New Mexico Environmental Law Center

10/05/2026

We are relieved the hearing process on Project Jupiter will be resuming and hope that Judge Browning will insure a fair, orderly and deliberate process for everyone.

A retired federal judge has been appointed to oversee the environmental permit proceeding for Project Jupiter following the recusal of the previous hearing officer and a state Supreme Court review.

10/05/2026

10/05/2026

Good news: communities will have more time to weigh in on the proposed Churchrock-Crownpoint uranium project.

New Mexico Mining Watch asked NMED to extend the Community Impact Assessment public comment period to give communities more time to understand the process and participate. NMED granted the extension, moving the deadline to November 5.

Meaningful public participation requires giving communities the time and information they need to make their voices heard.

📝 Want help writing your comment? Join a drop-in public comment workshop on Tuesday, October 6 at the Churchrock Chapter House, hosted by Red Water Pond Road Community Association and MULTICULTURAL ALLIANCE FOR A SAFE ENVIRONMENT (MASE)

⏰ Drop in anytime: 1-4 p.m. or 6-8 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 6
📅 New comment deadline: November 5

10/01/2026

Thank you Leslie for your generous support of our critical legal work advancing environmental justice in New Mexico and our important work against data centers!!

Hearing encouraging words from our donor community means everything to us and especially to our clients and hardworking team.
Have a story or some words you would like to share? Help us out and tell us why YOU give in the hopes of inspiring others. Link in our bio!

10/01/2026

From the Cibola Citizen about the Homestake Barrick Gold "Very Large Tailings Pile":

“So the bottom line is you can't clean up the groundwater, and the source is primarily along the Large Tailings Pile and the Small Tailings Pile. Why doesn't Barrick Gold move the tailings pile?” Ann McCartney, an attorney with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, asked at Homestake's Sept. 9 meeting with the community to discuss the company's application to the NRC for Alternate Concentration Limits for groundwater.

“That was done in Moab, Utah, with the Atlas Mill, and it's underway right now to put that material into an engineered and safe storage area. Wouldn't that be the best outcome for this community, to get rid of the source?” McCartney asked.

Read the full article at this link:
https://www.cibolacitizen.com/news/homestake-winds-down-calls-removing-tailings-pile-remain

This week in the Cibola Citizen:

The Cibola County Commission voted 3-2 to approve a resolution supporting in-situ recovery uranium mining, following debate over public safety, tribal consultation, environmental concerns and economic development.

Also on A1: As Homestake winds down, residents continue calls for removal of the uranium tailings pile; Grants Police Chief Maxine Monte retires after more than three decades in law enforcement; and rainfall at the Grants-Milan Municipal Airport reached approximately 1.38 inches by Tuesday afternoon.

Plus, inside this week’s edition: Cibola County’s battle against overdoses, concerns over the proposed Roca Honda uranium mine and the Continental Divide Trail, 2026 General Election information, Acoma Feast Day, local sports, the Cibola Fishing Report, community news and more.

Pick up the Sept. 30 Cibola Citizen today.
By, For, and About the Citizens of Cibola County.

09/30/2026

The Project Jupiter datacenter plans to divide its natural turbines into minor permits was “nothing short of preposterous”, attorneys with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center wrote in March comments submitted to state regulators. The firm is representing community members who would be impacted by the proposed plans’ pollution.

It in effect created a scenario in which one natural gas power plant would have operated with two minor permits, attorneys wrote. The permit application points to why the data center’s developers, Austin-based BorderPlex, attempted to do two permits.

The federal limit for a minor permit for hazardous air pollution is 25 tons per year. The project’s developers proposed releasing between 20.2 and 24.2 tons of hazardous air pollution from each of the grids, meaning that together they would have released as much as 44 tons of hazardous air pollution.

In regulatory documents, Maslyn Locke, an attorney working on the case, wrote that the “audacious attempt to arbitrarily distinguish two halves of the same source is insulting to both [regulators] and community members, as it is so clearly an attempt to avoid air pollution control requirements.”

Firms manipulating process to avoid emission controls and scrutiny of their projects, environmental groups warn

09/29/2026

In a recent and extremely disappointing decision,, the Cibola County Commission approved a resolution in support of uranium mining in the Grants Mineral Belt.

Despite recent strides to protect frontline communities experiencing the ongoing and negative impacts of uranium mining - the State Land Office banning uranium mining on State Lands and Senator Angel Charley calling for a statewide ban on uranium mining - the Cibola County Commission chose instead to voice support for renewed uranium extraction.

We commend Commissioner Christine Lowery and Commissioner Georgia Routzen Sanchez for voting against the resolution and taking a strong stance to protect frontline communities in the Grants Mineral Belt from harmful uranium mining.

09/28/2026

The New Mexico Environment Department has announced a community meeting and three days of one-on-one community consultations for residents of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, September 29 through October 1, in relation to the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority’s mismanagement of the public’s drinking water supply and additional community concerns.

NMELC and the Community would like to note that while this is an attempt by the Department to “rebuild trust” we would like to highlight the following:

-Providing residents with only five-days notice of these meetings, will achieve the opposite, and at the very least, the Department should ensure its opportunities for engagement with residents allow for adequate time to prepare, attend and participate in any community meeting.

-Nowhere publicly available does the Department’s announcement appear in Spanish. As NMED is well aware, the Borderland communities of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa are primarily Spanish speaking. NMED should ensure its communication with residents actually reaches residents, and in a language the Community primarily speaks.

-There is no indication that NMED shared this notice more broadly, in any publicly accessible location in Sunland Park or Santa Teresa. Expecting Community members to have subscribed to a Department email listserv, or to consistently check NMED’s online calendar of events, in order to be informed of engagement opportunities is unreasonable and does not ensure accessibility.

09/28/2026

The New Mexico Supreme Court recently allowed one of the three wells pumping water to Project Jupiter to start flowing again. Just that one well has already sent enough water

09/24/2026

"Our clients and community members opposed this from the start — understanding quite well that Project Jupiter will provide more harm to the community than good," Maslyn Locke, a senior staff attorney at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, wrote in an email to The New Mexican on Thursday. "Oracle's debts should not be excused based on the fact that they underestimated community power and opposition to their ill-advised project."

Oracle sent a notice of "force majeure" to a developer, seeking to release itself from liability if the data center is not online by 2028.