Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by viewers like you.

>> Nash: This week on New Mexico in Focus, state officials take a stand against the forever chemicals that have polluted our air, water and soil for decades.

>> Kenney: The federal Department of Justice said to New Mexico, you don't have the authority to regulate PFAS, so we're not going to clean it up.

We now have that authority.

>> Nash: Plus, the indigenously positive team returns this week with a look at what it's like to save the world while you're still in high school.

New Mexico in Focus starts now.

Thanks for joining us I'm Nash Jones.

We are keeping an eye on the governor's race this week.

A new Albuquerque Journal poll shows former congresswoman and U.S.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland running miles ahead of Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman.

Haaland is up 22 points as the two Democrats look to punch their tickets for a spot on the November ballot.

I caught up this week with Brian Sanderoff, who has been pinpointing New Mexico election results for four decades as president of Research and Polling, Inc.. We dove into how his vaunted methodology differs from other pollsters.

What independents voting in the primary for the first time might mean for the results, and who he found is supporting each of the candidates.

Early voting for that primary, by the way, starts this Tuesday, ahead of Election Day on June 2nd.

And if you want to see Bregman and Haaland before you cast a ballot, well, there is one place to do that, and that's right here on NMPBS.

The event, which has been months in the making.

Airs Thursday night at seven.

We're the broadcast partner for that debate with local pro-democracy charitable group called Dukes Up, which did all the candidate in question wrangling.

Executive producer Jeff Proctor brought in Dukes ups Mark Fine this week to talk about how the whole thing came together and what the group hopes you'll take from it.

We are always thrilled to bring you a new edition of Indigenously Positive.

Our collaboration with nonprofit Newsroom New Mexico in Depth to lift up native hope and achievement.

And this week's installment finds correspondent Bella Davis, along with producer and director Benjamin Yazza, learning about a group of Mescalero Apache students who want their community to have quicker warnings before natural disasters.

But first, we are going to take a look at new state rules that give the New Mexico Environment Department some more muscle behind its fight to reduce exposure to PFAS.

So our state is home to some of the most extensive contamination from these so-called forever chemicals in the world.

And while the environment department has worked to hold polluters accountable on several fronts over the years, it's lacked the authority to say how the toxic chemicals are used and whether they're cleaned up.

State Environment Secretary James Kenney came by the studio this week to break down what's changed.

In part one of our conversation, we discuss a rule approved just a couple of weeks ago that, for the first time classifies firefighting foams with PFAS as hazardous waste.

>> Nash: Secretary Kenney, thanks so much for joining us.

>> Kenney: Thank you for having me.

>> Nash: So before we jump into all these rules and regulations, I do want to take a moment to just make sure that everyone watching and that we here at the table have kind of a shared understanding of what we're talking about.

So what are PFAS?

What are these so-called forever chemicals?

>> Kenney: Yeah, these are man-made chemicals that came about in the 1960s and have been used in many products that we -- you know, enjoy every day.

But really, what are -- chemicals that are really tough to break apart.

They move through our bodies, they move through the environment, and they're hard to get rid of.

They're hard to destroy.

>> Nash: That's the forever -- piece.

>> Kenney: That's the forever piece, yeah.

And it goes back to the chemistry of what these 19,000 chemicals look like.

They're really hard to break the bonds, but they've been in everything from, you know, carpet cleaners and stain resistant clothing to paints, cookware, all sorts of consumer products.

So they're all around us and they're hard to get rid of.

And then they have adverse health effects as well -- >> Nash: Yeah, so what are the health risks for exposure to these things?

>> Kenney: Yeah, you know, we can talk about -- they can cause everything from at the worst end of the spectrum, types of cancers.

They're linked with everything from kidney cancer, liver cancer colorectal cancer.

They can cause reproductive issues in both men and women.

They can also affect people like high cholesterol or preeclampsia, high pressure, blood pressure in pregnant women.

So the range is huge.

>> Nash: And is that because we're ingesting them?

>> Kenney: Yep.

That's exactly it.

So the most common route of -- exposure would be through drinking water or ingesting them that way food or drinking water.

But there's been studies done to look at whether, like, there's a dermal contact or an inhalation contact.

You know, if you get them on your skin or you inhale them through respiration.

>> Nash: Okay, and can you characterize kind of the extent of contamination of PFAS here in New Mexico?

What's the scope of things locally here?

>> Nash: Yeah, it's significant.

And, there's really two areas are two ways that we encounter PFAS in terms of consumer products being one.

So things we bring into our home and interact with the other would be, if you live around a federal facility, like, a base or maybe a national lab, that there's increased levels of PFAS in those environments based on the history of use and the lack of regulation at the same time.

So those are kind of the two ways we see PFAS in the environment, in people, in plants and in animals.

>> Nash: And when we're looking at the Air Force spaces, this is really rooted in use of a particular kind of firefighting foam that's used on fires started by flammable liquids, like like fuel fires, for instance.

Yeah?

>> Kenney: Yeah So the firefighting foams, they're used to put out like diesel or gasoline type fires, they're not used for wildfires.

They're used for petrochemical or petroleum based fires >> Nash: That you might find in an air force base.

