News & Views from the Sustainable Southwest

Being Human in Healthcare • Resilience in a Changing Climate Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks • Tribute to a Local Hero

February 2014 North-central New Mexico’s Largest Circulation Newspaper Vol. 6 No. 2 2 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 3 4 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Vol. 6, No. 2 • February 2014 Issue No. 58 Publisher Green Fire Publishing, LLC Skip Whitson News & Views from the Sustainable Southwest Associate Publisher Winner of the Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Outstanding Educational Project Barbara E. Brown ontents Editor-in-chief C Seth Roffman Increasing Resilience in a Changing Climate. 7 Art Director Anna C. Hansen, Dakini Design ‘Thinking Like a Watershed’ Panels Come to the KiMo Theater ...... 8 Copy Editor A Visit to the Proposed Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks National Monument . 9 Stephen Klinger Book Profile: Water Ethics – A Values Approach to Solving the Water Crisis . 11 Webmaster: Karen Shepherd People and Planet: Partners in Wellness. 12 Contributing Writers Camille Adair, Esha Chiocchio, Susan Guyette, Drought and Floods: Impacts of 2011-2012 Fires and 2013 Floods. . 13 Amanda Hessel, Japa K. Khalsa, Jack Loeffler, Alejandro López, Serafina Lombardi, Harry Acequias Up-Close ...... 14 Montoya, Mariel Nanasi, Poki Piottin, Quita Ortiz, Seth Roffman, Miguel Santistévan, Audrey New Mexico’s Soul Food...... 15 Shannon, Susan Waterman Local Hero: A Tribute to Dr. Tomás Atencio ...... 17 Contributing Fresh AIRE: A Year of Growing in Taos . 20 Photographers Esha Chiocchio, Anna C. Hansen, Japa K. Urban Farming: The School of the Future?...... 22 Khalsa, Mike Lamb, Jack Loeffler, Alejandro López, Mariel Nanasi, Poki Piottin, Seth Everyday Green: The Santa Fe Community Food Co-op. 24 Roffman, Miguel Santistévan, Jamey Stillings, Pay It Forward! Being Human in Healthcare...... 27 Joseph Yaroch Sustainable Healing ...... 29 PUBLISHER’S ASSISTANTs Lisa Allocco, Cisco Whitson-Brown, Medicine of the People: Massage and Self-Acupressure. 31 Susan Clair Health Benefits of Food as Medicine in Traditional Chinese Medicine for Animals. . . 33 Office Assistants Camille Franchette, Claire Ayraud OP-ED: New Mexico Has a Democracy Problem...... 35 Advertising Sales Newsbites...... 25, 32, 35, 37 Skip Whitson 505.471.5177 [email protected] What’s Going On...... 38 Anna C. Hansen 505.982.0155 [email protected] Lloyd Santiago Covens 505.236.8348 [email protected] Jenny Gallucci 505.620.5318 [email protected] Distribution Lisa Allocco, Barbara Brown, Susan Clair, Co-op Dist. Services, Joe Fatton, Nick García, Andy Otterstrom (Creative Couriers), Tony Rapatz, Wuilmer Rivera, Andrew Tafoya, Skip Whitson, John Woodie Circulation 26,000 copies Printed locally with 100% soy ink on 100% recycled, chlorine-free paper Green Fire Times c/o The Sun Companies PO Box 5588 Santa Fe, NM 87502-5588 505.471.5177 • [email protected] © 2014 Green Fire Publishing, LLC Green Fire Times provides useful information for anyone—community members, business people, students, visitors—interested in discovering the wealth of opportunities and resources available in our region. Knowledgeable writers provide articles on subjects ranging from green businesses, products, services, entrepreneurship, jobs, design, building, energy and investing—to sustainable agriculture, arts & culture, ecotourism, education, regional food, water, the healing arts, local heroes, native perspectives and more. Sun Companies publications seek to provide our readers with informative articles that support a more sustainable planet. To our lamy, New Mexico, Site of planned crude oil transfer station publisher this means maximizing personal as well as (see newsbite, page 37) environmental health by minimizing consumption of meat and alcohol. GFT is widely distributed throughout north-central New Mexico. Feedback, COVER: angel oak by elliott mcdowell • www.elliottmcdowell.com announcements, event listings, advertising and article submissions to be considered for publication Green Fire Times is not to be confused with the Green Fire Report, an in-house quarterly publication of the New are welcome. Mexico Environmental Law Center. The NMELC can be accessed online at: www.nmelc.org . www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 5 6 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Increasing Resilience in a Changing Climate Esha Chiocchio

ong periods of drought, unprecedented storm events, warmer average temperatures, rising seas, unpredictable weather patterns—we are already seeingL the impacts of a changing climate. Whether we like it or not, we are entering a period of warming on a global scale that is shifting weather patterns everywhere.

Here in the southwestern United States, these changes are being expressed through reduced snowpack, shifting precipitation patterns, decreased water supplies and increased temperatures. As a result, we have already experienced catastrophic wildfires, flooding and reduced agricultural yields—trends we expect to continue.

Fortunately, there is something we can do about it. Seeing these patterns take hold, The Santa Fe Watershed Association (SFWA) contracted with the Model Forest

Policy Program (MFPP) to develop a climate adaptation plan through its Climate sha Chiocchio E

Solutions University (CSU) planning process. Under the MFPP’s guidance, I led © a team of experts from the greater Santa Fe community, including former city of This section of the upper Santa Fe watershed has been Santa Fe Water Resources Coordinator Claudia Borchert, Jémez y Sangre Regional treated to reduce fuel loads and stabilize the soil. Water Planning Council Chair Charlie Nylander, Ecotone Executive Director Jan-Willem Jansens and La Ciénega Valley Association President Carl Dickens, Forest and Water Climate Adaptation: A Plan for the Santa Fe Watershed, outlines to develop a holistic approach to address the most pressing vulnerabilities and specific strategies and action steps to safeguard water resources and reduce create an action plan to add long-term resilience to the watershed and Santa Fe hazards from storms, fires and floods. These strategies include increasing rainwater community. infiltration, developing municipal water reuse systems, expanding forest-thinning Three potential strategies: do nothing, migrate treatments, improving the functionality of our rivers and arroyos, promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy, and developing long-term financing structures from the area, or proactively work to adapt that enable all of this work to be implemented. Over the course of several months, the planning team studied the predicted In order to ensure lasting change, everyone in the community will have to climate shifts as well as the forest, water and economic vulnerabilities of the area. participate. To be a part of the solution, you can conserve water and energy, increase From this information, we used a prioritization system to analyze the climate the permeability of your landscape, capture rainwater, reduce fuel loads on forested risks and determine the areas of highest priority. Perhaps not surprisingly, the properties, support local farmers, and invest in renewable energy. resulting priorities include reduced water supplies, increased risk of wildfire and forest degradation, flooding, and a dearth of job opportunities to retain and Our overarching goal is to ensure that Santa Fe thrives for attract working families. Taking into consideration the pillars of sustainability centuries to come. What will be your role in shaping Santa (environmental stewardship, economic health and social justice), the planning Fe’s future? i team developed five goals that address these issues and have the greatest chance To read Forest and Water Climate Adaptation: A Plan for the of long-term success. Santa Fe Watershed, visit www.santafewatershed.org. GOAL 1: Increase the water security and ecological integrity of the Santa Fe Esha Chiocchio is the Climate Solutions coordinator for the Santa watershed through conservation, infiltration, groundwater recharge and reuse. Fe Watershed Association and chair of the Energy Committee of the GOAL 2: Improve forest health for resilience in the face of climate change. Sustainable Santa Fe Commission. © Jamey Stillings GOAL 3: Develop the workforce training needs to implement this plan. GOAL 4: Increase energy efficiency and renewable energy (EERE) to achieve a reduction in fossil fuel-derived and water-consumptive energy sources by 45 percent by 2030. GOAL 5: Establish financing systems that facilitate (equity) investments, emergency funds and cash-flow availability to fund climate adaptation and innovation initiatives.

The implementation of these goals will take time and resources; however, it is imperative that we continue to address our vulnerabilities on multiple levels. History tells us that when communities are faced with changes such as these, there are three potential strategies and outcomes: 1) they do nothing and are subject to the environmental impacts that ultimately destroy their cities, 2) they migrate from the area, or 3) they proactively work to adapt to the changes and ultimately thrive. What do we want for Santa Fe?

Through climate-adaptation planning we can increase the resilience of our landscapes while improving our economy and creating new job opportunities. The plan we developed, www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 7 ‘Thinking Like a Watershed’ Panels Come to the KiMo theater Attaining a Balanced Relationship Between People and Arid Lands Jack Loeffler

e need to seriously whip into action instead of just inching our way toward Panel II (March 27, 7 pm) will present multicultural land/water use perspectives, a cultural perspective that’s appropriate for what’s happening around this including sacred, secular, economically oriented and other attitudes that shape worldW of ours. Thanks to the KiMo Theater and the New Mexico Humanities relationship of human culture to habitat. It will address the roles of indigenous Council, we’re getting a major boost in the right direction. On February 13, the peoples concerning both commonly held first of five monthly panel discussions will take place under the heading Thinking and differing perspectives within the realm Like a Watershed. Each will feature three widely recognized humanities scholars of Indigenous Mind, who possess both general and specific knowledge and expertise in their fields. Their which is that aspect diverse perspectives will contribute to a new, broader sphere of reference vital to of collective human understanding and addressing the dilemmas that will direct human culture within consciousness that a less friendly future environment. The intended outcome of these discussions is to inspire consciousness germane to attaining a balanced relationship between people and their arid homelands in the American Southwest.

As a preface, we have to honestly accept that we are all part of the overabundance of Dr. Rina Swentzell human beings living within our planetary habitat. This greater commons comprises diminishing common-pool resources upon which all earthly living creatures rely is shaped more by the for sustenance within their respective watersheds, ecosystems and bioregions. That flow of Nature through is the bottom line. We’re also faced with the reality that our presence has wrought homeland than by a list enormous changes to the nature of our planet. We have invigorated a wave of of facts about the nature climate change and instability that will grow in intensity and can be tempered of homeland. The panel: only if we react immediately. We must curb emissions of CO2 to the planetary Estévan Arellano Lyle Balenquah Dr. Rina Swentzell from atmosphere. We must stop growing as a species and alter our economic course to Santa Clara Pueblo, archaeologist Lyle Balenquah from the Hopi Independent fit within a steady-state economy. This requires a profound shift in individual and Nation, and Estévan Arellano, acequiero and writer from Embudo. cultural attitudes worldwide. Panel III (April, TBA) will present perspectives Cultural diversity and biodiversity of traditional ranchers and the role of Holistic Range Management in overcoming problems of are deeply interlinked. overgrazing wrought by ranchers transplanted to the arid Southwest from the verdant East of earlier Humankind’s creation myths historically forward the notion that we are the reason generations. It will introduce the fact of water scarcity to be for existence. This misconception has wended its way into the conglomerate of in both surface and ground waters in New Mexico political persuasions, systems of cultural mores and the collective human mentality. and the Southwest. It would behoove us to comprehend that we haven’t been here forever, and at It will also address the rate we’re going, we may not be here much longer. We’ve thus far failed to Julia Stafford restoration ecology collectively perceive that we are part of an integrated supra-organism and that our as a culture of practice shared by Native American, continued presence relies on how well this ecosphere remains in its current state of Hispano and Anglo rural residents of New balance. Human consciousness has become a keystone in the planetary operating Mexico and beyond. The panelists: rancher Sid system. Science alone will not provide final answers, nor will answers come from an Goodloe from Carrizozo, rancher Julia Stafford economically dominated paradigm. Cultural diversity and biodiversity are deeply from Cimarrón, and Steve Harris, director of Río interlinked. Before we can draw conclusions and proceed with some measure Sid Goodloe Grande Restoration. of possible success, we must comprehend the bigger picture. To that end we are presenting a series of panels to address issues that require our conscious attention. Panel IV (May 29, 7 pm) will review the evolution of water law in the Colorado River and Río Grande Panel I (Feb. 13, 7 pm) will provide an historic overview greater watersheds. It will address the 1922 Colorado of human habitation and water use in the Southwest. It River Compact and the 1939 Río Grande Compact. will address issues including global warming and climate It will also delve into the growing disparity between instability, and the effects of Manifest Destiny on indigenous “agricultural best use,” as defined in the early 20th cultures and southwestern habitat. It will also bring attention century, and the emerging “urban/economically to the limitations of capitalism in a oriented best use” that pits agriculturalists against world of finite resources, and the urban chambers of commerce and developers over relationship between water, coal, water rights. The panel will also address instances of William deBuys hydro-electricity and associated governmental legislation that violate laws of Nature in Jack Loeffler factors. The three panelists: historian our anthropocentrically biased culture. The panelists: and author Dr. William deBuys, author and Director of John Echohawk, director of the Native American Rights Fund, Bruce Frederick the Center for the American West, Dr. Patty Limerick, of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, and Em Hall, author and water and author, photographer and polemicist John Nichols. rights attorney. John Nichols continued on page 11

8 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com A Visit to the Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks A Proposed National Monument Marian Naranjo • Photos by Mariel Nanasi.

n October 2013 I was privileged Before I went on this to join a delegation of norteños to trip I had a conversation spendI time in the Organ Mountains– with a spiritual leader Desert Peaks in the southern part of from Santa Clara Pueblo our state. I traveled from my home at who is knowledgeable in Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New the history and culture Mexico to visit the Organ, Sierra de las of the ancestors. One of Uvas, Robledo and Potrillo mountains, a the interesting topics that traditional ecological landscape in Doña came up was about the Ana County. I had never been to that trade routes, and I learned region before, but I knew from stories about our first trade foods: passed down that the Native people raw cocoa, chile and who used to make a home there in melons. They came from those wilderness areas carried a wealth further south than the of traditions and knowledge about how Organ Mountains. Those to live in balance with plant, animal, foods took two routes: one Food in abundance human and spirit relations. went north along the Río Grande and the other went west where in the rocks for making pastes and hands in the smooth surfaces of these Oral histories and many pueblos exist, including Acoma meals. Women long ago ground locally beautifully carved bowls. We were and Zuni, and ultimately towards what harvested food that provided nutrients astonished by how functional they were. firsthand observations is now known as the Navajo Nation and for their tribal community. We sat One could tell that these bowls had been verify the landscape’s even Hopi. back-to-back, reenacting the process of used over and over as an everyday way of life. They were part of the “kitchen” As I connected with the Native and cultural richness. area, and it was obvious that this was a Hispanic people who guided us around communal kitchen for women. I was asked to join the group because the designated National Monument area, I had been involved in the vibrant I saw firsthand that the stories passed We were enamored by the bounty and coalition that helped move the New down were evident in the petroglyphs beauty. All around this kitchen were Mexican congressional delegation and and the actual wild food that still grows plants and herbs growing in abundance. President Obama to establish the Río there. The source and sustenance of all The lemoncillo we picked added to the Grande del Norte, 242,000 acres of earthly life was all around us. That was aroma and flavor of our water. We found magnificent wilderness in the north, an amazing moment! To marry the oral wild onion, which was pungent and as a National Monument under the histories with the observations we were spicy to the taste. We also gathered wild Antiquities Act. It took years and making in the landscape was proof of Wild onion beans, which we learned were a protein many, many people. It took diverse this cultural richness. staple that complemented the game that organizations, businesses, individuals was hunted by the men. The petroglyphs We discovered an ancestral “kitchen” women in service from a time past. We and community leaders who came we saw, which mirrored similar designs near Providence Cone. In one spot imagined the women’s contributions together to protect our land and water. continued on page 10 there were hand-hewn grinding bowls and relished this memory. We put our

Norteños visit Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks The grinding kitchen www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 9 Desert Peaks continued from page 9

It felt so good to call the ancestors in and thank them for sharing their life. It was a stunning day!

