “The way to do that is working through it together. It's innovating and getting technology.”
It also comes as the state moves toward ambitious goals to cut carbon emissions, which impacts the oil and gas industry that provides the state with much of its revenue, a tension Rubio addressed in her remarks.
“So much of our livelihoods and our revenues rely heavily on this industry,” she said, adding that it was not only an economic problem but a matter “of justice, of people, of planet, and the land.”
