Candidate's December 26, 2007 Letter to The
and the Santa Fe
The wildlife-rich
1. Slow down, to allow the public and the land, not just oil, to frame the ordinance. Institute perhaps a two-year moratorium on oil leases to allow issuance of an updated county-wide comprehensive resource management plan, similar to the 3-year moratorium and resource planning going on at BLM. This resource plan would seek to expand the ecological and cultural map overlays the county is reportedly working on. For instance, water aquifer depths mapped for the entire county would be essential for determining where and at what depths oil wells could be drilled.
2. Since our county is growing in population and home to the state capital, include in the resource plan a financial study of the competing land use activities. Compare projected state oil revenues with current and projected county-wide income from tourism, the art and artist industries, and new homebuilding itself, all of which rely on the harmonious landscape of the county.
3. Make the resource plan look to the county’s and our children’s future. Consider rules for other energy development, perhaps limiting the height of any future wind generator towers, taking into account scenic values and future population land use. Look at encouraging homes, businesses and pueblos to develop photovoltaic power arrays, which are quiet, low lying and non-threatening to water, air, birds and views (relatively).
4. While realizing the shared demand for oil and that some oil extraction likely will take place, work to minimize the impact on homes and land by requiring that oil wells be clustered on sufficiently isolated pads, with the required use of directional drilling to extend extraction, rather than a larger grid of roads and pads.
5. Create new county laws for transfer of property ownership, with the eventual aim and effect of eliminating split-estate private property. Require that land buyers be informed of the owner of mineral rights beneath their land, including contact information, and that buyers be given the right to purchase those mineral rights. Also, require that existing landowners be notified of planned mineral-rights acquisition under their land, and be given the first right to purchase those rights by bettering a mineral extractor's offer.
The county drilling ordinance affects the land, lives and income of private landowners. Reportedly, some mineral rights were obtained without landowner knowledge. Doesn’t it make sense to fully involve the public and issue the revised county oil-drilling ordinance after, and as part of, a comprehensive resource/land-use management plan review?
From: Ron Simmons
To: National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
Re: Complex Transformation
In two years Santa Fe will get its drinking water from the Rio Grande, a short distance downstream from the canyons where LANL intends to increase plutonium pit production for nuclear weapons.
Whether or not modern practices will avoid a repeat of the contamination that happened at Rocky Flats in Colorado is issue # 1. Issue # 2 is the opinion of some scientists that existing pits are viable for another 40 to 80 years. Issue #3 is whether the United States should be leading in abiding by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, so that the international law of the NNPT can be enforced on all countries. I don't believe
we can be successful in preventing developing countries from pursuing nuclear weapons unless we engage with them toe-to-toe in disarmament. Issue #4 relates to the existing contamination on-site at LANL. I encourage the Energy Department to finish the clean-up of the last 65 years of nuclear work at Los Alamos, preferably by removal of all waste to approved waste sites. The porous volcanic strata and geology of canyons and tributaries that empty into the Rio Grande just north of the Santa Fe drinking-water diversion argue for quick and complete removal of waste. Issue #5 is the urgent need for our nation to transform our Energy Department labs to the task of renewable
energy research and development.
Our scientists at Los Alamos are a national resource and treasure. Let's use them and the Los Alamos lab to make our nation the leader in solar photovoltaics, solar thermal, wind, geothermal, battery, cellulosic ethanol, clean coal and energy storage research and development. Implement partnerships with New Mexico colleges and businesses to create new jobs for New Mexico. Let's follow the lead of Germany in this regard.