We spotted lizards, nearly stepped on a tarantula, and were visited by a flock of raptors overhead, Swainson’s hawks. At another point, we stood mouths agape as swallows darted in and out of holes in the cliff habitat overhead. One of the youngsters we were with picked up and then released fluorescent green bugs the size of a thumbnail. We didn’t see golden eagles, quail or owls, but had we The Avanyu (water serpent) symbol stayed longer and hiked deeper into the that Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Marian Naranjo is director of Honor Our mountains, maybe other wildlife would President Obama will honor our request Pueblo Existence (HOPE), based at Santa have graced us with their presence. We to permanently protect the Organ Clara Pueblo, NM. She is a grandmother and walked amongst the grasslands, desert a traditional potter. She has been involved in Mountains Desert Peaks and create a shrubs, ocotillo, yucca and environmental and health issues for 20 years. National Monument for generations to barrel cactus. The Organ HOPE also works on cultural preservation inherit and enjoy. i and reclamation projects. mariann2@ Mountains may be one Marian Naranjo windstream.net of the most botanically of current day Zuni, Hopi diverse mountain ranges Organ Mountains­–Desert Peaks and the northern Pueblos, in New Mexico. National Monument Legislation New digital photo book released were truly a remarkable Protection of this sign of cultural linkage. ecosystem—for our own There was a spot I located well-being and for the near the kitchen that benefit and survival of all we believe was the tool- living creatures with whom making area. Flint pieces we share this land—will appear to have been sustain us physically and created there, and we saw an example of spiritually. This biologically rich habitat the final product: an arrowhead. This was is quite vulnerable, however. These an exciting find. We were seeing traces areas are threatened by unregulated of an established communal society. We large-scale housing developments, were amazed by the sophistication and off-road vehicle abuse, degradation vitality of their place-based existence. from rapacious mining for rare earth aroch

minerals and energy infrastructure. We Y The rock carving that particularly created a major step when a long-term caught my attention was that of the preservation plan designating a National

Avanyu, which my people know as the Monument for the Río Grande was © Joseph water serpent. This important symbol enacted. Together, again, we can protect lives on today at Santa Clara Pueblo. the woodlands, mountains, arroyo Last month New Mexico Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall introduced There was actually so much that I related legislation to designate the Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks a national monument riparian areas, stone outcroppings, and in response to longstanding and widespread local desire to see the area preserved for to, such as the broken pottery shards. We all the flora and fauna that inhabit the future generations. The area is well known for its steep mountain cliffs, thousands of saw pottery that dated from indigenous Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks—if archeological sites and diversity of wildlife, including peregrine falcons, pronghorn ancestry, as well as a later period of you will join me and our strong coalition. antelope and mountain lions. The bill would protect public lands near Las Cruces colonization by the Spanish. This area is that many consider the crown jewel of the Southern Rockies. The new monument our living history and must be preserved. In December 2013 Senators Udall would be managed by the Bureau of Land Management and would include eight Being with the air, land and water in and Heinrich introduced S.1805, a bill new wilderness areas. The legislation has provisions to help ensure border security, support flood prevention and continue to allow hunting and grazing in approved this area, it was easy to hear the calling to designate the Organ Mountains and other adjacent public land as areas. A recent economic study found that national monument designation would of our ancestors and to remember that give an annual $7.4 million boost to the economy and double the number of jobs we are not separate from the sacredness components of the National Wilderness supported by outdoor recreation and tourism on public lands. of the natural world in which we live. I Preservation System in the state of New brought corn meal in a pouch because I Mexico, and to establish the Organ Some cattle ranchers and a coalition of border sheriffs oppose the legislation. The ranchers have a deep-seated distrust of the federal government and think the national knew I might come across a sacred place. Mountains–Desert Peaks National Monument. We must congratulate monument would lead to restrictions on how they run their ranches. The sheriffs It turned out that the whole area was a think it would increase illegal immigration and drug trafficking fromM exico. sacred place, and we were all moved by them for their recognition of the need the spiritual and intellectual strength of to preserve these historic ancestral New Energy Economy has released a digital photo book featuring the landscape the land. I was compelled to honor the lands and cultural heritage sites and of the proposed monument and some of its diverse supporters. It may be viewed online at: http://youtu.be/qFF9oJAs1UU ancestors and made a spiritual offering. for their conservation leadership. I pray

10 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com W ater Ethics A Values Approach to Solving the Water Crisis by david groenfeldt routledge 2013 (paperback) 216 pages

This book introduces the idea that ethics are an intrinsic dimension of any water policy, program or practice, and that understanding what ethics are being acted out in water policies is fundamental to understanding water- resource management. Thus, in controversies or conflicts over water-resource allocation and use, an examination of ethics can help clarify the positions of conflicting parties as preparation for constructive negotiations.

The author, DavidG roenfeldt, adjunct associate professor, Department of Anthropology at UNM and founder of the Water-Culture Institute in Santa Fe, shows the benefits of exposing tacit values and motivations and subjecting these to explicit public scrutiny and debate. The aim of such a process is to create the proverbial “level playing field,” where values favoring environmental sustainability are considered in relation to values favoring short-term exploitation for quick economic stimulus (the current problem) or quick protection from water disasters (through infrastructure that science suggests is not sustainable).

The book also shows how new technologies, such as drip irrigation, or governance structures, such as river-basin organizations, are neither “good” nor “bad” in their own right but can serve a range of interests that are guided by ethics. A new ethic of coexistence and synergies with nature is possible but ultimately depends not on science, law or finances but on the values we choose to adopt. The book includes a wide range of case studies from countries including Australia, India, Philippines, South Africa and USA. These cover various contexts including water for agriculture, urban, domestic and industrial use, the rights of indigenous people and river, watershed and ecosystem management.

The book’s chapters include: Introduction to WaterE thics; Manipulating Rivers; Water for Agriculture: TheE thics of Irrigation; Ethics in Urban and Domestic Water Use; Water for Industry: What is Responsible Use?; TheE thics of Water Governance; Indigenous Water Ethics; Towards a New Water Ethic. David Groenfeldt

Watershed Panels continued from page 8 Panel V ( June 26, 7 pm) will focus on Southwestern dams, hydroelectric power, inter-basin water transfers, and visibly diminishing waters in the American Southwest concomitant with rising human populations. The Central Arizona Project will be reviewed as an example of political, corporate and legalistic will to provide water to develop a desert ecosystem for human habitation and economic growth. This panel will identify certain “conflicting absolutes” that stand between human beings and other fellow species that comprise the life forms within the watersheds of the American Southwest. The panelists: author and editor Dr. Sonia Dickey, Albuquerque Journal science editor John Fleck, and Bureau of Reclamation Area Director Mike Hamman.

Funding is being sought to finance four subsequent panels to complete this proposed series. These four additional panels will further address necessary shifts in human cultural attitudes and cultures of practice that must occur if we are to survive in any state of balance within Thinking Like a Watershed is committed to the Southwestern ecosystem contributing to a new Land Ethic vital for the during the decades and preservation of our endangered ecosystems in centuries to come. i the North American Southwest. At 7 pm on Thursday, February 13, the firsts of a series of Author and bioregional aural historian Jack Loeffler, project five monthly panels will be presented at the director of Thinking Like a KiMo Theater, 423C entral Avenue NW in Watershed, will introduce and Albuquerque. 505.768.3522 moderate the five panels. www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 11 Peo ple and Planet: Partners in Wellness Susan Waterman ellness—it’s precious—and and quiet it becomes. Planet Earth reducing massive losses of the world’s and move forward as communities to don’t we all want it? We commit vibrates at approximately eight cycles topsoil. Soils made dead by chemical embrace our collective future in creative plentyW of time and dollars to be well on a second, 7.83 hertz, the Schumann poisoning have little capacity to retain partnership with nature. Together, we multiple levels—physical, mental and Resonance. Spending time in nature, water, resulting in surface runoff. have an opportunity to create justice emotional. These days, however, living the cell phone left behind in the house, Building living soils with compost and local governance to wrest control in a technology-driven society, it’s easy will offer relief from the billions of helps conserve the global water supply. of our lives from the corporations and to disconnect from nature and forget vibrations per second that have become Eliminating the use of herbicides, politics that seem to be running the show that our own health is a reflection of the predominant electromagnetic pesticides and fertilizers in food and ruining our “place.” Mora County the health of our little piece of the bombardment in most environments. production prevents the accumulation citizens, for example, have successfully planet. Nature doesn’t send texts saying True, in an urban environment with of toxins in the food we eat and in adopted an ordinance for the right to “HELP ME” when it’s not looking so cell phone towers on many rooftops tissues and organs in the body. self-government and a ban on oil and gas good out there. and wifi connections in nearly every extraction in the county, protecting people Healthy Water and Air building, it may be impossible to escape and partnering with the planet. In the big picture, personal wellness Confronted by massive environmental the pervasive wireless frequencies, but and the wellness of nature—the well- upheavals and devastation, finding the effect can be somewhat neutralized being of our shared Earth home—are solutions to foster wellness for Connecting with the in the presence of the energies of plants. inextricably connected. Ultimately, humankind and nature may seem Pausing to sit or lie down for a few wisdom of nature people and planet exist in a dynamic, overwhelming. But there’s truly no minutes on the earth will drain away nurtures ourselves. reciprocal partnership of well-being. limit for collective imagination and tension and slow the noisy vibrations It’s up to humankind to remember willingness to create new solutions. Partnering with nature isn’t an arbitrary of the day. It helps the body to attune that people are part of nature, and to Nature’s wellness—and our own— choice when it comes to health and to a more natural environment and the protect the life support system given faces serious threats nearly everywhere: well-being—partnership is imperative. mind to become clear and receptive. to us by nature—soil, water and air. take fracking (hydraulic fracturing for People and planet become partners in Our physical bodies can’t survive Healthy Soil Organic gardening natural gas and oil) in New Mexico. wellness as we align with nature’s cycles without this trio humming in harmony. is a satisfying way to connect with The routine expenditure of water for and the rhythm of the cosmos. Planet Ecology is paramount to economy in nature and the earth at home—with every “frack” runs into millions of Earth is resilient and will survive the scheme of basic survival. Dollars an attainable outcome of supporting gallons. Clean water is mixed with many extreme transformations as she won’t mean much when there’s no both personal and planetary wellness. hundreds of chemicals and forced has over billions of years. But, living water to drink. Who else aside from The thoughtful care one organic miles into the earth vertically and/or life on the planet beyond renewable us can protect that which protects us? gardener gives to the earth benefits horizontally. The same spent gallons limits, destroying nature, not only the health of the entire planet. The of poisoned water come back out of impacts personal wellness but threatens Relaxation in nature is becoming gardening process can fire up a renewed the ground as toxic waste—often existence of the human species as we part of it. Whatever you’re doing in and vital connection with nature left in open, unlined evaporation know it. Owning wellness, claiming a nature—working in a garden, hiking, and the invisible higher order that ponds to contaminate water, air, and partnership with nature is a visionary fishing—you may notice your mind helps shape life. Connecting with the soil. Seepage and spills of poison gesture of respect, care and gratitude lapsing into pause mode, thoughts wisdom of nature—nurturing nature— fracking fluids, fires and explosions, air to our beautiful—and tremulous— dissolving into a deep, silent space. is nurturing ourselves. When we forget pollution, and depletion of pure water Mother Earth. i A moment of a still mind is worth that we are part of nature, we destroy compromise and destroy the health of every shovelful of compost you dig in, Susan Waterman has that which supports us. Our existence nature and the communities exploited every row of tiny seeds that you plant, a PhD in botany. She depends on nature. and overrun by the industry. has been an advocate of every mile you hike or ski. The closer sustainable agriculture the mind is synchronized with the Natural and organic gardening What choice do we have? It’s time and local food systems for vibration of the Earth, the more relaxed techniques restore weak and dying soils, to assert our right to life and health over 25 years. susan@ harvestbyhand.com, www.harvestbyhand.com

12 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Drought and Floods The Impacts of 2011-2012 Fires and 2013 Floods

Serafina Lombardi

ast year our New Mexico landscape Due to the drought, over the last year experienced record drought, our ranchers across the state sold off 20 earliestL wildfires ever, and then record percent of their cattle. Acequias on the rainfall. All of these weather patterns Río Mimbres and the Upper Hondo affected one another and multiplied Watershed Water Users Association impacts. reported that some ranchers made herd reductions of 70-80 percent. Many of us spent the summer praying for rain, watching crops and pasture Many acequias had reduced flows, suffer with little humidity in the air leading to shortened irrigation seasons, and acequias running low—if at all. At with priority being given to gardens— the zenith of high temperatures and meaning that pastures might not get no precipitation, on June 25, 2013, the irrigated. There were long gaps in the USDA Drought Monitor reported availability of water. This translated into ike Lamb

44.8 percent of New Mexico was in many farmers reducing their plantings M exceptional drought, with nearly all of and not doing regular succession © the remainder of the state in extreme plantings, threatening both their Acequia Potrero culvert full of silt after severe storm and flooding in September 2013 drought. (The numbers were similar livelihood and local food security. At throughout June and July.) Then, in the same time, many communities A key connection between drought impacts of drought and heavy rains. mid-September all those prayers burst got creative about water-sharing and and flood is erosion—the run-off of As acequiero farmers and ranchers forth into record rains with the National conservation techniques, drawing on soil that creates water pollution and prepare for the 2014 season, we will Weather Service calling September traditional wisdom and some modern makes earth disappear from where need to be planning not only for a historic month. Nearly the entire technology. it belongs. Flooding is exacerbated drought but also for flooding in our state received above-normal to record- by dry unvegetated soils that can communities and properties. Then came the rains—pouring down repel water rather than absorb it. An breaking precipitation, with much of Serafina Lombardi is a on dry land unable to absorb the sky’s New Mexico receiving 150-600 percent important action that can be taken farmer/rancher specialist bounty. Again, across the state we of the normal amount. Before 2013 to reduce flood impacts is to reinvest for the New Mexico saw severe flood and erosion, causing came to a close the Weather Channel in our upper watersheds that have Acequia Association, enough damage for Gov. Martínez where she does community named New Mexico the most extreme been depleted and diminished by fire, to declare a state of disaster, making mismanagement and other factors. outreach to farmers and weather state of the year. ranchers. Additionally, she funding available for repairs. Restoring and rebuilding our upper serves on the board of the watersheds will help us retain life- One of the overburdened recipients Santa Fe Farmers’ Market. Livelihoods and local giving water and minimize future of these rains of biblical proportions food security are was the Acequia Portero of Chimayó threatened. in Santa Fe County. On the morning Farming in Drought to Be Discussed at of September 15, Mayordomo Mike Annual Organic Farming Conference Lamb went to inspect the damage Some started asking, “Is the drought Drought is the big topic on the minds of agricultural producers. Without good and submitted the photo above as over?” Others were reminded that the snowpack this winter, farmers face exceptional irrigation shortages. Farming a testament to the silting the ditch work of acequieros and agriculturalists in drought will be a new category of topics among the 36 sessions at this year’s experienced. Mr. Lamb, without a New Mexico Organic Farming Conference, February 14-15, at the Marriott is not only adapting to drought, it is backhoe, young people to assist, or Albuquerque Pyramid North. adapting to extreme weather patterns funds on hand, and being a very that defy the rhythms of Mother “This is the largest and most diverse agriculture conference held in New Mexico,” proactive mayordomo, got in touch with Nature with which we have learned said Joanie Quinn, NM Department of Agriculture’s organic commodity adviser Santa Fe County’s emergency manager, to work. and conference coordinator. The event is organized by NMDA, Farm to Table and who advised him on the process of NMSU’s Cooperative Extension Service. For acequia farmers and ranchers applying for the emergency funds. across the state, for many of whom the Keynote speaker Margaret Hiza Redsteer, a climate change research scientist with Some acequias in Las Vegas were left acequias are their only non-rain form the US Geological Survey, will open the conference, explaining what farmers and underwater, so assessments couldn’t be ranchers in the Southwest can expect. Other drought topics will include: managing of irrigation, the effects of the drought made immediately. They had to wait soil salinity, water harvesting for farmers, grazing management in times of drought, were devastating, with some ranchers in days until they determined that there was understanding your water rights, land restoration, and new alternative crops. Some Mora and San Miguel counties seeing of the presenters include organic soil guru Ron Godin of Colorado State University; significant damage to culverts, diversion established pasture grass wither and Billy Kniffen,T exas AgriLife Extension’s retired water resource specialist; Frank dams and lots of silting. Additionally, a die. When the rains came, it was too Aragona, director of programs at Holistic Management International; Molly levee broke along the canal that delivers late. Though they reported lush green Walton of Quivira Coalition, a representative of the State Engineer, and authors floodwater to Storrie Lake, which initially Gary Nabhan and Helen Atthowe. fields, it was with annual weeds—not prevented a much-needed water-capture offering the same erosion protection, opportunity, and created flood damage. It Registration for both days is $100 per person, and for single-day entrance, $65. soil-building or animal-nourishing Early registration may be done online at www.farmtotablenm.org was later repaired. properties. www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 13 Acequias Up-Close Story and photo by Alejandro López

