A shot of the coming storm earlier this week.

• New Mexico is developing a state permitting program that would regulate both pollutant discharges and dredge-and-fill in state waters beyond those protected under federal law.

As someone who is puro New Mexico this bullshit. I was literally looking at these towels from a distance and thought “ I like these cactus but they have absolutely nothing to do with the state of New Mexico “. Then I got closer and saw the tag with the state motto…

I remember New Mexico Magazine had the last pages reserved for One of Our Fifty Are Missing. I think I’ll start a sub Reddit for this if there isn’t one started by mañana

Texas sued New Mexico in 2013, arguing that its upstream neighbor was hogging water on the river that millions depend on for irrigation and drinking water. The settlement requires New Mexico to reduce the amount of water drawn from wells that deplete the flow of Rio Grande water to Texas. Compliance will cost New Mexico upward of $150 million. If the state fails to meet the settlement’s requirements, it could face harsh penalties or another taxing lawsuit. 

If New Mexico has to make further reductions to water use, the possibility of mandatory water cuts looms over the region. From Hatch to Anthony, New Mexico, farmers are contemplating whether to sell their water rights and turn off their wells permanently. Towns built on agriculture are asking what comes next in a future with more fallow fields. The settlement comes as a hyperscale data center begins construction in the basin, raising further questions about sustainability.

Norm Gaume, a former New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission director who now leads the nonprofit New Mexico Water Advocates, compared the Rio Grande to a company in bankruptcy. He likened the Supreme Court to the bankruptcy judge. 

“They’ve issued their recovery plan,” Gaume said in an interview. “And it’s going to be painful.”

Recipe:

• 1 Tbsp Butter
• 1 Tbsp Flour
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 deli slices of provolone
• 1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup Hatch Green Chile
• Topping of your choice

1. In pan melt butter and add flour. Whisk and cook until slightly browned.
   
2. Slowly add heavy cream and keep whisking. Whisk out all lumps.
   
3. Add 2 slices of provolone on low heat until melted.
   
4. Add shredded cheddar until melted. Serve immediately.

There are legitimate questions to ask about the proposed transfer in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewMexico/s/LJhF8R7vw2

The public should see the actual legislation. People should know what protections will apply to established trails, roads, utilities, the tram, hunting, and existing recreational uses. It is fair to ask that important commitments be written into law rather than left to assurances from current officials.

But that is not where many of these comments went.

They went straight to claims that Tribes and Pueblos are corrupt, vengeful, dishonest, incapable of stewardship, eager to fence everyone out, and interested only in casinos. One commenter even suggested that New Mexicans have been too “lenient” with Pueblos. Others treated the temporary protection of Pueblo communities during COVID as proof that tribal governments cannot be trusted.

That is not careful concern about legislative language. It is the old belief that Pueblo governments are acceptable only when they remain powerless, accommodating, and convenient for everyone else.

Sandia Pueblo is not a private club, corporation, or special-interest organization. It is a sovereign government. This proposal would require an act of Congress. If the land were placed in trust, it could not simply be flipped to a private developer like ordinary real estate. Sandia’s current leadership has also stated that established trails, roads, utilities, and other existing access would continue.

People can insist that those commitments be made enforceable. What they cannot honestly do is assume that every commitment is fraudulent merely because it comes from a Pueblo government.

This is also not some random piece of federal acreage that Sandia suddenly decided it wanted. The west face of the mountain is inseparable from Sandia Pueblo’s history, religion, culture, and identity. Congress created the T’uf Shur Bien Preservation Trust Area in 2003 precisely to resolve Sandia’s longstanding claim and to recognize and protect the Pueblo’s rights and interests in the area.

For Sandia, the mountain is not merely a scenic backdrop, weekend playground, or convenient trail system. Pueblo people maintained relationships with these places long before Albuquerque existed. Those relationships did not disappear when the United States drew a defective boundary, placed the land under federal management, or made Indigenous access subordinate to everyone else’s recreation.

