Report from Santa Fe; Peter Maggiore

music Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. I'm Ernie Mills. This is report from Santa Fe, our guest today, Peter Maggiari, who is the Cabinet Secretary for the New Mexico Department of the Environment. Peter, perfect time to do a show like this. Hi, Ernie. Thank you for inviting me, Ernie. Can we just get a little update on some things? You know, you're in an agency where some items get an awful lot of headline publicity, but just an update on where we stand between the State Department of the Environment and

the Waste Isolation Pilot land. Certainly. I think I've got some good news to report in that front, Ernie. As you may recall, immediately after us issuing the permit back in October, we were sued by both the Department of Energy and some environmental advocacy groups over some of the terms of the permit. The Department of Energy had some issues with regards to some of the technical conditions in the permit, as well as the financial assurance requirements and the environmental advocacy groups and some instances didn't think the permit should have been issued at all. So with respect to the litigation for the Department of Energy, the court has approved both the state and federal courts have approved the joint stipulated order submitted between the Department of Energy and myself, and what that means is that we have identified a path forward for resolving all of the remaining technical issues with the permit through a permit modification process that should be complete in about six months, and that the only area of ongoing dispute is the financial assurance piece.

And can you give a brief rundown on what's in tell, because that's very interesting. It is very interesting. In addition with the joint stipulated order, we've agreed to state litigation for 120 days in an attempt to resolve these issues, although I'm optimistic, very optimistic that the technical issues can get resolved. The financial assurance piece is still problematic. Bernie, what we've done there is we've assigned financial assurance to the co-applicant or co-operator of the Whip Facility, which is Westinghouse. And we believe that the federal law and state law both give us clear authority to do that. And that's a philosophical or legal difference of opinion with the Department of Energy. They claim that that provision is not legal and should be thrown out by the court. That matter will probably get resolved one or two ways. One, the courts will decide, and I'm fairly confident that we've got a strong legal argument there. The other way it might get resolved is through congressional action. And I understand that Senator Domenici has a rider, which is going through on some

appropriation bills, that at least in theory could restrict my agency's ability to require this. Bernie, I respect the senior senator tremendously. We do have a philosophical disagreement on this point, though. I view it as a state's rights issue, and I believe that the state should be able to require financial assurance from contractors or federal agencies where issues of closing an environmental facility or cleanup could become an issue in the future. Those are the path forwards. It's a lot more clear now than it was about three or four months ago. It's not completely resolved yet, but that's the latest. The feds indicated for a time that they might try to withhold money for highways and such. And this is an editorial comment. And that happened, I immediately thought, regardless of the other arguments. The one thing that is dangerous in dealing with the Mexicans is to threaten them.

This happened back during the interstate road constructions back in the 60s, and I'd not only written about it, but involved in it at the time. And the federal government said, you know, we are going, they were going to withhold all highway building money for the state in the Mexico. And the state, the people banded together. Little communities still feel that bond that they had in that period. It's not a good thing to threaten a state. It really isn't, Ernie, and the fact that this is a completely avoidable issue compounds my frustration. Let me share with you why. I said that Westinghouse and the Department of Energy have six or seven ways they could satisfy the financial assurance requirement contained in the permit. And unfortunately, Secretary Richardson has selected the most expensive and most harmful to the state of New Mexico by putting 20 million in trust for five years. A letter of credit, a corporate guarantee posting a bond are all ways that would be infinitely

less expensive. And I'm talking about less than half a million a year to satisfy. So it troubles me that the Department of Energy has taken this hardline tactic to try and politically leverage us to change our position. That provisions in the permit, it's supported by law and we're not backing down. So? You are not backing down. No, we're not backing down, Ernie. Now, there's another issue rather sensitive because at the time we taping the show, there was a controlled burn at Los Alamos that got out of control. And I don't want to get in at this point in time. We could spend a whole show trying to find out whether it was wise or not to have the burn. But what is the role of the Department of the Environment when something like this happens very obviously in a fixed environment? It sure does. And we're involved in it. We touch an issue like this in several different ways. First of all, we issue what are called prescribed burn or control burn permit, to federal land