Daily life at the López family farm in Santa Cruz, NM: Balam Lemus and Gerald Romero (top), Alana Moriarty and Joseph López, families from Santa Fe, Lorenzo Candelaria of Atrisco

he Acequia de Santa Cruz flows a premium, and the upland villages of of the days, the reappearance of the years. Uncomplainingly, we worked through the land where my family Las Truchas, Ojo Sarco, Las Trampas birds or the gentle jostling of the wind. day in and day out doing this, all the Tsettled in 1943 after my father moved and Peñasco with apples galore of every Their arrival and the readying of the while feeling the satisfaction that now his family back to New Mexico from conceivable variety. acequia for the flow of water made the semilla (seed) was deep within the Redcliff, Colorado, where he had patent the fact that winter by now had bosom of earth and beyond our control. sustained a serious mining accident. I wish that children irrevocably retreated and a new season The day on which the water was On this four-acre piece of property, of growth and renewal had arrived. most certainly his pride and joy, my today could have these released was magical because the flow father tried hard to reproduce, as best kinds of innocent, After the annual cleaning of the acequia, of water across the landscape is itself as he could, the agrarian lifestyle he my father arranged for a neighbor to magical. If one were lucky enough, had grown up with in Las Truchas, a private property- come with his tractor or perhaps a one witnessed the advancing tongue full 1,000 feet higher in elevation. He defying experiences. horse to plow the land. The sight, smell of water gliding swiftly like a serpent and my brothers dug lateral acequicitas and texture of the moist overturned down the bed of the acequia. As (secondary ditches) to water the Each year on a particular morning earth was nothing short of intoxicating children, we sometimes jumped inside orchard of one hundred trees that toward the end of winter, a team of as it revealed the beauty of the normally the acequia ahead of the water and ran he had painstakingly put in, a chile peones (paid or community workers) unseen levels of soil and its potential to hard to keep from being overtaken patch and a corn and vegetable field. would suddenly show up on our harbor and produce endless life. Next by the advancing current. No longer On the dryland side of his property property, making their way through came the planting of our crops, using was the acequia a mere hollow trench. he channeled Noah’s ark, with every the acequia, head and shoulders clearly simple hand methods that involved Instead, it had become a swiftly moving sort of animal short of elephants and visible, the rest submerged in its trench two people working in tandem with body of water that brought with it all giraffes. His seven sons provided all of and obscured by its banks. In a kind of only a hoe to make small holes on the kinds of surprises. In the early spring, the labor needed to produce all of the concerted rhythm, they scooped out edge of the rows and a tin can that held it ran full of tetones (bunches of pointy food that grew. In fact, so much food with their shovels the dirt that had the corn or chile seed that was thrown packets filled with cotton) that had was harvested from the two acres under accumulated since the previous spring, into the holes by a sure swing of the hung from the cottonwood trees cultivation that in the summertime chopped down encroaching bushes and hand. It was a scene straight out of lining the ditch upstream and had our farm supplied the nearby Tewa burned away any brush in their path. It biblical times and had been repeated fallen into the acequia. Later on in the pueblos with truckloads of corn, was as if the peones themselves were a for generations and generations of my summer, after violent thunderstorms, force of nature equal to the lengthening ancestors, probably for thousands of it delivered endless supplies of early melons, tomatoes and cucumbers, all at continued on page 28

14 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com New Mexico’s Soul Food Quita Ortiz

ur plants and trees have yielded to winter and are in deep hibernation.O Food traditions are alive and well in acequia communities throughout New Mexico, and if we’re prepared, some of us had preserved much of our harvest for future consumption in the forms of drying, canning or freezing.

Our communities still rely on the traditional foods and dishes of northern New Mexico to fill their plates. From calabacitas to tamales, we covet them SEVENTH RAY SKIN CARE Renew and Refresh all. Elena Arellano is no exception, and 2019 Galisteo St. N8, SF, NM for the New Year when it comes to food, her skills are • Microdermabrasion well known and highly regarded in and • MicroCurrent Lifting around her community of Embudo. • Signature Triple Elena grew up nearby in Cañoncito, but Firming Facial her culinary skills didn’t really blossom Now that the Holidays are over,

until later in life. “Since I was little, I offman remember helping out on the farm. I R take time for yourself, relax and always liked to help outside more than enjoy one of our many facials. © Seth in the kitchen, but I was expected to Elena Arellano prepares food for the annual • Add a hand, foot or help with dinner when I came home Celebrando las Acequias in Dixon, NM www.seventhrayskincare.com collagen eye treatment, from school. When I got married I you deserve it. started experimenting more. It was good meat, good chile and good masa 505.982.9865 interesting to me to try different foods with good manteca (lard). I won’t spread and recipes,” she said, “but we still eat a my tamales until I taste my masa and lot of traditional foods like quelites and know that it’s good and spreadable.” verdolagas (wild greens). Elena realizes the importance of Elena’s culinary evolution stemmed knowing the source of what we eat, from her creative side. She said she’s especially for our young people. “A always been interested in art and lot of people have no idea where photography, and they fueled her food food comes from. For them, food and endeavors. “The color and texture of supermarket are one and the same,” food were very important to me,” she she said. She told me that she often said. “If it doesn’t look pretty, it’s not has atole (ground blue corn served as a going to taste as good.” She has taken hot cereal) for breakfast instead of the on catering opportunities throughout store-bought cereals. “It’s healthy,” she the years but nowadays only caters says. “It makes me feel good when I occasionally and prefers small events drink a cup of atole, compared to eating where she can be more creative. a bowl of corn flakes.”

Despite the grave truth about the Traditional foods of masses being unaware of the origins of what they consume, our food traditions northern New Mexico in New Mexico are, after centuries, still thriving. We eat what we grow, Like many of us, one of Elena’s favorite and we love what we eat. Frijoles, traditional foods is tamales. In the posole, chicos, chile, followed by natillas, past, she has worked at her local co- bizcochitos, pastelitos to satisfy the sweet op in Dixon to organize workshops tooth—they’re New to demonstrate the process of making Mexico’s soul foods. tamales. Elena asserts that if you’re i going to prepare tamales, you’d better Quita Ortiz is do it right. “A lot of people take communications & shortcuts in ingredients and you can’t project specialist with do that,” she says. “You need to use the New Mexico Acequia Association. www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 15 “KICK ASS” GLUTEN FREE CRUST DELIVERY UPPERCRUSTPIZZA.COM

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16 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com LOCAL HEROES

A Tribute to Dr. Tomás Atencio and La Resolana Alejandro López

pon visiting close friend and world of greater possibilities, meaning, process in society?”; and “What colleague, Dr. Tomás Atencio, purpose and plentitude. are the promises for widespread whoU currently is battling a neurological communications in the digital and For the better part of the second half disease similar to Alzheimer’s, I am global age?” of the 20th century, Tomás, as most moved to pay tribute to one of New everyone lovingly knows him, was Certainly, Tomás will always be Mexico’s most outstanding Chicano the foremost cultural philosopher, remembered for bringing to light cultural figures of this and the last sociologist and even the unofficial the age-old practice of resolana or century. Long the champion of resolana, historian of the lndo-Hispano people the informal gathering of lndo- or dialogue in the plazas, villages and of northern New Mexico and beyond. Hispano villagers along the sunny other New Mexican spaces, Atencio He was also an inspired musician, an side of adobe walls during the winter has now transitioned into a state in ambitious builder in adobe, a sculptor or cool early mornings of spring © Chip Wyly which his abilities to speak and move and a compelling conversationalist, and fall to exchange news, dialogue Dr. Tomás Atencio are almost nonexistent. constantly switching between his two or simply to reflect on life’s comings epic landscape composed of forested Dr. Atencio’s insistence on engendering highly polished languages of Spanish and goings. He used resolana as the mountains, canyons, deserts, plains, genuine communication and dialogue and English. Not surprisingly, this central metaphor for the process of farmlands, woods, rivers and even between groups and individuals in published writer has also been a dialogue much like Socrates had done manmade acequias. Tomás affirmed society is his most profound legacy. devoted family man. in the Athenian marketplace more the local ways of communicating In his writings, speeches and intense than 2,000 years before. For Atencio, through “cuentos (stories), mentiras (tall enthusiasm for every form of cultural as well as for celebrated Brazilian The unofficial historian tales), chistes (jokes), images, symbols, expression, and especially for vibrant writer and community educator Paolo ceremonies and rituals; integral parts of a and highly interactive community, that of the lndo-Hispano Freire (his friend), dialogue was the community’s foundational knowledge.” legacy still inspires many to affirm, essential element needed to conduct people of northern New This body of knowledge, he argued, cultivate and document knowledge the critical processes required in a would serve to validate the experience and wisdom borne out of grassroots Mexico and beyond democracy (thought, reflection, analysis of a struggling community in transition, community living, especially in the and consensus building), which enabled Most importantly to his admirers, engender a shared understanding of its diverse Latino communities of the a citizenry to consciously shape the he was the founder of La Academia unparalleled historical processes under United States. He taught us that the social forces and institutions that de la Nueva Raza (The Academy various governments, as well as enable process of spinning the stories and themselves shape human collective life for a New Humanity), a grassroots it to map out its own future. drawing out the lessons embedded and interaction. popular-education movement deeply in the daily lives of individuals and To satisfy this need, in the mid- rooted in New Mexican soil since Tomás began his career working societies is an immensely important 1970s, with a grant from the national the 1970s. Its reverberations have for the Colorado Migrant Council activity. This is so, not because such an Presbyterian Church, he launched been felt across the Southwest and in the 1960s, where he advocated activity might represent a vestige of the La Academia de la Nueva Raza, an throughout the nation, with members on behalf of the rights of migrant past, but because by taking the time association of community leaders and of each successive generation finding workers and helped provide for their to be reflective of our thoughts and scholars who pooled their collective meaning and nurturance in his highly mental health needs. He later moved actions, we can begin to conceive of a knowledge, wisdom, experience and progressive, original thoughts and to Santa Fe where he worked with sweat equity to give life to a vital, ideas, which always call for community COPAS, a community mental-health multifaceted process of concientización, revitalization and personal realization. organization. There, he grew more or consciousness-raising in northern intimate with the social and mental- Brought up in the village of Dixon New Mexico. Working out of his health problems that plagued many of under the tutelage of his “old-school” home and later out of an old adobe in the native Indo-Hispano people living Presbyterian minister father, but Dixon’s historic center, the academiados in the city’s barrios, as well as with their trained in academia and specifically (La Academia’s members) organized vast treasure trove of life experiences in theology in southern California, art shows, community fiestas, gardens, and local knowledge, which he termed Tomás gave voice to the concerns of service learning projects, forums, el oro del barrio, or the “gold of the the common man of the earth who gatherings and publications for more neighborhood.” sought participation and validation in than a decade. an alien urban society but also dignity Tomás came to believe in the need for One of La Academia’s most important and justice. Tomás dedicated himself the creation of a body of knowledge initiatives was an oral history project to the exploration of humanity’s most centered on the vital cultural, historical through which many of the oldest persistent questions: “Who are we?” and even personal experiences of this residents from northern New and “Where do we come from and long-lived and—out of necessity— Mexico’s Spanish-speaking villages where are we going?”, together with the highly adaptive community. He were interviewed and their stories concerns specific to our time: “What is appreciated the values held by this and insights carefully recorded and the nature of human consciousness?”; community that arose from an “What is the role of the dialectical intimate relationship with a rugged continued on page 18 www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 17 A Tribute continued from page 17

preserved. Tomás believed and helped launch the that it was not enough to Learning While Serving gather this information AmeriCorps program, from the community which had 120 members but argued that it should in northern New Mexico’s be returned to the Indo-Hispano and Pueblo community and serve Indian communities. That as a catalyst for further project, administered by dialogue, discussion and Siete del Norte of Embudo, purposeful action. was designed to reaffirm traditional agriculture and The dynamic cycle of inspire a new generation “thought and action,” of academically and he believed, ought to agriculturally proficient be directed at nurturing young people. and enhancing what he termed “una vida buena Through the Río Grande y sana y alegre” (a good, Institute, a reincarnation healthy and happy life of La Academia, Tomás for the people). Between and his intellectual equal 1975 and 1977 the and wife, Consuelo asociados, among them, Pacheco, created a forum Juan Estévan Arellano, for dialogue between a writer, editor and Native American and photographer, produced Indo-Hispano people several issues of El that, among other Cuademo de Vez en Cuando (The things, resulted in the publication of Occasional Notebook), a scholarly a joint book of poetry, essays, photos publication exploring the politics of and other artwork titled Ceremony self-determination and consciousness- of Brotherhood. Five years ago, just raising among the Mexicano/ before the onset of his illness, Tomás Chicano people of New Mexico coauthored with Miguel Montiel and and the Southwest, and Entre Verde E.A. (Tony) Mares, a long-awaited y Seco (Green with Life bordering book titled Resolana, Emerging Chicano on Tinder Dry), a compilation of Dialogues and Globalization (University community-derived stories and folk of Arizona Press). In it, as well as in the prestigious Ernesto Galarza For Atencio, dialogue Lecture that he delivered at Stanford University years before, Tomás was the essential developed the kernels of his ideas for individual and community engagement element needed to into wonderfully articulated full- conduct the critical fledged treatises that focused on the community that he knew best—the processes required Chicano community. Lucky for us, he in a democracy. took the time to pen this legacy; more importantly, he showed us how to live wisdom. Both publications, together what he thought and believed, which with La Madrugada (The Dawn), a is yet an even bigger legacy. i pithy community newsletter, were Gracias, Tomás. distributed in northern New Mexican communities, where they prompted Alejandro López is both dialogue and action among local a photographer and residents. writer in English and Spanish. He In his later years, Tomás taught in was one of the the Sociology department of the original asociados of La Academia de University of New Mexico, doggedly La Nueva Raza and specialized in the advocating on behalf of the self- gathering of oral history among the elderly determination of the Sawmill working- of northern New Mexico. He also served class neighborhood of Albuquerque, as the director of the Learning While stood up to the heroin trade in Dixon Serving AmeriCorps program.