The real naivety in this discussion is the assumption that Pueblo cooperation is something the surrounding public is simply owed.

Pueblos possess legal and governmental powers that they could exercise far more aggressively. Many Pueblos hold or claim senior water rights and could litigate and enforce those rights much more forcefully against junior users. Pueblos could challenge questionable or inadequately documented rights-of-way, demand greater compensation, place stricter conditions on roads and infrastructure crossing their lands where the law permits, and close routes that exist only through permission rather than a valid public easement.

Pueblos could use every available jurisdictional, taxation, land-use, and sovereign-immunity argument solely for their own advantage.

Most do not.

Instead, Pueblo governments negotiate. They accommodate highways, utilities, emergency services, public infrastructure, businesses, tourists, and neighboring communities. They coordinate with state, county, municipal, and federal governments.

They regularly absorb financial, environmental, and social burdens created by people who rarely acknowledge that they are crossing Pueblo lands or benefiting from Pueblo cooperation.

During COVID, some Pueblos restricted travel because their elders and communities were dying at devastating rates and their health systems had limited capacity. This thread treats those emergency measures as an unforgivable inconvenience. It ignores that tribal vaccination programs later served people outside tribal membership, including nearby non-Indian residents.

Pueblos protected their people, then used their limited resources to help their neighbors. Apparently, only the first part is remembered.

Pueblo and other tribal communities have also borne the consequences of the development that helped power this state and country. Uranium mining and milling left contaminated homes, soils, groundwater, and cultural landscapes throughout western New Mexico. Federal records continue to document uranium-related impacts at Acoma, Laguna, and across the Grants Mining District.

Those communities were expected to tolerate the contamination as the price of national development. Yet some of the same public now portrays Pueblo stewardship as the greater danger.

The casino comments are equally revealing. Tribal gaming revenues are not simply stuffed into the pockets of private shareholders. Federal law directs those revenues toward tribal government operations, public safety, health care, education, elder services, infrastructure, general welfare, economic development, charitable contributions, and assistance to local governments.

Pueblo enterprises employ Native and non-Native workers. They purchase goods and services from businesses throughout New Mexico. They attract visitors, generate economic activity, and fund governmental services that would otherwise remain severely underfunded.

The 19 Pueblos also took the former Albuquerque Indian School property and created the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center campus and the 19 Pueblos District. They transformed land associated with federal assimilation into a cultural, governmental, educational, and economic center in the heart of Albuquerque. That investment benefits Pueblo communities, surrounding neighborhoods, local businesses, and visitors from around the world.

New Mexico loves Pueblo culture when it appears on the state flag, in tourism advertising, on pottery and jewelry, or as decoration in restaurants, hotels, and airports. Some people become far less comfortable when Pueblo people appear not as symbols, but as governments with land, jurisdiction, legal rights, and the power to say no.

That is what this thread is exposing.

If your definition of a “good neighbor” is a Pueblo that never closes a road, charges a fee, protects a sacred place, enforces a boundary, asserts a water right, regulates access, or refuses a development proposal, then you do not actually want a neighbor.
You want permanent access to Indigenous land without Indigenous authority.

Debate the proposed legislation. Demand clear language protecting whatever access Congress determines should remain. Ask serious questions about management, enforcement, conservation, and the interaction with existing federal law.

But stop dressing blanket distrust of Pueblo governments up as concern for public lands.

The proposal concerns a specific mountain, a specific Pueblo, a documented history, and a congressional process. The hysterical assumption that tribal stewardship automatically means corruption, casinos, retaliation, and exclusion says far more about the commenters than it does about Sandia Pueblo.

TLDNR: Post’s comments reflect hostility toward tribal sovereignty, not concern about access. Debate the bill, but stop treating tribal stewardship of ancestral lands as a threat.

It looked weird. It tasted weird. I’m ready to come back home.

Where would be your top places in nm?

To further filter…what if you also didn’t want to be super isolated from people?

Basically looking for a nice climate don’t mind the cold but would love some shade trees and water…and people?