management agencies. And currently we have over 180 of those pending throughout New Mexico. We understand and we appreciate the need to do control burns in terms of restoring some habitat and improving the quality of the forests. But we issue these permits in an attempt to gain some control over that. Leaving the details on what happened and why aside, now that is a wildfire, and as we speak, it's my understanding about 20,000 acres have been burned over 100 homes in Los Alamos. We've concentrated our efforts really in three areas. One is the air quality monitoring and understanding what compounds may be emitted and where those are traveling. The second is to ensure that the water supply for the town of Los Alamos is safe for consumption. And the third is to try and understand what impacts if any might result from the fire crossing Los Alamos Laboratory property with respect to the storage of some of the waste products

and materials, as well as some of the release sites that they have inventory up there. So we're busy, Ernie, doing all that. Do you find them cooperative with you, like when you're looking at the burial of some of the more dangerous items up there, has the lab been cooperative with the agency? Ernie, they really have. I've noticed a shift in the last couple of years. Really since I've become cabinet secretary, I spend a lot more time up at the lab personally than I used to. And I found a trend towards more openness and more cooperation with our agency. That's not to say that we might not have some differences once in a while. But overall, I've been pleased with the cooperation and I've been satisfied with the communication that we have with the lab. Keep it. Since you've been at the, you've taken the credit for turning the lab around and getting rid of the culture of Americans they've called up. I can't take credit for that. I really have to give credit to my staff for that, Ernie. You have a really, I think, a wonderful staff within our hazardous and radioactive materials

bureau. And they've been willing to work with the folks at Lannell, meet them halfway. Lannell has made a lot of strides as well in terms of changing their culture. And I think both of our respective staffs get the line, sure, the credit. In a situation like that, are there threats like downstream, like I know you're looking at the water supply in Los Alamos? What about contamination into water in other areas? Sure. And you're right on point, Ernie, because our agency's involvement as this fire progresses will only increase rather than decrease. And the reason I say that is after the fire trespasses, we have to look at issues like the stability of the soils, the increased erosional capacity, precisely for the reasons you mentioned. Can materials that from release sites be leached out and become mobilized and migrate into watersheds and into surface water courses or groundwater? So as the fire continues to progress, you'll see an increased activity by my agency from a regulatory overview and probably sampling and monitoring perspective in those areas.

You bet. I think the average citizen usually figures like, if you're thinking at things like plutonium, you know, if you hold it in your hand, it's dangerous, and they're one of my very favorite people who is a PhD said, no, if you breathe it, it's dangerous, you could hold it like forever. What would it, could there be a problem in something like that, are you watching it through your agency? Well, we're watching it through our agency, both from an inhalation, air contaminant perspective as well as an aqueous perspective in terms of the stuff becoming dissolved. And we don't take anything for granted, and we're not making any assumptions. We're trying to base all of our decisions on sound science and fact. And unfortunately, in instances like this, where things are changing so rapidly, not only daily, but sometimes hourly, it's often hard to backtrack to that first-hand solid scientific information. There's a real interest a lot of times to have us make off the cuff opinions and calls based on hearsay, and we're really resisting that because I don't think that serves the

public well. So we're going to be very deliberate and very careful in looking at just the facts, as we like to say. It's a sensitive area because it's a tragedy, and the people of last time, this is something that was unexpected. And so on one hand, you say we want to make sure that the blame is fixed, where it doesn't happen again, and on the other hand, you make sure you have the sensitivity to the people in that area. Exactly. There's a human element in here that obviously cannot be overlooked. And right now, we're proceeding to try and understand what happened and why, because obviously, the ignition of a prescribed burn is a discretionary act, I mean, in a certain extent. So we're trying to understand what the last minute or what we call in the industry, the spot meteorological data said, who the decisions makers were in the process, what advice they got during the process before we reach any conclusions. Yeah, I know. And both of you and I do know, I hadn't seen it anywhere in the, what it was called, the