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www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 19 AIRE: Agriculture Implementation, Research and Education Fresh AIRE 2013: A Year of Growing in Taos Story and photos by Miguel Santistévan

has a mission “to I was teaching a course through UNM- gather the people Taos called “Sustainable Food and andA plantIRE the fields.” We have been Farming,” which provided concurrent an official nonprofit educational enrollment with students at Chrysalis organization since December, 2010. from Carlos García’s science class. The AIRE was formalized with multi- dome was planted with greens such year funding from the Kindle Project, as chard, spinach, kale and lettuce, now part of the Common Counsel in addition to legumes like peas and Foundation. Our work strives to habas (fava beans) and became part accomplish multiple goals that relate of the curriculum. The dome has a to youth involvement in agriculture, 700-gallon water tank to stabilize crop adaptation and propagation, food internal temperatures and now hosts security awareness and actualization, bluegill fish for our beginning studies and research and development in of aquaculture. sustainable agriculture methods. Early in 2012, AIRE looked into Our base of operations is Sol Feliz putting a milpa (cornfield) and garden Farm, irrigated from the Acequia on the Enos García Elementary School Madre del Sur del Río de Don Fernando grounds at Parr Field, a large patch of de Taos, an age-old communally grass in the middle of the town of Taos, managed, gravity-fed irrigation ditch. used mostly for Field Day activities of Here we implement research plots the elementary students at the end of in crop adaptation around drought the school year. A relationship forged tolerance over generations, as well between AIRE and the Taos Municipal as soil-management techniques Schools resulted in the Parr Field using chickens, compost, compost Garden Project. By early May, with the tea, and biochar. We host groups involvement of student interns from of all ages to learn, hands-on, from Chrysalis Alternative School, we had our Permaculture- and traditional prepared a 100x60-ft. section of the agriculture-inspired techniques within field for a milpa, two raised beds and a the context of an acequia landscape greenhouse. and culture. Our location allows for The planting of the project happened experiences such as the cleaning out concurrently with the school’s Field of acequia ditches, irrigation and an Day and competition as part of the understanding of the acequia’s ecology students’ physical education program. in the landscape. The students received three seeds each of corn, beans or squash. The Adapting crops for a garden was planted by almost 500 Top (l-r): Students Francisco (Kiko) Pacheco, Jesyka Ortega, Chris Durán and Augustine Gonzales pose with the horno they built at Chrysalis Alternative School; Sembradores youth-in-agriculture team (l-r): greenhouse high-elevation, short- kindergarten-through-fifth-grade coordinator Micah Roseberry, William Roth (UNM-Taos), Chris Durán, Greg Romero (UNM-Taos), Francisco (Kiko) Pacheco. Miguel Santistévan (front), executive director of AIRE, broke his leg and had to rely on students over three days in May. his team; Ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Grow-Dome; Apple pie-making at an AIRE culinary workshop; The Grow-Dome, an “outdoor” classroom; Classroom at Chrysalis became temporary storage for the season, water-stressed harvest; Parr Field Garden Project, where hundreds of students plant, harvest and are involved in the care and upkeep as interns over the summer; Jesyka Ortega, Francisco (Kiko) Pacheco, Desirae Gonzales and Over the summer we constructed Chris Durán plant a field of white corn; Jesus Gonzales and Chris Durán open the horno for the turkeys cooked overnight for the annual Thanksgiving feast. Miranda Romero and Dion Martínez look on. environment a mud-oven horno at Chrysalis in anticipation of making chicos (horno- In the fall of 2011, AIRE was recruited In August of 2012, I secured feast in November. AIRE facilitated roasted sweet corn) from our Parr by Rocky Mountain Youth Corp to employment within the Taos Schools as the preparation of pumpkin pies, Field Garden Project milpa. Students identify a “Master Gardener” who a math and science teacher at Chrysalis mashed potatoes, red chile and a green learned how to make the adobe would be willing to steward a Grow- Alternative School. AIRE was able to bean casserole that came from our bricks and construct the horno in a Dome in the Taos area for education strengthen its support of activities and harvest. We also cooked several turkeys series of workshops. The horno was and production of local food. A curriculum in the maintenance and and a leg of locally harvested deer in constructed with funds from the partnership was established between use of the Grow-Dome and the horno our horno as part of a workshop the McCune Foundation and has become Carlos García of Chrysalis Alternative from within the school, in addition evening before the feast. an important part of our overall School, an arts-based high school of the to facilitating research projects, food programming around traditional In 2013 we continued the tradition of Taos Municipal Schools, and myself, as science and culinary arts activities. Our agriculture and food traditions. putting the “field” in Field Day at Parr Field director of AIRE, to care for the dome. efforts culminated in a Thanksgiving

20 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com AIRE has been developing given to the students for their Field methods within the Grow- Day in 2014. We provided 20 pounds Dome with the participation of of chicos to the food service director of the students at Chrysalis. We the Enos García Elementary School acquired almost 40 bluegill for use in the school’s holiday meal fish from the NM Department that includes red chile and a choice of of Game and Fish and are posole, beans or chicos. Approximately beginning our aquaculture 250 students were fed from our harvest. program. We grew many While they were eating, we gave a greens and tomatoes this year, presentation to the students about the in addition to some melons progress and significance of the Parr and jalapeños, but we had a lot Field Garden Project. As part of our of lessons to learn about indoor mentorship program, the presentation growing and pest included contributions from our management, student interns who had helped with overheating the land preparation, garden care and mitigation, and harvest activities. other aspects of soil management, crop types Inspiring youth to and irrigation take up agriculture frequency.

We cared for the All in all, it was a successful year Parr Field Garden with much product and learning to and the Grow- show for it. As we enter the third Dome over the year of the project, we are looking summer, hosting forward to expanding our milpa and workshops and chile plots in hopes of providing visiting groups. more traditional food to the schools We harvested and refining our “school-to-farm-to- many pounds of school” model. We are hopeful that we green beans for will secure another three-year Memo blanching and of Understanding with the schools left the rest to for the Parr Field Garden Project in mature into seed 2015. We are also looking forward to give out to the to strengthening our programs at students for Field Chrysalis and in our Grow-Dome with Day 2014. When the construction of more raised beds the corn was and the refinement of our aquaculture/ ready to make aquaponics program. We are honored chicos, we had over to be able to facilitate these activities 300 elementary and know that this investment in our students help youth and seed now will have incredible us harvest. We returns for the conservation of our harvested so much local food traditions, the inspiration corn, we quickly of young people into agriculture and Top (l-r): Students Francisco (Kiko) Pacheco, Jesyka Ortega, Chris Durán and Augustine Gonzales pose with the horno they built at Chrysalis Alternative School; Sembradores youth-in-agriculture team (l-r): greenhouse realized we were the adaptation of crops for our high- coordinator Micah Roseberry, William Roth (UNM-Taos), Chris Durán, Greg Romero (UNM-Taos), Francisco (Kiko) Pacheco. Miguel Santistévan (front), executive director of AIRE, broke his leg and had to rely on his team; Ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Grow-Dome; Apple pie-making at an AIRE culinary workshop; The Grow-Dome, an “outdoor” classroom; Classroom at Chrysalis became temporary storage for the going to have to elevation, short-season, water-stressed harvest; Parr Field Garden Project, where hundreds of students plant, harvest and are involved in the care and upkeep as interns over the summer; Jesyka Ortega, Francisco (Kiko) Pacheco, Desirae Gonzales and make two batches environment. Please check our website Chris Durán plant a field of white corn; Jesus Gonzales and Chris Durán open the horno for the turkeys cooked overnight for the annual Thanksgiving feast. Miranda Romero and Dion Martínez look on. of chicos. In to learn about developments in our addition, we future programs. i harvested 418 pounds of squash, several by getting the Garden Project going again from the Taos School District, a youth Miguel Santistévan was and having almost 600 students of Enos program we are calling “Sembradores” or ristras of red chile, five bottle gourds, and recently elected president García and Ranchos Elementary plant master planter/gardeners. Stipends for other crops such as cucumbers, eggplant of Acequia Madre del the field in a series of workshops. This our interns and funding for our summer and even a rare black variety of barley. Sur del Río de Don time we were able to provide homemade programming were provided by the Healy Fernando de Taos. He After we made chicos in the horno and seed packets of locally grown corn, beans Foundation. Additionally, a partnership runs a demonstration/ had our fill of fresh tasty chicos, we seed conservation farm and squash to each of the students. We between AIRE and the UNM-Taos strung them up and hung them to dry with his wife and daughter. He has an MS hosted a photo contest in hopes of giving CAMP program provides internship under the porch at the school. We had in Agriculture Ecology from the University of the students an incentive to plant a garden opportunities for college students to assist California, Davis and is working on a Ph.D. over 25 pounds of chicos and a similar themselves. These activities were facilitated in AIRE’s activities while gaining college in Biology at the UNM. solfelizfarm@gmail. quantity of sweet corn seed harvested by the participation of student interns credit. com, www.GrowFarmers.org from the field. The corn seed will be

www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 21 Urban Farming The School of the Future? Poki Piottin

endell Berry, the legendary farmer and poet, states: “Our children no longer with the neighboring learn how to read the great book of Nature from their own direct experience, or residential community. howW to interact creatively with the seasonal transformations of the planet. They seldom In addition to learn where their water comes from or where it goes. We no longer coordinate our human growing food, Gaia celebration with the great liturgy of the heavens.” Gardens’ activities have When my mother took me to my first kindergarten class, I screamed and kicked; included educating I had no desire to go to school. Already I sensed I would be confined and schoolchildren, hosting indoctrinated for many years, molded into a good tax-paying citizen. I survived free workshops and my so-called “education” and became a creative entrepreneur for 25 years until setting up a produce the 1999 World Trade Organization events in Seattle. Profoundly affected by our stand. Although government’s violent response to civil disobedience, I vowed to become an activist these activities fully and steward of the Earth. For the past 10 years I have been involved in a variety align with the 2008 of projects related to sustainability and, at 52 years of age, became a farmer. Sustainable Santa Fe Plan passed by the city council, activities such as these have conflicted with city ordinances regulating a business in a residential neighborhood. These current ordinances do not accommodate the reality of urban farming.

When I look at Gaia Gardens, I see not only a modern version of a Victory Garden but a perfect school, all in harmony with a regenerative Santa Fe. Math, physics, ecology, science, construction, economics, art and more are all present in a palpable and real-time form. And best of all, the classroom is outdoors, so a child can be with nature, have fun, learn the skills of the future and build a strong and healthy body at the same time.

The mission of Gaia Gardens is to inspire a citywide movement of urban farming and permaculture education, while demonstrating the viability of urban farming in Santa Fe. Our project explores numerous revenue-generating elements that can be incorporated in such an operation. We sell produce at the farmers’ market Caring about Compost Compost is a great way to reduce the volume of your weekly trash and improve your garden. By collecting non-repurposable food scraps from its 30 commercial I chose to farm within the city to interact with and inspire as many people as clients, Reunite Resources’ pilot program will divert up to 2 million pounds from possible, believing that lasting ecological health and social well-being are fostered the landfill in its first year of operation. That is enough organic material to create by rekindling our connection to the Earth and reclaiming our food sovereignty. a pile as high as Mount Everest. For the past two years, with the help of countless volunteers and schoolchildren, In landfills, food scraps are buried and the opportunity is lost to make compost, we have built Gaia Gardens, a one-acre working farm, using imagination, elbow which replaces the need for chemical fertilizers, retains moisture and provides grease and a wealth of community resources. nutrients for healthy plant growth. Furthermore, when left in landfills, this organic matter creates methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 21 times more heat than CO2. A farm is much more than a place that grows vegetables. It is a living organism, Less than 30 percent of what ends up in landfills actually belongs there. Of the 70 a sanctuary for wildlife, a business operation and a micro-community. In order percent that does not, at least a quarter is compostable. to keep it alive, the people involved must understand not only the world of Reunity Resources is taking the steps toward a zero-waste reality. The systems it plants and soil health but also plumbing, carpentry, electricity, animal husbandry, is creating and data it will collect through its pilot program could be the basis for accounting, public relations, sales, marketing, grassroots community organizing, citywide composting in Santa Fe. Reunity is raising seed funds, spreading the word, conflict resolution, and, as we painfully discovered last year, politics. designing educational materials, creating logistical systems and contracting with clients. Contact the organization if you’d like to support this initiative or be a part Unlike the sustainable Santa Fe of 1919, when a survey found 1,200 acres of farmland of this ground-saving program: 505.629.0836, [email protected] or irrigated by 38 acequias, modern urban farms must negotiate a maze of city ordinances, [email protected] building codes, land-use and water issues— all in an effort to demonstrate compatibility

22 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Urban Farming The School of the Future? Poki Piottin offman (3) R © Seth

and through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), along with plant starts, task that they will inherit? One practical way to prepare our children is to consider worms, compost tea, seeds and healing salves. Education and community building urban farms as partners-in-education with our local school system. This may require are probably the greatest benefits of an urban farm and are certainly compatible new city ordinances that allow urban farms to become sustainable education centers with residential zoning. Many cities have already passed comprehensive urban while also paving the way for them to attract capital, land and infrastructure so farming ordinances because they understand that urban farms help build self- they can fulfill their purpose. reliant communities and inspire positive local action around food access and Children who learn to care for the Earth belong to community, grow food, build interrelated social, economic and racial justice issues. and repair things and heal themselves naturally. These children are much more Education and community building are benefits of apt to become adults who will create rather than destroy the future. These adults will contribute to the regeneration of our ecosystem, fostering a healthy and an urban farm compatible with residential zoning. resilient culture. i How do we prepare our children (and ourselves) to live in a world desperate for Poki Piottin and his partner Dominique Pozo operate Gaia Gardens, a nonprofit urban farm in restoration and care? Can we afford to wait for our school system and government Santa Fe. They are currently exploring ways to purchase the 3.5-acre property. Donations to the to evolve and provide kids with the necessary tools to cope with the monumental farm are tax-deductible. 505.796.6006, [email protected], www.thegaiagardens.org

www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 23 EVERYDAY GREEN T he Santa Fe Community Food Co-op More Options for More People

Susan Guyette

ith the cost of food rising 4-to-7 percent a year, affordable food is rapidly disappearing from the commercial marketplace. A new food co-op under developmentW aims to fill this gap. A group of dedicated people has been meeting for many months. Their guiding principle is that the availability of high-quality, nutritious, reasonably priced food will only come from the cumulative actions of individuals who expand the market for local food production. The Santa Fe Community Co-op intends to grow its own organic food using energy and water- efficient technologies and to buy from local farmers. Park Slope co-op saves shoppers 20-to-40 percent per year. At the outset, the Small-scale, local ownership encourages self-help and reciprocal relationships, SF Community Co-op’s markup will be 29 percent. The co-op’s intention is to promoting local economies and social development. Due to their size and reduce this over time. commitment to mutual support, both internally and across cooperatives, more stable economies are created. Cooperatives hold the potential for transforming In some regards, food co-ops and employment-creating co-ops are examples of local economies. returning to the old ways. Recognition of the early roots of cooperative concepts is appropriate when looking at northern New Mexico. Native Americans have practiced the pooling of labor and redistribution of resources as an economic form for thousands of years. In some local tribes, extended families still work this way. Hispanic communities have also traditionally practiced many forms of collaborative work, such as the acequia system and the sharing of seeds.

