Federal program fosters development, damages rivers and wetlands
New Mexico
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Healing the border with words
Denise Chávez believes that art can — and should — make a difference in everyday lives. “Why is the arts community so mute?” asks Chávez. “On the one hand, it’s a terrible time — people are so fearful, afraid of each other, afraid of people who are different, afraid to learn something new. But it’s […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
The little wilderness that could
New Mexico conservationists build support from the ground up, and win one
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Trouble on the Valles Caldera
Push to keep cows on preserve clashes with mandate to make money
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Odes to an urban mountain range
Like other mountain ranges that dominate city skylines, Albuquerque’s Sandia Mountains are too easily taken for granted. The Sandias’ diverse hiking trails range from the lung-busters that scale the west side’s granite face to lush trails on the east that meander through mixed conifers. But how many of the city’s half-million residents take advantage of […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
A smart-growth bulldog
Albuquerque city councilman goes head-to-head with the incumbent mayor, and the developers who have long ruled here
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Western military bases still reporting for duty
New Mexico’s Cannon Air Force Base won’t be shut down — at least not for the next few years (HCN, 8/22/05: Leavin’ on a Jet Plane). It and four other Western military installations narrowly escaped the base-closure ax. The nine-member federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission finished its hearings on Aug. 26, voting against […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
Leavin’ on a Jet Plane
As the Air Force prepares to fly away from New Mexico’s Cannon Air Force Base, the town it helped to build won’t let go
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Complete History of New Mexico
Complete History of New Mexico Kevin McIlvoy, 174 pages, paperback $15: Graywolf Press, 2004. This collection of short stories from a Las Cruces-based writer is published by the independent Graywolf Press. Kevin McIlvoy’s stories are written from a variety of perspectives — from 11-year-old Chum telling the history of the state as he sees it, […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Suburbia blasts through a national monument
With a road headed its way, a new development takes root on Albuquerque’s West side
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
The Healing River
I live on a remote tributary of the Gila River in a still-wild corner of Catron County, New Mexico. Well, not “on” the river, really; no one really lives on a river, unless they’re on a houseboat on the constipated Colorado, or a converted shrimper on Orbison’s bayou. More specifically, I live far enough from […]
Posted inJune 13, 2005: Owning a Piece of Paradise
Desire
Desire Lindsay Ahl, 231 pages, paperback: $14. Coffeehouse Press, 2004. If you’ve ever crept around the alley south of Albuquerque’s Central Avenue, you’ll be immediately drawn into this new novel by Santa Fe writer Lindsay Ahl. And even if you’ve never been to the Duke City, there’s good writing and fun action to draw you […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Revamped road to Chaco may be the park’s ruin
It takes an intrepid visitor to reach the ancient sites at Chaco Culture National Historic Park. After leaving the highway, archaeology aficionados travel a tooth-rattling 16 miles over a washboard gravel road. The road is passable, even to low-clearance passenger vehicles, but it isn’t the most comfortable drive. And that’s just the way the park […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
The artist, her caretaker, and eight years of letters
The initial draw of Maria Chabot — Georgia O’Keeffe: Correspondence, 1941-1949 is its promise of a peek into the artist’s personal life. But the surprise of these collected letters between two women in the 1940s — one of them in northern New Mexico, cleaning out acequias, planting fruit trees and commenting on the “bloodsucker” artists […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Santa Fe Hispanic Culture: Preserving Identity in a Tourist Town
Santa Fe Hispanic Culture: Preserving Identity in a Tourist Town Andrew Leo Lovato, 160 pages, hardcover $24.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2004. As author Andrew Leo Lovato writes, Santa Fe is not only a “city of ancient traditions” but one of “invented traditions” — in other words, it’s a true tourist town. “It is […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
The life of an unsung Western water diplomat
Mark Twain once remarked that in the West, “whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.” But Delphus E. Carpenter, who spearheaded the 1922 Colorado River Compact among seven states, would have disagreed twice over. Carpenter not only abstained from spirits, but believed water problems could be resolved through diplomacy instead of fisticuffs. His life […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
UFOs Over Galisteo and Other Stories of New Mexico’s History
UFOs Over Galisteo and Other Stories of New Mexico’s History Robert J. Tórrez, 160 pages, softcover $16.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2004. A retired state historian, Tórrez creates vivid vignettes of New Mexico’s past. He enlivens his accounts of arranged marriages, water disputes and stagecoaches with historical photos and documents. The book also contains […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Whose rules rule on Otero Mesa?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, D, knows who his friends are. In 2003, speaking before the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, he told the assembled governors and industry bigwigs that they built his state’s budget surplus. And […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Caught in the Headlights
A personal obsession leads one woman into a world of scientists, wildlife rehabilitators and eccentrics who are mesmerized by the often bloody relationship between wildlife and roads
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Butterfly escapes endangered species net
New Mexico community creates its own conservation plan