mainstream media, but I had written about it when they had a meeting one week prior to the start of the prescribed burn and went over in detail almost every scenario that could take place. And people, we're going to go back to the dome fire, you know, and what was it, I think I quoted one of the people saying, this was a wake-up call for us, well, they didn't have it, but also I think it's the meeting that they had, it was April 26th. It had been open to the public. And now there are a lot of people, you know, public members from Los Alamos now saying, we didn't have any input into this. That was the ideal time to go and provide. These meetings aren't just for fun. Exactly. And there's a terrible amount of irony to have that meeting in Los Alamos less than a month before this occurred, and it's just, it's just tragic that occurred. Like I said, it was avoidable, but we're, we're working as hard as we can to make sure

that the public is protected from an environmental perspective. Less than a 10 days before the burn remarkable. You have very close ties to Sober City. One year ago, both of us took part in the economic development course at Western New Mexico University. Did this done in cooperation with a number of others, cigarette and the Department of Development for this state? It's a very practical nuts and bolts course about economic development. You're taking part again this year. I will be down there this year. The, I went back and you know, we never throw anything away. And I pulled out a report from the FANTAS company in Chicago, was prepared for a 1982. The report was shown a comparison of the business climate of New Mexico and its neighbors. And there were a couple of items in there that you, you look back and the report seems more valuable to me now than it did then.

I'm thinking that might be a real interesting comparison in terms of what's changed and what hasn't changed as we try and, and improve our economy here. Well, they, they took a look at that time at the quoted the environmental protection agency. It's saying there was something like 76 billion pounds of hazardous waste that's disposed. And I, that includes a lot of things nationally, that's, that's billion. And ten percent of that was what they might consider handled in a, in a safe manner in the Mexico. What's our situation with, with the, the disposal, the waste management and that's a sense, because I'm looking at it from the business sense, they have to go through you down. Sure, they, they do. And a lot of stuff goes out of state right now, or any in terms of hazardous waste. We are in the process of permitting, obviously there's the WIP facility, which is permitted for, for hazardous waste, but we are permitting a facility down in the southeastern corner of the state in some of the triassic red bids.

And the facility is going to be called triassic park, as opposed to Jurassic Park, little play on words there. But that's a, going to be an environmentally secure facility. It's going to be a Rikra part b permit for disposal of hazardous waste. I think nationally we've made tremendous strides in, in developing technologies associated with the destruction or environmental secure disposal of these materials, where I see the, the big opportunities now and in the future, Ernie, is with regard to pollution prevention, not generating this stuff in the first place. We're a lot smarter now in terms of what chemicals, compounds, and reagents we can use in the manufacturing process and things like that. There are recycling markets now available that may not have been available 20 years ago. And I'm really trying to push through, for example, our Green Zia Environmental Excellence Program, challenging companies to not create this waste in the first place, but to develop business strategies and business plans that, that result in not producing these, these

types of waste. Because what it does is it improves companies' bottom line and improves their profits. We are something of a throwaway nation that we get, I often want to, almost everyone you talk to today say what happened to your old computer, say no, no, I had to upgrade it. Right. What happens to the other computers? What do we do with that now? Sure. And it's, it's. Computers, vehicles, there's a wide range of things that we either use on a disposable basis or that we, that we upgrade, like you said, and then, and then move on. And I think we're making a lot of strides in the, in the pollution prevention arena to reuse, recycle, reduce. And I see that as being a tremendous opportunity rather than continuing to promulgate more and more stringent environmental regulations, which often come at an, an exceptional cost to business to comply with. Let's recognize the business opportunities in the market conditions and give these companies incentives to do things in an environmentally responsible manner. Let's improve the stewardship that we all feel for the environment and, and let's, let's

let that take a run and see how far we can get down the road. Are you finding the business community responsive to your efforts? I really am. Last year the governor and I gave out 22 environmental excellence, Green Zia recognition awards. And those companies Ernie reported savings to their companies, to their bottom lines of over $46 million. That's significant. That's, that's good business practice and that's a good environmental practice. And I think those two can be linked in ways that we have not traditionally thought of. So. Now, about a week after we're at the conference in Sober City, there's another NAFTA conference that's coming up and that will be, it's a NAFTA 2, I think they go on. So one year they hold it at Sober City, the next year they hold it in Juarez and here again, if you go back about 15 years and I remember going to a Naleo conference, the National Association of elected officials and the Latino elected officials.