Low-cost, high-quality food with a small amount of labor provided by each member Today’s co-ops are owned by their members and managed by democratic voting— balancing financial viability with the needs of members and their communities. The full participation of members in the cooperative’s operations promotes the co-op’s economic and social development through elimination of profits for those who are Although food cooperatives do exist in New Mexico, they don’t all have the same not members, collective involvement in determining working conditions and pay, form. For example, La Montañita Co-op has membership, yet members do not environmental stewardship and social networking. In other words, cooperatives work in the store. As more co-ops form with diverse structures, there will be more embody and foster a true sense of community. options for more people. The Santa Fe Community Co-op intends to provide T he Santa Fe Community Co-op’s 5-Year Goals low-cost food with a small amount of labor provided by each member. 1. Establish a sustainable, community food cooperative in Santa Fe Natural-food grocery stores, both corporate and local, typically mark up food from 2. Establish a small farm with a solar-powered greenhouse 45 to 100 percent. The model being used by the Santa Fe Community Co-op is 3. Create a community composting facility for farms and gardens the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, New York. That co-op lowers the markup 4. Establish satellite outlets in outlying communities to 21 percent. One of the top five independent grocery stores in the country, the 5. Provide outreach and subsidies to support food equity You can help make possible the co-op’s planned fall 2014 launch:

Pay an annual $25 membership fee, make a one-time $100 pledge and fulfill the co-op’s work requirement: currently two 3/4 shifts every four weeks. All adults over 21 in each household must join. You can pay the full amount or sign up for monthly or quarterly installments. The first year’s $25 membership fee is being waived for the first 400 founding members. You can join at one of the co-op’s regular community meetings or through its website. For more information, email [email protected] or visit www.sfcommunitycoop. wordpress.com i Susan Guyette, Ph.D. is of Métis heritage (Micmac Indian/Acadian French) and a planner specializing in cultural tourism, cultural centers, museums and native foods. She is the author of Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Small-Scale Solutions; Planning for Balanced Development, and the co-author of Zen Birding: Connect in Nature. [email protected]

24 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com L ocally Sourced Food Food Industry Seeks Federal Legislation Top Restaurant Menu Trend of 2014 to Keep GMO Labeling Voluntary

Each year the National Restaurant Association (NRA), the leading business The political battle over genetically modified foods has been heating up. The association for the industry, surveys 1,300 professional chefs who are members of industrial food industry has long successfully opposed efforts inC ongress to require the American Culinary Federation (ACF) to come up with its What’s Hot culinary labeling. In response to the growing consumer movement, the industry spent forecast of menu trends. almost $70 million to defeat ballot initiatives in California and Washington State. The Grocery Manufacturers Association is currently pushing industry-authored Top 10 food trends for 2014: legislation that would preempt any state labeling laws. Connecticut and Maine passed such laws last year. Labeling is now being considered in 26 states. • Locally sourced meats and seafood • Locally grown produce USDA Likely to Approve Herbicide • Environmental sustainability in Food Supply • Healthful kids’ meals • Gluten-free cuisine Last month the Obama administration said that it expects to approve corn • Hyper-local sourcing (e.g., restaurant gardens) and soybeans that are genetically engineered by Monsanto and Dow Chemical • Children’s nutrition Company to tolerate the toxic herbicide 2,4-D. They are planning this approval • Non-wheat noodles/pasta (e.g., quinoa, rice, buckwheat) despite the fact the herbicide is associated with increased rates of immune-system • Sustainable seafood cancers, Parkinson’s disease, endocrine disruption, birth defects and other serious • Farm/estate branded items health problems. The approval of these crops will lead to vast increases in the use of this chemical, which researchers at Penn State University say will actually worsen “Today’s consumers are more interested than ever in what they eat and where their an epidemic of superweeds that become resistant to herbicides. Scientists have food comes from, and that is reflected in our menu trends research,” said Hudson definitively linked a catastrophic decline in monarch butterflies to herbicide use Riehle, senior vice president of the NRA’s research and knowledge group, in a press on GMO crops. release. “True trends – as opposed to temporary fads – show the evolution of the wider shifts of our modern society over time.” 2,4-D was introduced in the 1940s and became notorious during the Vietnam War as part of “Agent Orange,” a chemical weapon. Citing studies that predict “The chefs who took part in the survey understand that sourcing locally and dire consequences to both human and environmental health, Denmark, Sweden, environmental sustainability tie in with ongoing efforts to provide more-healthful Norway and part of Canada have banned 2,4-D. In the US, a coalition of 144 foods for everyone, especially children,” said ThomasM acrina, ACF national farming, fishery, environmental and public health groups have asked theUS DA to president. not approve the 2,4-D-resistant crops, which are primarily used as livestock feed in factory farms. Through the February 19, theUS DA’s Animal and Plant Health When asked which current food trend will be the hottest menu trends 10 years Inspection Service is inviting public comments (Go to: www.regulations.gov/#!s from now, environmental sustainability topped the list, followed by local sourcing, ubmitComment;D=APHIS-2013-0042-0050). TheUS DA must then respond to health-nutrition, children’s nutrition and gluten-free cuisine. the comments in a final environmental impact statement.

www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 25 26 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Pay it Forward! Being Human in Healthcare A Systemic Approach to Positive Change through Emotional Intelligence Camille Adair

he generation of super-elders who The roots of the problems plaguing levels of poverty. Oxytocin has been Science has demonstrated that we are experienced World War II saw healthcare are relational. By taking a called the shy molecule. It is produced all connected through time and space, Tphysicians as demigods and almost never foundational approach to complex issues, in human beings through the stimulus whether we are aware of it or not. Perhaps questioned the medical establishment. we can address the culture, which is ripe of connection, relationship-building the invitation to connect is also a call Boundaries of role and power were for systemic transformation through and networking. It is not produced in to awareness in being more of who we clear. Their stoicism, independence and a paradigm shift in how we think and high-stress, competitive environments already are—human. deference to authority are rapidly being feel about how we take care of ourselves, where behaviors of separation and replaced by the aging baby boomers who each other, and how we approach the isolation are seen through siloing and Pay it Forward! Living Bridges, a New Mexico-based transform all systems and constructs in business of healthcare. Building relational self-preservation. 501(c)(3), whose mission is to support their path. And, for many people, the systems and behaviors calls for social and We can easily see the paradox and dilemma sustainability in hospice and healthcare silent prayer is, “Please let this include emotional skills, which, in the end, could that exists within modern healthcare, through education and the arts, provides healthcare, aging and the way we die.” be the answer to our health, happiness and where the very systems created to provide EI training to individuals and businesses. transformation of healthcare and society. Healthcare is increasingly a business care to people at their most vulnerable The program is designed to demonstrate that answers to high-cost treatments, Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a field that moments can increase suffering and cause community leadership and good will insurance and pharmaceutical companies, embodies new science and shares many of harm when consideration of personhood through empathy, trust and generosity. not the care of people. Healthcare the universal principles found in ancient is ignored. Here, the challenge and the If you would like to “pay it forward,” you professionals and organizations are faced wisdom and spiritual traditions. EI is the opportunity are the same: learning how can sponsor a training for an individual with daily dilemmas that arise from ability to effectively combine thoughts to appropriately connect emotionally and or organization. i the intensifying focus on compliance, and feelings in order to make better socially. Healthcare needs human-to- References: productivity and pressure to meet the decisions and develop and sustain more human healing, inviting the shy oxytocin Paul Zak: Trust, Morality and Oxytocin? demands of a changing healthcare mutually respectful relationships with molecules to make an appearance so that TED Talk, Filmed July 2011. Posted November 2011. system. If we look at healthcare as a others and ourselves. EI is a set of skills we may problem-solve with empathy, TEDGlobal 2011 system in need of systemic attention, we that can be learned, taught and become trust and generosity rather than with http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_zak_trust_morality_ and_oxytocin.html can perhaps link the source of the issues more permanent with practice. Skills blame, ignorance and self-centered to three primary dysfunctions rather that are foundational to EI include self- agendas. Camille Adair, RN, than pointing the finger at a particular awareness, empathy, optimism, intrinsic a certified Social The good news is that change is possible. organization, policy or individual. motivation and self-management. Emotional Intelligence Unlike personality tests, EI assessments Assessor, is executive Research indicates that people with measure a baseline by which individuals director of Living Emotional intelligence developed EI skills make healthier are able to evaluate their strengths and Bridges, principal of Sacredigm Alliances lifestyle choices and have improved weaknesses in order to develop personal shares many of the and an award- relationship skills, a life purpose that is and professional goals for positive growth winning filmmaker. universal principles aligned with their values, and a greater and wellness. Developing EI skills She provides EI found in ancient ability to connect cause and effect. requires practice and offers measurable trainings for healthcare organizations, healthcare results. professionals and through cross-sector leadership. wisdom and spiritual The impact of social and emotional 505.470.3838, [email protected] well-being on businesses is nothing less traditions. than improved return on investment The Effects of Economic Status (ROI) through increases in retention The first dysfunction is that healthcare on Health in New Mexico rates, employee satisfaction, customer is a business construct based on and A New Mexico Department of Health report released last year on the state of loyalty, ethical decision-making and oriented to disease and illness, not on health in New Mexico looked at the effects of economic status.N ot surprisingly, productivity, along with a positive impact health and wellness. the report suggests that less affluent populations often experience more barriers on organizational climate. A recent in receiving preventative healthcare. The second dysfunction is the victim/ Gallup poll study revealed that the Twenty percent of the population is considered to be living in poverty in New perpetrator exchange among healthcare number one indicator for employee Mexico, the second-highest percentage rate in the country. The national poverty professionals and between healthcare retention lies in having at least one level is 15.9 percent, according to the US Census. professionals and healthcare organizations. positive interaction with a supervisor at Proper nutrition is also a problem. New Mexico leads the nation in child hunger with 30 This manifests as bullying, burnout and least every seven days. It’s relational. percent of children experiencing “food insecurity.” The USDA defines food insecurity compromised patient care and delivers a as reduced quality, variety or desirability of diet. New Mexico is also ranked No. 2 in Paul Zak, professor at Claremont high price tag to the bottom line. the nation for adult hunger, with 20 percent of adults experiencing food insecurity. Graduate University in Southern The third dysfunction is that “modern” California and a pioneer in the field of One in four adults in New Mexico ages 45 and older has been diagnosed with two medicine is founded on outdated neuroeconomics, has demonstrated that or more chronic diseases such as arthritis or cardiovascular disease. Most inpatient hospitalization among people 65 and older is due to heart disease, influenza and Newtonian science, which is mechanistic, the neuropeptide oxytocin is responsible pneumonia. The Department’s report shows that teen smoking dropped from 30 reductionistic and separates people by for empathy, generosity and trust, which percent in 2003 to 19.9 percent in 2011. their parts. Current science reinforces are the key components in building our connectedness and shows us what relational models. He has also discovered Suicide attempts have decreased since 2003, although the rate of suicide among Native American youth in New Mexico is nearly four times the national rate. Funds are being makes us well and how we participate in that societies with higher levels of trust sought from the state Legislature and the governor for programs to address this. our own outcomes. are more prosperous and have lower www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 27 Acequias Up-Close continued from page 14 ripening manzanitas de agosto (little the rising or setting sun in a kind of the long, hot summer, we August apples) from someone else’s trees living three-dimensional impressionist irrigated once between up the way, much to our hearts’ delight. painting. The gurgling of the water each hoeing. Every time, punctuated by bird song or children soon after the water had When it came time to irrigate, my playing infused one’s being with a kind successfully reached the father delighted in slowly opening the of deep peace and a yearning for time plants, they responded compuerta (headgate) to initially let in to forever stand still. In those moments, by standing up straight, a trickle of water so that it would not one was filled with the certainty that growing taller and taller, cause erosion or drag the seed away when what one was doing was in and of itself and most importantly, it had finally reached the rows. Only a sacred and timeless act in which one by defying the scorching when he was fully convinced that the viscerally communicated with the earth, heat of the merciless amount of water that he had released was water and plant spirits. midsummer sun. benevolent, would he open the compuerta just a little more in order to obtain a flow One could not long afford to remain To offset the same intense capable of watering the land just enough in paradise because the selfsame heat, the neighborhood without causing any damage. Having water that caused the plants to sprout children gathered almost watered a few rows in this gentle manner also engendered millions of weeds, on a daily basis at our in which, perhaps after an hour, the earth originating primarily, of all places, in bridge to swim in the showed clear signs of having drunk in Russia! There was Russian thistle, the acequia, which was an as much water as it needed, he would prickly rosetas, the broadleafed añiles, impossibility because it block the rows already irrigated with an the deeply rooted patitos, together with was much too shallow earthen tapanco (small dike) and open a host of other annoying weeds that and because no one knew up other rows downstream. By doing always came back soon after they were how to swim anyway. © Alejandro López this repeatedly he managed to irrigate cut. Our summers were spent hoeing Wade, soak, splash and An acequia in northern New Mexico an entire field in just a few hours. endless rows of chile, corn and other dive are a more honest vegetables, in part because we had been reflection of what took place during When the water stopped running, it was As the water made its way down each socialized to do this kind of work, but those cacophonous summer afternoons as if an old friend had suddenly left our of the furrows to moisten the seed and also because we both respected and between stretches of hard work. So midst, and the ground had returned to prompt the process of germination, feared our elders who had commanded brilliant, refreshing and invigorating just being the ground and not the water- it reflected the sky and sometimes us to do this work. During the course of was the water of the acequia that, in our laced earth that poured forth its greenery minds, the recreation that it provided and abundance of fruit and food. From was ample reward for the work that this time forward the magic of the water we did. flowing through the acequia instead turned into the magic of the snowfall. Other times, we launched homemade There to the west, on Chicoma Peak boats and ships and watched them sail (Obsidian Mountain), which lay directly by. A few times we launched canoes, in our line of vision, the snowpacks kept rafts and even tubs to harness the growing all winter long, if it proved to transportation possibilities of the acequia be a wet one. The same thing occurred and ended up in other people’s properties along the Sangre de Cristo Mountains further downstream. They knew exactly on the opposite side of the Española what we were up to, looking for Valley, the fountainhead of our own adventure, of course, and they laughed acequia water supply. at us with fondness in their eyes, for as children, they had done the same thing. During the long winter months, when How I wish that children growing up one grew weary of the cold, one could today could have these kinds of innocent, gaze out the window and appreciate the private property-defying experiences. source of our summer acequia waterflows, which together with a plot of overturned In late July, just as the water supply earth, a hoe, a tin can, some seed, the in the Santa Cruz dam was dropping sure swing of an arm and a few tapancos considerably, the annual rains came (dikes), we were able to transport pouring down and frequently ourselves into a literal paradise for as circumvented the need to irrigate long as summer lasted. i our fields for the week. At times, the downpours were so enormous that Alejandro López, a photographer and writer the melons and watermelons became in English and Spanish, grew up farming on an acequia in rural northern New Mexico. waterlogged and we had to carefully turn Several of his recent photographs will be each one over to avoid rotting. Typically, used as part of a Spring 2014 exhibition however, we irrigated until mid- or late on acequias at the Maxwell Museum of September, when the harvest peaked and Anthropology at the University of New the water was turned off. Mexico in Albuquerque.

