After evaluating ways to be better prepared for wildfire, the Dixon Volunteer Fire Department in Rio Arriba County chose to install solar panels and battery storage. Chief Steven Jenison announced that, two days ago, “we flipped the switch on our solar system, that 7.5 kilowatt system that has large storage capacity.” In the case of
What happens next with the New Mexico Entity of the Central Arizona Project as an organization is anyone’s guess. If the political subdivisions that make up the Entity can smooth out their differences over the next several weeks, at least some of the original 14 voting members of the group that planned to build a Gila River diversion project could maintain an organizational framework that would serve as a “placeholder” …
Anti-diversion bill heads to House Written by Geoffrey Plant on February 24, 2021
With the majority Democratic members of two key state legislative committees recommending in hearings over consecutive Saturdays that a House bill to sideline the Gila River diversion group “do pass,” the future of the New Mexico Entity of the Central Arizona Project has never looked so imperiled.
As the bill, titled “Water Trust Board Projects and N.M. Unit Fund,” heads to the House floor for a vote as soon as this week, N.M. CAP Entity Executive Director Anthony Gutierrez made an appearance at a work session for Grant County commissioners on Tuesday morning. Like all of the presenters at the work session, Gutierrez made his presentation by video. He began his talk with a disclaimer that everything he was about to say might soon be rendered moot by the passage of House Bill 200.
Bill to sideline diversion group passes committee Written by Geoffrey Plant on February 17, 2021
A bill that seeks to sideline the New Mexico Entity of the Central Arizona Project received a “do pass” recommendation by the state House Agriculture and Water Resources Committee on Saturday in a 5-3 party-line vote.
Committee member and District 15 Democratic state Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil attended Saturday’s hearing but did not cast a vote regarding House Bill 200.
District 50 N.M. Rep. Matthew McQueen, sponsor of the bill, titled “Water Trust Board Projects and NM Unit Fund,” explained the proposed law’s purpose to the committee, which met virtually via Zoom due to the pandemic, by telling them why he wanted to use a different title for the legislation.