And there was so much excitement about what was happening with NAFTA. And you're looking at an North American free trade agreement. And then of course there were problems later with people saying well we may, it may hurt this country on jobs. And the thing I was concerned about at that time, there was so much concern about areas like in Don Anacounty, that whole area along the border, again dealing with the environment. And do you have a separate office down there in the Don Anacounty area? Well we have 23 field offices and four district offices throughout the state and we have a district office in Las Cruces and then we have field offices in Sober City and Deming. And in conjunction with these new binational initiatives and Chihuahua New Mexico initiatives, I'm going to be hosting a meeting down in Santa Teresa on the 26th of this month, which is to really focus on what are the economic development opportunities in the Santa Teresa

San Hinanamo area and how can the environment departments in the state of New Mexico be a collaborative partner to try and ensure that that development happens in a matter that is respectful and conserving of our natural resources. And it's been really exciting for me to put this together because it's my understanding that Governor Johnson and Governor Martinez will both be there from New Mexico and Chihuahua. I've invited the entire congressional delegation, a lot of local elected officials are going to be there. And it's really the first opportunity that I'm going to have to try and understand what Governor Martinez from Chihuahua has suggested is a vision for a binational city between Santa Teresa and San Hinanamo. I'm hearing numbers, Ernie, of 100,000 plus in that area within the next 10 to 20 years. It's population. And when you bring in that kind of population, we're looking again, I'll go to people like you and say, what are you doing about infrastructure?

Well, that's exactly why I'm having this meeting, Ernie, because I don't know what we're going to be doing about infrastructure. And I want to make sure that we develop this infrastructure and that we permit this infrastructure in an intelligent, rational manner that is respectful of our natural resources. We have an opportunity here to materialize a vision that is shared by the two governors in terms of a binational city that I think is virtually unique. And to do that in a matter where we can minimize the impact to the environment at the same time stimulate economic development, I think is an incredibly fascinating opportunity that I want to be a part of. Now, where you be as part of that meeting, do they have a counterpart like Geron in their age? Yes. I see from Chihuahua. Yes. The Secretario from Medio Ambiente is a relatively new gentleman who had been previously the chief of staff to Governor Martinez. And so I'm looking forward to reacquaining myself with the Secretario. And we're going to be doing, we're going to be holding this meeting so there is a Chihuahua

meeting counterpart for each New Mexico counterpart, so it's going to be just really a state-to-state meeting. And it just ties in with so many, I think, really exciting things that the two governors are trying to do to really tie Chihuahua and New Mexico closer together than we may have ever been before. Well, you had the facilities down there for the handler meeting in this side. I gather that there are going to be people calling, they'll be calling me. How can they call for information? Sure. They can call me at 827-2855. 827-2855. And the facilities we'll be using down there are right at Santa Teresa. It's a day-long meeting. And we also will be publishing a report from this meeting so that folks who might not be able to attend for a variety of reasons can get an update and hopefully an understanding because, once again, for example, the proposed intermodal facility, we've got rail, we've got highway, we've got air. How's that all going to fit together with regard to water and wastewater infrastructure? We need to be asking these questions now on the front end rather than responding in a hectic and maybe not in an environmentally sound manner on the back end.