28 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Saustain ble Healing Amanda Hessel

ver feel like you have been trying think that when they get rid of the in our bodies, we look for certainty at She is dedicated to heal the same symptom or symptom it means the body is all all costs; we want to return to the life to shifting Econdition in your body for years? better and that they are healthier. This, we had before the condition occurred, consciousness around health and Perhaps it comes and goes, but you however, is not necessarily the case. instead of moving into and creating helping people know you aren’t 100 percent healed. Symptoms and pains are often the something new. Moving into greater create energy- Maybe you have even seen all types of expression of a situation in the body health and sustainable healing requires rich states in their practitioners and healers but feel like where there is not enough energy to a radical shift in our perception of body-mind,so you haven’t reached the state of health maintain optimal function of all the what symptoms and pains mean along that greater you want in your body. These feelings organs, glands, muscles and cells. The with the tools to gain the messages levels of health are achieved. She utilizes a gentle system called are more common than you may think. body may malfunction, break down, our bodies are giving us through their Network Care to assist people in healing. Chronic disease is on the rise and is and disease processes begin to show up. expression. i For more information, contact the Scher affecting us earlier in life. Despite If you don’t change the energy-state of Dr. Amanda Hessel, D.C., M.S., B.S., is a Center for Well Being. 505.989.9373, www. advancing medical technologies and the body, it will continue to function chiropractor and body-awareness facilitator. HealingWithoutLimits.com our efforts to change and be healthier, poorly because the underlying state we often do not experience the amount that set up the problem in the first place of physical, emotional, social and has not been addressed. In time, old spiritual well-being we desire. symptoms will show up again or new ones will develop in their place. Green Fire Times needs Las Cruces Area In an energy-rich Removal or alleviation of pains and Ad Sales and Delivery people. state the body has more symptoms merely buys a person time. Please email [email protected] People choose one of two paths to resilience. follow with that time. The first path is Green Fire Times is also available at many locations A primary reason our bodies break to go about life as they did before the in the metropolitan Albuquerque / Río Rancho area! down and express symptoms and symptom occurred, without making For the location nearest you, conditions is because we lose our ability any changes. This allows a person to call Nick García at 505.907.7553 to adapt to life’s circumstances. We all continue the same life and function have a range of what we can handle. in the world as he or she did before When we stretch beyond that range we the symptom. However, this approach start to feel stressed. Stress is defined does not provide a higher energy state as pressure or tension on a system in the body. Typically what happens (such as our body) that results from in this situation is that the body will demanding or adverse circumstances. continue to break down (even with the Over time, this pressure can create a symptom removed) until a crisis point situation in the body called chronic is reached where a person has to make stress. With chronic stress we begin to a life-and-death health decision, which lose our ability to recover from sickness often involves taking drugs or having or injury, we feel tired, our muscles feel a lifesaving surgery. The other path tense, we might have stomach upset, is to undergo a healing process. In a and we can feel irritable and not fully healing process, people use symptoms present in our life. We lose our innate and pains as energy to make changes ability to heal and our connection to in their life. Change gives us a new ourselves and those things that are energy source and brings the body into important to us because we don’t have an energy-rich state. In an energy-rich the energy for them. Chronic stress state the body can function better; it puts our bodies into an energy-poor has more adaptability, flexibility and state. This is a survival condition in resilience, and it can heal sustainably. the body and it is incompatible with Largely what we have done in our healing, growth, sustainability and current healthcare system is to take greater well-being. away symptoms and conditions that For full, sustainable healing to occur, contain the energy we need for change. the energy state of the body must With that we have taken away our change. We cannot expect greater opportunity to be even healthier and health through simply alleviating experience greater possibilities for our symptoms with methods that remove lives. We have valued comfort and or numb the pain or condition. Most sameness over change and growth. people think that when they have a Stability and security have become symptom, the symptom is the problem the hallmarks to a good life, and when and they must get rid of it. Most also that becomes threatened, especially www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 29 Ask us about Zirconium Implants for people with metal allergies!

Beehive Extract Arrests Prostate Cancer Cell Growth A ccording to a paper from researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center, an over-the-counter natural remedy derived from honeybee hives arrests the growth of prostate cancer cells and tumors in mice. Caffeic acid phenethyl ester, or CAPE, is a compound isolated from propolis, the resin used by bees to patch holes in their hives. Propolis has been used for centuries in natural remedies for conditions such as sore throats, allergies and burns.

The researchers found that CAPE arrests early-stage prostate cancer by shutting down the tumor cells’ ability to detect sources of nutrition. Fed to mice daily, tumors stopped growing. When that treatment was stopped, the tumors began to grow again at their original pace, according to Richard B. Jones, Ph.D., senior author of the study. “It doesn’t kill the cancer, but it basically will indefinitely stop prostate cancer proliferation,” said Jones.

To assess the impact of CAPE treatment on the proteins of cellular pathways involved in cell growth, Jones and his colleagues used an innovative technique called “micro- western array” to monitor hundreds of proteins at once. The CAPE experiments offer a precedent to unlock the biological mechanisms of other natural remedies as well. “Now we’ll actually be able to systematically demonstrate the parts of cell physiology that are affected by these compounds,” Jones said.

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30 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Health

Medicine of the People: Massage and fSel -Acupressure Story and photos by Dr. Japa K. Khalsa

he healing arts encompass many In Eastern medicine, the speed of step as many times as necessary until the traditions including massage, energy movement picks up and moves headache subsides. Tacupuncture, chiropractic and shamanic quickly around the fingertips and toes healing. In New Mexico, there is and slows down as it moves into the the shamanic healing tradition of center of the body. This speed could be curanderismo, indigenous folk medicine due to the larger quantity of sensory that encompasses healing of the body, nerves in toes and fingers, or that mind and spirit. New Mexico law there are beginning and end points provides a safe harbor that legally to the 12 major organ meridians on protects the curandero/a’s right to the ends of fingers and toes. We can practice. In some states, traditional use direct pressure on the limbs to brain, sensing and delivering those healers can be shut down for practicing influence change in the internal organs. gut feelings of butterflies or protective medicine without a license. New Working with the body in this way warnings. The belly has a powerful Mexico’s support of traditional and can be as effective as direct pressure or inner wisdom of guidance and healing alternative medicine is a step towards stimulation into the internal organs. for the entire mind, body and spirit multicultural sustainability. At the core So let’s look at several common connection. of all of these healing traditions is a ailments and simple ways to self-heal It also helps to massage the sides of the reliance on the body’s innate ability to If you have an acute episode of sluggish by combining a local, gentle trigger temples gently and starting at the inner heal itself. It is important to consider digestion or bloating, try pressing the point or acupressure release at the site eyebrow, grasp and gently massage the when and how we can make a change outside upper part of your leg below of the problem and a simultaneous eyebrows towards the outer part of in our own consciousness. A tired and your knee. This point is known as “walk release at a distal point on the arms the eye. Gently massage along the jaw overburdened healthcare system cannot three miles” in Chinese medicine, and and legs. line, moving up the side of the face to heal until we find a way to change the pressing hard on this point will help gently massage any tense areas in the system from within and develop our queeze way a eadache to stimulate digestion. It is known for S A H cheekbones and especially near the own healing power. Special digestive points on the forearms giving strength and relieving fatigue, so tense parts of the jaw muscle along the and hands can be massaged quite easily couple this with daily belly rubs and see sides of the face near the ear. The body’s innate ability for relief of headache. Grasp the forearm what digestion improvements unfold. to heal itself is at the Nobody Likes Nausea A simple way to relieve nausea and a core of these traditions. churning stomach is to press the point called Pericardium 6 near the wrist. Medicine of the People Say you’ve been reading too long while Massage and self-acupressure bring us riding in a car or you’ve eaten the wrong in touch with the true medicine of the food combination. Try pressing and people, a way that common ailments massaging this point on the underside can be healed by touch. The art of of the forearm near the wrist. It is laying on hands is a time-honored and authentic way to bring support to a part of the body that is under stress or pain. Getting a massage is wonderful, with the opposite hand and massage and it is important to remember that down the forearm, looking for tender elly ubsfor etter igestion self-massage, as part of the routine of B R B D spots while squeezing. Find a tender Because digestion is such an ongoing life, is valuable to overall health on spot, stop there, hover at this spot and and never-ending process in the body, many levels. Massaging and pressing massage vigorously, using the thumb to it’s great to give it some daily support on parts of the body directly can help press into the spot repeatedly until some with simple techniques. Try simply to bring blood-flow to an organ or about two fingerbreadths up from the of the tension in the spot is dispersed. rubbing the belly in a circular fashion release pain from a muscle region. wrist crease in between the two major In the hand, pay special attention to the about 20 to 25 times, once or twice Stomachaches, headaches and stress tendons in the center of the underarm webbing between the index finger and a day. Move in a soothing way and can all be alleviated with simple hand (see photo). Press firmly here, just to the thumb. The acupuncture point in this clockwise direction (imagine the belly pressure. One secret is to massage both the sensation of discomfort and hold webbing is known to relieve migraines as a clock, facing outwards). This will the actual area where the pain is located for about five seconds while taking a and headaches. Find the tender spot in help to get in touch with the treasure and also a distal point on the hands or deep breath. Repeat until the nausea the middle of the webbing and press trove of nerve endings in the abdomen. feet to free up the blockage that may sensation begins to disperse. hard for several seconds, breathe deeply There are so many nerve endings in the be causing the symptom. and then relax (see photo). Repeat this digestive tract that it acts as a second continued on page 33 www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 31

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32 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com H ealth Benefits of Food as Medicine in Traditional Chinese Medicine for Animals Audrey Shannon

he health benefits of Chinese medicine food therapy for animals are long- greens, fruits, fewer grains and cooler meats such as fish or turkey are helpful to lasting and vitally important to recovering from illness. Many senior and ill dispel excess heat. In the late summer and fall, fruits, root vegetables and alliums Tanimals noticeably respond to an addition of a whole food diet. Such a diet, based in small amounts are generally fine for dogs. Cats are sensitive to alliums such as on Chinese medicine therapy, can be the foundation for any health regimen. Just garlic and green onions. Any individual animal can have its own sensitivities and as acupuncture and herbal therapy are used in diagnosis and treatment to correct allergies, so it is best to try new foods in small amounts. particular organ system and chi (energy) imbalances, food therapy can be used as Added hydration in our dry New Mexico climate can be key to health and is well. Food is the cornerstone of an animal’s health in any medical system. Similar important in many inflammation-related problems. Meat or veggie broth is a to other Eastern systems of health and healing, Chinese food therapy is prescribed good constant for conditions such as arthritis, kidney disease, aging issues and based on what an animal’s constitution might benefit from in conjunction with skin disorders. Soups and stews are a good way to add all the relative ingredients what is appropriate for the season or time of year. and provide hydration at the same time. Baking of meats is fine but can cause One of the most important considerations in food therapy is that food be from excessive nutritional loss with vegetables. Steaming retains the most nutritional clean sources. The food could be organic or natural and can include many foods that value over baking or boiling and is great for meats, vegetables and fruit. are grown locally. Fresh food by definition is not processed and hasn’t been frozen The benefits of making the meals yourself include the value of the intention and or stored for a long period of time. Additionally, there is always the controversy care put into the food you make for your pets. This can’t be duplicated by large of cooked versus raw food. manufacturers or even large-scale kitchens. For those with less time, you can keep The choice of which is more appropriate The foundation for any the meal simple, adding just a couple of ingredients. Simple recipes include a can depend on several things including health regimen bone broth, sweet potatoes or another root vegetable and one green vegetable. It the time of year, the health, constitution can be served by itself or added to high-grade canned food or kibble to increase and age of the animal. Serving cooked food is most important in the colder palatability and nutritional value. A high-grade animal months. A younger or very healthy animal can more easily digest raw foods. An nutritional supplement can also be added to ensure that all older, senior or ill animal may need cooked food because its digestive system may nutritional needs are being met. not be able to process or utilize raw food. The rewards of adding whole fresh foods to your pets diet are

In the winter months, cooked foods may include root vegetables, warmer meats, numerous. Most pets appreciate and thrive on a traditional ansen darker greens and, depending on the animal, warmer grains. A bone broth is Chinese medicine food-therapy-based diet. i H helpful to senior animals and those with arthritis. In the spring, darker greens, Audrey Shannon, DVM, offers animal acupuncture as well as food warm meats and lighter and fewer grains are good. In the summertime, lighter and herbal therapy for pets. 505.820.2617 © Anna C.

Medicine of the People continued from page 31

Stress Relief in macro-universe of the body. There are less stress and greater quality of life. a Surprising Place points distributed all through the ear Sustainable self-care and wellness, that help the skeleton, the glandular relating to ourselves with reverence, system, the heart and inner organs and respect and nurturing energy can, over all other parts of the body. Try it out time, create a change in our world and and experiment to create an immediate better health for everyone. i state of less stress. Dr. Japa K. Khalsa received a Bachelor or The Sweet Spot: the Neck Science from Northwestern University and completed her Master of Oriental Medicine The part of our nervous system at Midwest College of Medicine. She is a (parasympathetic) that controls our board-certified and licensed Doctor of Oriental rest-and-relax response has many Medicine, and practices in Española, NM. outlets and nerves in the neck area. 505.747.3368, [email protected], http:// It’s a sweet spot for natural healers to www.drjapa.com ply their trade because working on and Take hold of the nape of the neck, relaxing a person’s neck is a surefire way and squeeze and release the entire What is an easy, free way to relax the to create deeper relaxation. This part of area. Be creative; rub and massage, body in a few seconds? It sounds funny, the body holds so much chronic tension then squeeze, compress and release. but squeezing the ears and massaging from staring at a computer screen and Hold yourself with reverence and see all around the earlobe releases multiple keeping the 30 pounds of the head how much natural healing you can acupressure points that are found elevated. The more relaxation flows create. Within our own bodies lie the there. It is actually relaxing for the into the neck, the easier it is for nerves tools for the answer to our health and entire body in a very short amount of to stay healthy, for lymphatic fluid to happiness. Gift yourself with a regular time. The ear is considered a micro- flow and for muscles to be pain-free. massage from a professional and add universe of healing for the entire acupressure into your daily routine for www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 33 * Foreclosure defense

34 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com o p-ed: New Mexico Has a Democracy Problem Harry Montoya

s one of the Santa Fe County oil and gas extraction, our lawyers Commissioners who voted in informed us that we couldn’t ban 2008A to adopt an ordinance regulating drilling—even though that’s what I oil and gas extraction within the believe a majority of people in the county, I’ve followed similar efforts of county actually wanted. The lawyers other communities across the country. told us that if we did try to ban

Last year, following in the footsteps drilling outright, we could be sued by offman R of about two dozen towns and cities oil and gas corporations for violating