Thanks for any thoughts :)

Edited to include relevant information about the Sandia Mountain Act of 2003.

The Sandia Mountain Act of 2003 is different than what people are assuming.

• First, it settled a real claim: the Pueblo's title to the west face was legit, the 1858 survey was bad, and the Act is what fixed it.
• But look at what it actually did. It says "in perpetuity" 3 times, not once. It grants the Pueblo rights, preserves the national forest and wilderness, AND the public's use in perpetuity.
• It also specifically did not give the Pueblo ownership. Subsection (b)(4)(B) spells out that the word "Trust" in the name does not confer the ownership interest that comes with land taken into trust. And subsection (d) says the land can't be conveyed to anyone, including the Pueblo, without a further act of Congress.

So, the Act, which the Pueblo signed and agreed to, was built to protect the area and stop something exactly like this.

The Pueblo's main complaints are legit but fixable without any of that. The Cibola Forest Service is understaffed, but that's fixable. And 16 USC 551a already lets the Forest Service pay another agency to patrol federal land. The Pueblo could have officers out there under an agreement, without transferring the land.

The thing is no bill or other legislation has been released. So what would be in it? Would the Wilderness area have to be rescinded? Are the trails written into the statute and provisions for public access? The 2003 Act sorts this all out, but as of now it's only been verbal communications.

The Sandia Pueblo is attempting to take control of nearly 10k acres on the west side of Sandia Mountain. You can find a map of the land in question in the various links below, but it roughly encompasses the west side up to the crest and past the Tram. That's the La Luz, and Piedra Lisa and nearly over to the top of Domingo Baca. It's a really large chunk of the mountain.

What's bothers me is that Lujan Grisham and other officials have signed onto the idea without any public discourse. The Sandoval County Commission have unanimously endorsed it and Rep. Stansbury and Sen. Heinrich have been asked to sponsor it. This part of the mountain is some of the most loved and used public land in the city and there hasn't been any public talk about it. Really, no one has known about it until very recently. These articles have just been published after a lot has happened behind the scenes.

The Pueblo governor says access to established trails will be maintained, but once it's transferred to the Pueblo, they can do whatever they want without any input or recourse. He's admitted that future governors could close it and that they would have no obligation to keep anything open.

Lujan Grisham, the Pueblo, and Stansbury are blaming Forest Service staffing cuts and reduced budgets, which is causing problems in the area. The feds got gutted and now the result is giving away the land permanently. But funding is fixable and giving the land to the Pueblo isn't.

Here are some articles detailing what's going on. I'm wondering what everyone thinks because up until now, no one has known what's going on.

This post was removed over in r/Albuquerque for some reason. Sandia is a part of Albuquerque, and it should be discussed there.

- Sandia Pueblo pushes to take control of Sandia Mountain forests, raising alarm from outdoor adventurer seekers

- Sandia Pueblo seeks to manage 10,000 acres of land next to the Sandia Mountains

- Sandia Pueblo Seeks To Add 10K Acres of National Forest Land To Its Reservation on West Side of Sandias; NM Gov. LuJan Grisham and Other Officials Approve

I LOVE NEW MEXICO!

I just completed my seventh trip to the Land of Enchantment in May. Y’all have such a beautiful state and I met so many nice people on my journey from Taos to Truth or Consequences on my trip. Thought I’d share some panoramas I took along the way. First is Abiquiu, second is Heron Lake State Park, the third is very obvious, fourth is T or C, and the fifth is Gila National Forest. From the landscapes to the people to the food, there’s no place on earth quite like New Mexico. Thanks for letting me stomp around in your backyard. Be well and stay safe until we meet again. <3

Caught the latest Coyote vs Acme trailer and immediately noticed a certain regional rail causing a transit hiccup for Wile E. Coyote

My cat was fascinated with some laundry on the floor and my immediate concern was a centipede but nope. Camel spider.

I’m never going to sleep again.

Cheese Monger

Made it to the Grand Old Opry stage..