That's where we're sort of going around in a certain sense because I think you will remember that it's not too long ago and I would imagine it has to be close to 15 years ago. When there seemed to be a giant push for the federal funding, we were all looking at the border monies. Exactly. And there was talk about financing. And there was going to be a bank. And I think the question at the time was, will the bank be located in the Mexico, Texas, Arizona, or California? But there was somewhat of a grab to see who could get these facilities. Are they in place now so that you're going to, they are so that you can say, if we need financing, if I want to open up the Ernie Mills border establishment, that you can say there is a bank where you can get there. There is. Back, and then there's the NAD bank, and the NAD bank is actively involved in trying to fund some of these infrastructure development projects on each side of the border. They were involved, for example, in the development of the first, in the funding of the first

wastewater treatment plant in Siudad-Wattas. They're involved in Danyana County, primarily on looking at the wastewater infrastructure. One of the challenges they face is you can build these facilities and these conveyance lines, beginning the individual houses to hook up to them. We're typically done at cost to the individual residents, sometimes the individual residents didn't have the money. See, they have this infrastructure that's available to a community, and yet the individuals weren't hooking up because there wasn't any money to help them do that. So, they're improving that sort of service delivery, making some funds available for those types of issues. They're also broadening their scope a little bit to solid waste issues. So, that bank is functioning, it's been subject to some criticism in terms of not being able to either have competitive rates or get the monies out as quickly or as appropriately, but I think they're getting a lot of those bugs worked out, and we work with the back in NAD bank both. How many people do you have working in your agency now?

Do you have an overall figure? Sure, we have slightly under 600 people learning, and that's been fairly stable after the last four or five years. The figure is stable. How about your funding from the legislature? Funding has been somewhat of a disappointment in that in each of the last two sessions where I've been cabinet secretary, the initial request, the legislature has not funded my agency at the initial request of the governor. We've been several hundreds of thousands of dollars below that figure, and also some of the special appropriations that I've requested, and the legislature has not elected to fund, and in the information technology arena, we're behind in the IT arena, and although I've got some super staff, we need some infrastructure, and we need some hardware, we need some software. The public and industry expects us to communicate on a 24-7 basis, we really can't do that yet, so I'm hopeful that during this interim circuit, so to speak, I can get out and work with some of these legislators, and make them understand the importance and the service and the value

that my agency has to their constituents, and I'll be actually doing some shameless marketing for each of the newly elected legislators, I'll be meeting with them in their home districts before they come up to Santa Fe, giving them a briefing book with organizational charts, budget information, GIS-based maps of every environmental issue in their district, trying to educate them from a environmental perspective and get their support from my environmental programs. It's interesting, because you and I know the name of the game is the interim period, interim lobbying, interim information, there's nothing wrong about it, you know, if you have to wait until the session to get your message across, you're at dead end. You're absolutely right. And I had an interesting thing I know, I got a report from over at Eastern New Mexico University, and one of the things they did, I know Dr. Ebert Frost said I'm going to commission their own economic department over there to put together a, it was a study showing the impact of that university on the surrounding community, now that's not just portals, it's a major

term. And you are looking at millions of dollars, and it's one of those things, again, the average person doesn't think about it. They think about the university coming up with the handout. They don't think about the economic development, but that basically is what you're looking at with your agency. If you don't have infrastructure, you don't have economic development. Right. And these companies that want to do business, and we want to have to do business in New Mexico. If I can't issue a permit on time, I'm impacting the business deal, just like we'll talk about in Silver City in a couple of days. And that, you know, I'm pleased that in our department's mission statement and in our strategic planning, we're recognizing our role with respect to economic development. And I'm also pleased that Secretary Garcia from Economic Development is recognizing the environmental component of quality of life. Why do companies like to come to New Mexico? It's the most beautiful state in the nation, in my opinion, and we need to recognize that and help preserve that.

So our two agencies, I think, are more appreciative of how the other agency can impact ourselves in our communities and encourage that there's sort of a new paradigm there that's developing. We're talking about vision. I'd like to thank our guest today, Peter Magiore, who is the Cabinet Secretary for the New Mexico Department of the Environment. I want to thank you for being with us on report from Santa Fe. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by a grant from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future.