(including Pittsburgh, Pa.), the Mora their constitutional “rights” and for © Seth County Commissioners proceeded to “interfering” with state authority over Panel discussing the community rights movement (l-r): Thomas Linzey, executive adopt a local law banning oil and gas oil and gas operations. Like most director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, Mora County drilling as a violation of the civil rights elected officials who run into that Commissioner John Olivas, writer Lee Einer and Kathleen Dudley, chair of the New of Mora residents, which included system of law, we decided to try to live Mexico Coalition for Community Rights (www.nmccr.org) their right to water. Understanding within that law. Thus, we adopted an a corporate few seek to vindicate their County (and the city of Las Vegas, that our current system of law views ordinance that regulates how drilling “rights” over the rights of the Mora NM, which adopted a similar law), it’s the “rights” of extraction corporations for oil and gas can be done within the community. It is my hope—given time to make that declaration real. It’s as more important than those of our county. As a regulatory ordinance, it how clear the Mora County situation time for a democratic, grassroots revolt communities and elected officials, the automatically allows the drilling to has become—that people across New in which our communities openly— Mora Commissioners then used their occur— it just makes it more expensive Mexico will begin to realize that we and unapologetically—reject these local law to raise Mora’s right to local to do so. When natural gas or oil prices don’t have a fracking problem—we corporate legal doctrines, which have self-government above those “rights” rise to the point where it’s cost-effective have a democracy problem. been manufactured to keep us under claimed by extraction corporations. to comply with the requirements of their thumb. It’s time to disobey that The situation in Mora County (and our ordinance (or to bear the cost of system of law and use that disobedience Mora’s actions were a response to a endless ones prior to it, dealing with suing to overturn parts of it), Santa Fe to drive a new system of state and shocking reality—that New Mexico a variety of issues important to New County will be drilled. federal law that actually protects our isn’t really governed by us anymore Mexicans) points out the necessity communities. but by a relatively small handful of If I had the choice again, as a county of constitutional change in New individuals who run some of the largest commissioner, I would choose to Mexico—changes that recognize a Gracias/kudos to Mora County for corporations. Those corporations, over go in a different direction—the one right to local self-government that leading the way. i the last century or so, have not only that Mora County has gone. Unlike cannot be overturned by corporations successfully created a system of law us, they recognized that we have to Harry Montoya using preemptive state government or served two terms that allows them to use government to make a choice—that we can either their own corporate “rights.” Win or as Santa Fe County preempt us, but one that also recognizes accept the system of law as it has been lose, the Mora County Commissioners Commissioner

“corporate rights” that can be used to given to us, or we can begin to build deserve our thanks for beginning that (2002-2010), ansen H legally override our local lawmaking. a new system of law that forces those long-overdue conversation about served on the Pojoaque School Thus, when our communities decide corporations to respect local laws that whose rights must, in the end, prevail— Board and has that they must stop projects that protect the health, safety and welfare community majorities or corporate been a candidate © Anna C. endanger our health and safety, we find of our communities. minorities. for NM Public that we have been rendered powerless Mora County was recently sued by Lands Commissioner and US Congress. He to do so. Article 2 of the New Mexico represented New Mexico on the National corporate interests seeking to overturn Constitution already recognizes that Association of Counties Board of Directors, In Santa Fe County in 2006, when we their Community Bill of Rights’ ban on “all political power is vested in and and the National School Boards Association. began to explore options for controlling oil and gas extraction. In that lawsuit, derived from the people.” Led by Mora Santa Fe County Hearing on Mining La Bajada Mesa – February 20

La Bajada Mesa is part of a historic landmark that has been culturally and The proposal will be heard environmentally significant for (at least) hundreds of years. This gateway to the city before the Santa Fe County of Santa Fe from the south has been painted, drawn, photographed and filmed for Development Review generations. Committee on Feb. 20 at 4 pm (102 Grant Ave.), and then An application to mine basalt and crush it for gravel on a 50-acre section of La Bajada uthwaite © 1983 before the Board of County O Mesa for a 25-year period has been submitted to Santa Fe County by Buena Vista Commissioners in March. Estates/Rockology, an Albuquerque-based company. A letter from Santa Fe County avid The applicant is seeking to D Water Utilities expressing a willingness and ability “to provide bulk [hauled] water rezone the 5,217-acre property services for the project” was submitted with the application.

(which is also for sale) from esa by M A Rockology application for the proposed mine site was withdrawn in 2008 because agriculture/residential to mining. If approved, the mining zone could be expanded.

a permit was denied based on a “cadre” of issues including impacts on historical and The Rural Conservation Alliance, community organizations and individuals ajada archeological resources. Development of such an industry on an otherwise open B

dedicated to preserving and protecting the Galisteo Basin, is encouraging citizen La landscape could result in increased pollution from carbon emissions, dust from input at the hearing. TheA lliance (savelabajada.org) has also requested that letters crushers and conveyors and heavy industrial traffic, along with blasting and night be sent to the case manager, José Larrañaga: [email protected] lighting. www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 35 910

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36 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com NEWSBITEs W ater Quality Control Commission Votes Renewable Energy Day at the Roundhouse Against Water Quality Protection sunday, february 16, 10 am-2 pm; press conference at noon

Last month the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) Renewable Energy Day unanimously voted down a motion that would have prevented the Copper Rule, at the New Mexico State adopted by the commission in September 2013, from being used in mine permitting Capitol, rescheduled decisions while the rule is under appeal. from January, will showcase the economic, The Gila Resources Information Project (GRIP), Turner Ranch Properties, L.P. and environmental and Amigos Bravos filed the motion. They argued that the case raises important legal community benefits questions that must be resolved by the Court of Appeals, and that irreparable harm of renewable energy to public water resources is likely if the Copper Rule is implemented. The rule marks and energy efficiency. the first time since the state Water Quality Act was adopted that the WQCC has

A diverse group of acaulay

adopted regulations that would allow contamination of groundwater by an industry. advocates, including M The motion was supported by the NM Office of the Attorney General. It was opposed business associations,

by the NM Environment Department (NMED) and multinational copper mining workforce development © Katie associations, corporation Freeport-McMoRan. NMED and Freeport-McMoRan, which operates Renewable Energy Day is organized by Got Sol, a group public institutions, three large open-pit copper mines in Grant County, worked together to draft and dedicated to increasing energy efficiency and renewable community groups advocate for the rule. energy in New Mexico. and homeowners, will Bruce Frederick, NM Environmental Law Center staff attorney, said, “the law have information tables set up. There will be hands-on electricity-generation requires us to go to the WQCC before we can ask the Court of Appeals to stay the demonstrations, electric cars, solar ovens and ecological art. Copper Rule pending appeal.” A press conference at noon will feature gubernatorial candidates Lawrence Rael and New Coalition Opposes Goldmine Alan Webber; Santa Fe mayoral candidates Patti Bushee and Javier Gonzales; Steve Cummins of the Los Alamos Smart Grid; David Melton of Sacred Power, and others A coalition of conservation groups and jewelers say that Santa Fe Gold Corporation’s who will share their policies and plans to help grow the renewable-energy industry proposed, deep open-pit mine in the Ortiz Mountains would turn the area into a in New Mexico. polluted industrial zone visible for miles, increase truck traffic along theT urquoise Free parking is available in the parking garage at 420 Galisteo St. More information: Trail, consume enough water to sustain thousands of households, and potentially 505.310.4425, [email protected] endanger area water supplies by draining acidic runoff into groundwater. New Mexico’s Solar Industry Growing The coalition, comprised of theT urquoise Trail Preservation Trust, Earthworks and Fair Jewelry Action, has released an analysis of Santa Fe Gold’s proposal. The report A ccording to a new report, more than 1,000 New Mexicans are employed by the has been endorsed by one of the country’s leading scientists on the environmental soar energy industry. The Solar Foundation (thesolarfoundation.org), a nonprofit impacts of gold mining, Dr. Glenn Miller of the University of Nevada, Reno. The solar advocacy foundation released the National Solar Jobs Census 2013, based report says that the mine may annually consume the equivalent of water needs on information culled by labor market analysts. As a result of the steady growth in of between 4,600 and 7,800 New Mexicans; it would be similar to the nearby megawatts of solar energy across the US, cheaper photovoltaic prices, new technology Cunningham Hill Mine, which is draining acid into groundwater; because the ore and tax incentives, the solar industry added over 18,000 jobs nationally from Sept. is low grade, mining each ounce will generate 169 metric tons of waste, creating 2012 to Nov. 2013, according to the foundation. More than half of those jobs were a massive tailings heap; and that the mine would release hundreds of millions of as solar installers, averaging $20 an hour. pounds of greenhouse gases. The cost of installing PV inN ew Mexico declined 15 percent last year. Seventy Santa Fe Gold recently merged with a Canadian mining company. The coalition’s percent of people who have bought solar systems told surveyors that they did so to report is available online at http://ortizreport.earthworkssaction.org save money and because the price was competitive with power provided by utility companies per kilowatt-hour. Lyamy Sa s No to Crude Oil-Loading Facility 2014 Sustainable Santa Fe Award Pacer Energy and Santa Fe Southern have reportedly struck a deal to convert the Nominations Sought rail facility in the unincorporated quiet village of Lamy, southeast of Santa Fe, into a transfer station for crude oil. Fifty to 100 tanker trucks weekly may be barreling The city of Santa Fe is seeking nominations to recognize model sustainability down the 285 corridor and in and out of Lamy on the recently paved 2-lane road, projects that are helping Santa Fe reduce it’s ecological footprint, mitigate carbon their engines idling as they wait to offload oil to railroad cars, possibly 24 hours a emissions and build resilience in the face of climate change, in accordance with the day. The cargo is to be transported to refineries near Albuquerque. Sustainable Santa Fe Plan. These annual awards, given since 2009, are limited to projects or programs with significant events that occurred during the 2013 calendar Crude oil shipments by rail have increased more than 400 percent since 2005. year or ongoing programs that haven’t yet been recognized. Award recipients will be In light of recent freight train accidents across the US, last month the National recognized during a reception in association with Earth Day, which will be promoted Transportation Safety Board recommended strict new measures for transporting on the Sustainable Santa Fe Facebook page and in local media outlets. crude oil. A Santa Fe County woman is currently suing Western Refining because last February during a blizzard one of its trucks on US 84/285 lost control, jackknifed, Award categories include: struck and totaled her vehicle, spilling hundreds of gallons of fuel. C ommunity Outreach, Environmental Advocacy, Environmental Justice, Food System, Climate Adaptation—Water, Climate Adaptation—Ecosystem, Renewable At a meeting of 275 people on Jan. 18, a couple of Pacer’s reps were unable to answer Energy / Energy Efficiency, Affordable Green Building / Building Systems, Green the many questions asked by outraged people from Lamy, Galisteo and Eldorado, who Economic Development, Low Carbon Transportation, Waste Reduction, Green were there en force, united by a deep and urgent desire to protect their watershed and Journalism, Youth-Led, and Other prevent air and noise pollution. Other issues of concern: safety risks, liability, possible storage facilities development, property values, road degradation, hazmat incidents, Nominations will be accepted until March 15 and can be made online. A link to the permeable soil, etc. The consensus: spills, accidents and wrecks are inevitable. Lamy’s nomination form can be found at: www.santafenm.gov/sustainable_santa_fe or at the community water well head is only 109 feet from the proposed transfer site. “No website of any of the co-sponsors of the event, including Earth Care, the Santa Fe Green Crude Oil in Lamy,” a regional alliance, may pursue a legal injunction. Chamber, and Green Fire Times. Separate nominations must be made for each project, but you may nominate as many different projects as you wish. Contact Katherine Mortimer, Sustainable Santa Fe Programs manager: 505.955.2262, [email protected] www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 37 What's Going On! Events / Announcements

Learn to apply National Electrical Code March 5-7, 8 am-5 pm Feb. 4 Registration Deadline standards and industry best practices from 3rd International Meeting on City of Santa Fe one of ABQ’s most successful PV system Indigenous Women’s Health March 4th Election design engineers. The course qualifies as Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town Santa Fe County Clerk, 103 Grant advanced training for those preparing to Healthy Generations: Integrating Traditions Ave., 505.986.6280, co.santa-fe.nm.us take the NABCEP PV Installer exam. $169. and Science to promote well-being. An op- Class ID: 25590. RSVP: 505.224.5200, work portunity for physicians, midwives, nurses, Feb. 5-26, Weds., 11 am- 1 pm [email protected], www.cnm.edu/depts/wtc/ community providers and others who work Winter Hikes Around Santa Fe index.html/index.html with indigenous women to share, support, The city ofS anta Fe is offering hiking oppor- ALBUQUERQUE Feb. 8, 10:30 am-12:30 pm network, learn and build partnerships to im- tunities ranging from easy to moderate on local prove the health of indigenous women and Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 9 am-5 pm Eating for Your Health trails and the Galisteo Basin Preserve. $20. Reg- Clean Economy Conference their families. 505.272.3942, kbreckenridge@ ister in person at least 24 hours prior to the first Highland Senior Activity Center salud.unm.edu, http://som.unm.edu/cme hike. 505.955.4047, www.chavezcenter.com ABQ Embassy Suites 131 Monroe 1000 Woodward Place Community-based workshop by Susan Clair, April 7-9 Feb. 5, 5:30-7 pm Eight experts will discuss Building Re- MCRP/MPA, on elements of a healthy lifestyle, 10th International Conference Green Drinks siliency through Sustainable Practices. plant-based and animal proteins, organic vs. on Concentrator Mayoral Candidates Keynote speaker: Joel Salatin of Polyface conventional, antioxidants and systemic alka- Photovoltaic Systems ishop s odge anch esort Farms. Plenary sessions on wise water use, linity, health benefits of herbs & spices, fats and B ’ L R R , 1297 regenerative agriculture, zero-waste, organic Hyatt Regency Albuquerque Bishop’s Lodge Road sweeteners. $5 suggested donation. Registration An opportunity for suppliers of components food production, compost tea, strategies to required. 505.321.8649, [email protected] Patti Bushee and Javier Gonzales discuss shrink our carbon footprint, seed saving, and services to the PV and CPV industry to their “Green Vision for Santa Fe.” creating an agricultural production center, Feb. 8, 1:30-3:30 pm connect with experts and potential customers community gardens, urban farming, sus- Home Composting Basics from all over the world. 400 people from more Feb. 5, 7 pm tainability tradeshow and more. $125/day. than 25 countries, including many corporate Telluride Mountinfilm on Tour Open Space Visitor Center executives from global companies are expect- 505.819.3828, iginia@carboneconomyseries. The Lensic, 211 W. San Francisco 6500 Coors Blvd. NW ed to participate. Host committee: CFV Solar com, www.carboneconomyseries.com WildEarth Guardians hosts this mix of Learn the science, materials and methods of Test Laboratory, Fraunhofer USA, Sandia films, from mountain sports to amazing wild drought-proofing your garden soil in order National Laboratories. www.cpv-10.org Feb. 1 places. Thrilling imagery and thoughtful sto- Off-Grid Solar Electricity to grow vegetables, fruit and berries. Free. May 3 Opening rytelling. $15. 505.988.9126, ext. 0. Design and Installation 505.897.8831, [email protected] Acequia Research Project Exhibit Feb. 6, 1-3 pm CNM Workforce Training Center Feb. 13, 7 pm Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, UNM Tree Pruning Workshop agle ock venue Thinking Like a Watershed 5600 E R A NE Based on NSF-funded research by scientists 8-hour class (ID: 25589) for PV profession- Railyard Park and Plaza KiMo Theater, 423 Central NW and scholars across several disciplines and als. Learn core principles of off-grid living, A rborist Tracy Neal will prune trees and an- The first of five monthly panel discussions fea- institutions, including UNM, NMSU, NM differences between grid-tied and off-grid swer questions at this hands-on workshop. turing 3 different humanities scholars, who will Tech and the NM Acequia Association, this PV systems, principal components used, re- Meet at the Railyard Community Room be- be introduced by Jack Loeffler. The intent is to exhibit will tell the story of how acequias sources available, etc. Info: 505.224.5200, hind Site SF. [email protected] contribute to a new Land Ethic for the pres- operate as part of whole watershed systems, [email protected], www.cnm.edu/depts/ ervation of our endangered ecosystems in the how and why they persist, as well as the chal- wtc/index.html/index.html Feb. 8, 12 pm Southwest. Panelists William deBuys, Patty lenges they face today. 505.995.9644, quita@ Southside Quality Feb. 5, 5:30-7:30 pm Limerick and John Nichols will provide an his- lasacequias.org of Life Listening Session Green Drinks toric overview of human habitation and water use. Funded by the NM Humanities Council. SANTA FE Southside Public Library Community Hotel Andaluz, 125 2nd Street NW Free admission. 505.768.3522 Through March 16, 2014 Room N etwork and mingle with Cowboys Real and Imagined people interested in lo- Feb. 14-15 Feb. 9, 2-4 pm cal business, clean energy New Mexico Organic NM History Museum BFA Creative Writing Event: and other green issues. Farming Conference This exhibit explores NM’s contribution to Hearts Afire 505.244.3700, Lindsay@ the cowboys of both myth and reality from arriott lbuquerque yramid Museum of Contemporary Native nmgreenchamber M A P the 1600s to the present day. North, 5151 San Francisco Road NE Arts, 108 Cathedral Place Feb. 5-6, 2 pm and 7 pm TheS outhwest’s premier conference for or- Through April 1, 10 am-5 pm Institute of American Indian Arts fac- Fossil-Free Film Festival ganic agriculture. Producers and researchers Heartbeat – Music ulty and students read their work. Free. share their experience and expertise to help of the Southwest 888.922.4242 The Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave. NE agri-producers make decisions in running The best new films about climate change their farm and ranch operations or in start- Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Feb. 9 6:30-8:30 pm and what you can do about it. Sponsored ing a new one. Workshops and exhibitors. A celebration of sight, sound and activity for visi- Reading of Cascarones by the ABQ Climate Coalition, 12 NM tors of all ages. Over 100 objects relating to South- Presented by Farm to Table, NM Depart- eatro araguas alle arie nonprofit groups including 350.org/NM. western Native music and dance are featured. T P , 3205 C M ment of Agriculture, NMSU Cooperative A new play by Irma Mayorga developed at 505.350.3839, [email protected], 505.476.1250, http://indianartsandculture.org/ Extension Service. Registration: $100/$60. the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center Play- http://abqclimateaction.us/f4 Discounts for student groups if approved Feb. 2, 2 pm wrights’ Conference. Dreamlike encounters Feb. 6, 5-7 pm ahead of time. Info: 505.473.1004, ext. 10 with John Wesley Powell, Francisco Vázquez (Santa Fe) or 505.889.9921 (ABQ). The Melting World: A Journey Contemporary Indigenous Across America’s Vanishing de Coronado and others whose actions influ- ence the present. Reservations: 505.424.1601 Discourse Series Feb. 18, 7:15-8:30 pm Glaciers Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, Improving Desert Garden Soil Center for Contemporary Arts Feb. 10, 6 pm 2401 12th St. NW Meadowlark Senior Center, 4330 CCA Living Room Mayoral Forum Repatriation and cultural patrimony on local, Meadowlark Lane, SE, Rio Rancho, NM Author Christopher White (The Melting CCA, 1050 Old Pecos Trail national and international levels. A forum for Gardening with the Masters lecture series World) will tell tales of his journey docu- Discussion focused on issues of arts, culture Indigenous peoples to share knowledge and presented by Sandoval County Master Gar- menting the loss of Montana’s alpine gla- and creativity. Free. strategies for advancing tribal self-determina- deners. Free. 505.929.0414, zarjoe@ymail. ciers. [email protected] tion. Moderated by Americans for Indian Op- com Feb. 10, 6 pm portunity executive director Laura Harris. Pan- Feb. 3, 6-8 pm Land Grants, Trails, and Peo- elists: LaDonna Harris, Jacquette Swift, Terry Feb. 25 Art and Activism ple in Southeast Santa Fe Snowball and John Beaver. 505.843.7270 Crawford Symposium: Green Earth Care/Zona del Sol, corner of Hotel Santa Fe Trails for the Next Generation Jaguar and Country Club Rd. Feb. 8, 8 am-5 pm Conference SW Seminars lecture by author Steve Post, Advanced Photovoltaic Interactive giant mural presentation/work- author of Ten Thousand Years of Living in System Design Bosque School shop related to climate change, globaliza- Santa Fe, former deputy director, Office of Info: 505.898.6388, Rebecca.belletto@ tion and resource extraction. Presented by Archaeological Studies, Museum of NM. $12. CNM Workforce Training Center, bosqueschool.org the Beehive Collective. 505.983.6896, info@ 505.466.2775, [email protected], 5600 Eagle Rock Ave. NE earthcare.org SouthwestSeminars.org

38 Green Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com Feb. 10-14 women’s prison. Speaker: Bette Fleishman. SF Citizens’ Climate Lobby Feb. 18-20 Sculpting Workshop with 505.466.1048 Natural Grocers, Community Room, GreenBiz Forum Roxanne Swentzell errillos oad Feb. 20, 4 pm 3328 C R Montelucia Resort, Phoenix, AZ ower allery “Creating political will for a livable world.” This forum brings togetherG reenBiz Group, T G Hearing on La Bajada Mesa Mining Cities of Gold Road, Pojoaque [email protected] the Sustainability Consortium, and ASU’s Beginners welcome. $950 includes supplies and Santa Fe County Courthouse Global Institute of Sustainability. Noted firing.T o register: 505.455.3037 (ask for Cindy) 102 Grant Avenue Santa Fe Recycling thinkers and influential leaders will provide or [email protected] S ee newsbite, pg. 35, www.raintreecounty. Make 2014 the year to reduce, reuse and recy- an in-depth look at the key challenges and com/SaveLaBajadaMesa.html cle as much as you can. City residential curb- opportunities facing sustainable business Feb. 11, 4-6 pm side customers can recycle at no additional today. Workshops and networking opportu- Eldorado/285 Recycles Feb. 21, 5-8 pm cost and drop by 1142 Siler Road, Building nities. www.greenbiz.com/events/greenbiz ECIA Conference Room Edible Art Tour (EAT) A to pick up free recycling bins. At least 50 forum/2014/02/arizona Eldorado area recycling advocacy group Members of the SF Gallery Association percent of curbside residential customers recycle now. Let’s take that number to 100 Feb. 26 monthly meeting. All welcome.505.466.9797, team with local restaurants; stroll from Composting Made Easy [email protected], doorway to doorway or take shuttle buses percent. For more information, visit http:// www.eldorado285recycles.org between downtown and Canyon Road; EAT: www.santafenm.gov/trash_and_recycling or Pajarito Environmental Education $35; EAT and Fashion Feast dance party $70. call 505.955.2200 (city); 505.992.3010 (coun- Center, Los Alamos, NM Feb. 11, 6:30-8:30 pm 505.603.4643, artfeast.com ty); 505.424.1850 (SF Solid Waste Manage- With certified arborist Laural Hardin. $8/$6. Lifesongs Community ment Agency). [email protected], 505.662.0460 Conversations Feb. 27-March 2 Real Food Challenge HERE & THERE March 3, 6:30-8 pm Academy for the Love of Learning Through March 28, M-F, 9 am-5 pm Local Food Summit eton illage SF University of Art & Design S V Contemporary Handwoven An evening with Molly Sturges, Acushla 1600 St. Michael’s Drive Denver, Colorado Art Exhibition Mile High Business Alliance presents this Bastible, Denys Cope and Christine San- This retreat is an opportunity for student nd doval. Lifesongs is an intergenerational leaders from around the region to build com- Taos Town Hall 2 annual summit focused on connecting arts program that promotes social inclusion munity, participate in workshops about the 400 Camino de las Placita, Taos, NM Colorado’s food system to create a healthy, and dignity for elders and people in hospice food system, and develop leadership and T aos Arts Council and Weaving Southwest resilient food economy. This conference- care. Free. Registration: 505.995.1860, www. organizing skills for projects and campaigns present a weaving and tapestry exhibition style event will provide industry-specific aloveoflearning.org/programs/lifesongs to further local, sustainable, fair food ef- featuring more than 18 northern NM fiber opportunities for engagement, community forts on campuses. $35. Info: 505.501.5826 artists. The show is funded in part byNM building, education and problem solving. Feb. 13-28 or [email protected]. To regis- Arts, a division of the Dept. of Cultural Af- https://milehighbiz.org/civicrm/event/ Floyd Red Crow Westerman ter: http://realfoodchallenge.org/programs/ fairs and the NEA. 575.779.8579, pcf1947@ info?reset=1&id=174 Sculpture Exhibition trainings or https://www.facebook.com/ yahoo.com, http://taosartscouncil.org/ March 5, 7 pm Galeria El Farol, 808 Canyon Road events/557966964285034 weaving-southwest-at-taos-town-hall/, www.weavingsouthwest.com Celebration of Albuquerque’s R arely seen bronze sculptures by the late March 1-2: Workshop; Wildlife Federation’s Centennial great singer/songwriter actor of prominent March 3-4: Tour Feb. 2, 11 am-2 pm ajarito nvironmental ducation Native American leaders. Info: 415.328 4321 th P E E Finding Our Creative Spirit: 6 Annual Soup-R-Bowl Party Center, Los Alamos, NM Feb. 14, 6-9 pm Dreaming Awake Thome Domínguez Community Kristina Fisher and Phil Carter of AWF will At the Artist’s Table SF Community Convention Center Center, Los Lunas, NM talk about the group’s history, show pho- tos and documents, and information about SF School of Cooking “Contemporary expression of practical Fundraiser for UNM-Virginia Casados current ecological restoration across NM. 125 N. Guadalupe wisdom of the seer of ancient Mexico.” Scholarship Fund. Handmade bowls for 505.662.0460, [email protected], An intimate evening of fine art, cuisine and Workshop on Carlos Castaneda’s Tenseg- $10. Includes homemade soups, breads and www.PajaritoEEE.org conversation featuring artist Susan Contreras rity taught by his direct students. Followed desserts. Event directly across from and hosted by Tomé Art Gallery, 2930 Hwy. 47. and chef Michelle Roetzer. A fundraiser for by a tour of Chaco Canyon for workshop March 26-27 Partners in Education Foundation. Tickets: participants. Sponsored by Cleargreen, 505.565.0556 the organization Castaneda founded. Info: Sustainability Summit and Expo $300/couple or $175/person. Reservations: Feb. 10-11 505.474.0240, www.attheartiststable.org/ 505.820.1528, [email protected] Wisconsin Center Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference Milwaukee, Wisconsin March 10, 6 pm Feb. 15, 9:30 am-12 pm Washington, D.C. Implementing sustainable business models, Love Your River Day Living Life to the Fullest “Where Jobs and the Environment Meet” In- supply chain innovation, freshwater chal- with Native Humor lenges – global and local, sustainability op- Frenchy’s Park, Osage at Agua Fria formative workshops led by issue experts, state Help keep the SF Riverbed free of trash. Hotel Santa Fe and local government officials, agency officials, portunities in global markets, sustainable Free training provided. Cocoa, baked goods SW Seminars lecture by artist, humorist, business and industry representatives. Work- food supply, the efficiency and nutrition revo- and good friends. 505.820.1696, stewards@ filmmaker Ricardo Cate (Pueblo of Kewa). shops include: Climate Resiliency and Adap- lution, sustainable energy, climate: the global santafewatershed.org $12. 505.466.2775, southwestseminars@aol. tation; Creating Good, Green Jobs: Repairing challenge. www.sustainabilitysummit.us com, SouthwestSeminars.org Our Economy; Repairing and Transforming Feb. 16, 10 am-2 pm Our Energy Systems; Repairing Our Work- March 26-28 Renewable Energy Day March 27-28, 8 am-5 pm places, Communities and the Environment; GLOBE 2014 at the Roundhouse SW Jémez Mountain Repairing and Transforming Our Manufac- Vancouver, BC, Canada Collaborative Forest Land- turing Base; Repairing Our Democracy; Re- 13th biennial conference and trade fair on busi- tate apitol uilding NM S C B pairing Our Schools and Communities to Be ness and sustainability. Speakers include Amo- Celebrate the economic, environmental and scape Restoration Project Healthy and Safe; Water and Pipes: Repairing ry Lovins, Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain community benefits of renewable energy and anta e ommunity ollege S F C C the Infrastructure Under Us. $225/$125. www. Institute; Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman energy efficiency. Learn about the latest de- émez ooms J R greenjobsconference.org/ of the board, Nestle; Hans Engel, CFO, BASF. velopments and network with others work- 3/27: All-Hands Monitoring Presentations 400 exhibitors from North America, Latin ing to improve NM’s energy future. A diverse will showcase results from 2013 activities. Feb. 14 Application Deadline America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. array of community groups, business asso- 3/28: Implementation Workshop will use Northern New Mexico 604.637.6649, www.GLOBESeries.com ciations and public institutions will have dis- information from monitoring to develop Conservation Opportunity plays and demonstrations. Press conference at implementation strategies in the project area Rocky Mountain Youth Corps is hiring young March 26-28 12 pm. 505.310.4425, [email protected] for 2015. Info: 505.438.5431, pashmead@ 2014 National Food Hub fs.fed.us women and men 18-25 for seasonal, full-time con- Feb. 18, 5:30 pm servation programs. Applications and program Conference Water Matters Lecture Series April 26, 12-4 pm descriptions: 575.751.1420, www.youthcorps.org Raleigh, North Carolina “Building capacity for healthy regional food SF Community Foundation Earth Day at the Railyard Feb. 18 Public Comment Deadline systems” www.ngfn.org/ 501 Halona St. Railyard Park Río Grande del Norte National Presentation by Laura McCarthy, direc- Large-scale collaboration of local groups Monument Management Plan March 29, 10:30 am tor of conservation programs, The Nature involved in education, conservation, multi- Earthquakes in Our Backyard Conservancy. Presented by Amigos Bravos. arts, environmental and social justice, and The BLM is accepting suggestions on what 575.758.3874, [email protected] creative community engagement. Proces- issues and concerns it should consider as it Pajarito Environmental Education sion, music, poetry, visual arts, storytelling, develops the plan for the 380-square-mile Center, 3540 Orange St. Feb. 19, 6-7:30 pm performances, community participation. area to ensure protection of cultural, eco- Los Alamos, NM logical and geologic assets. Input may be NM Women’s Justice Project earthdaysantafe.info C lass for kids and adults to learn how, where submitted by mail to BLM Taos Field Office, and when earthquakes occur around Los Al- Natural Grocers Community Room, First Saturday of Each Month, 226 Cruz Alta Rd, Taos, NM 87571; or email: amos. Advance registration required. $10/$8. 3328 Cerrillos Road 10 am-12 pm [email protected] 505.662.0460, [email protected], Public meeting to stop expansion of the www.PajaritoEEE.org www.GreenFireTimes.com Green Fire Times • February 2014 39 Green40 Fire Times • February 2014 www.GreenFireTimes.com