>> Kenney: Exactly, exactly.

For emergency purposes, training purposes or even spills, which we've seen in Cannon Air Force Base >> Nash: How do we know the extent of contamination across the state?

>> Kenney: So are you talking to airforce bases or just broadly across the state?

>> Nash: I suppose both kind of the broader contamination landscape in the state.

But you you were talking specifically about the Air Force base.

So what do we know about what what that spill has meant around cannon around Holloman Air Force bases?

>> Kenney: Yeah.

So around the military bases back in 2015, 16, 17, they themselves were directed by Congress to look at the extent of contamination related to PFAS.

Around that time, we started to see that Cannon and Holloman had significant levels of PFAS compared to other bases throughout the country.

And that was reported to us by the Air Force.

But when it comes to drinking water around the rest of the state, or PFAS in the rest of the environment throughout New Mexico, we've been actively looking at drinking water, doing stream surveys, looking at landfills and just trying to quantify what the risk exposure could be.

>> Nash: And your department has been tackling accountability around these spills in a number of different ways, and I want to take them kind of one at a time, starting with a new rule that the Environmental Improvement Board adopted just a couple of weeks ago.

It changes the way your department is able to regulate these firefighting foams that contain PFAS.

So what does the rule do?

>> Kenney: Yeah, So the rules a big step forward in preventing future PFAS exposures.

So one of the first things it does is it sets out a statewide inventory.

So, you know, we don't know where PFAS is in terms of fire suppression systems- >> Nash: Like who's using these phones.

>> Kenney: Yeah, exactly.

Like small regional airports.

Could it be used in, you know, municipal and state government?

We don't believe it is.

But could it be sure?

Right.

It's been around since the 60s.

We don't know who's procured it.

It could be used in other federal facilities.

National labs, as I mentioned.

So the rule for sets out a requirement to conduct a periodic inventory.

Second, it prohibits the use of these firefighting foams for anything other than an emergency.

So you can't train with them anymore.

They can't be a neglected fire fire suppression system that suddenly released.

And we had no idea.

>> Nash: What's the bar for an emergency.

>> Kenney: Think of, you know, what it's designed to do.

It's designed to put out fires that are diesel based or gas based so.

An emergency would be in that category, you know, a plane crash or something to that effect.

And then third, and most importantly, it requires that you clean up in in compliance with our hazardous waste requirements.

So if you deploy it even for emergency purposes, you still have to clean it up.

You can't just deploy it and leave it in the ground.

>> Nash: You have tried to force cleanup of these spills and accountability through fines, repeated fines of Cannon Air Force Base.

You've sued the federal government over this matter.

This new rule, it.

How does it change the avenues that are available to you for accountability?

>> Kenney: Yeah.

And I always like to make the point that we have sued the military for their releases after they suit us.

And I always think it's important to remind New Mexicans that our U.S.

government has sued New Mexico and filed a lawsuit against us in 2019, saying that we don't have the authority to regulate PFAS as a hazardous waste.

Well, guess what we do.

Our legislature and the Environmental Improvement Board have ruled in our favor and created these rules.

So maybe back to your question.

This new rule gives us the authority to not just go directly to federal court or state court.

It gives us the administrative pathway to go file a complaint against somebody who releases PFAS and require them to clean it up in an administrative setting.

It's a lower bar or it's a lower it's a lower court action, if you will.

And it's where 90% of New Mexico environment department spends its time is in these administrative proceedings.

>> Nash: Do you think it will be more effective than your past efforts at requiring cleanup?

>> Kenney: I don't know that it will be more effective when it comes to the military.

The federal government has been one of the most recalcitrant, recalcitrant polluters in the state of New Mexico.

And I think the they will still be recalcitrant.

But what the difference is, is that the Department of Justice said to New Mexico, the federal Department of Justice said to New Mexico, you don't have the authority to regulate, so we're not going to clean it up.

We now have that authority.

So every time they make a legal argument, our legislature, the department, our governor has rallied around that argument and solved that problem.

So there's there's really no where left to hide from a legal perspective.

So we're hoping that that now paints them into the corner, that they actually do the right thing.

>> Nash: And in terms of the lawsuit, in addition to the federal government suing New Mexico, you all have sued the military.

What's the status of that lawsuit?

>> Kenney: Yeah.

So that lawsuit where the state has sued the military was combined with a lot of lawsuits.

It's it's in South Carolina, what is called the Fourth Circuit.

And we were at the front of the line for that, meaning the judge said, we're going to spend time working on the New Mexico case.

And through a series of, you know, very kind of frustrating decisions, New Mexico got moved to the back of the line, and now they're working on essentially the liability of Dow and 3M and all the other chemical companies.

>> Nash: So it's going to be sitting there a while.

>> Kenney: You know, we've said a while to begin with, and we're trying everything we can to get out of either to reprioritize our case to the front of the line in front of like 400 other cases.

>> Nash: Move it.

>> Kenney: Exactly.

We want to move it out of South Carolina and back to New Mexico.

>> Nash: Okay.

Is there any actions that your department has taken so far that is newly available to you?

>> Kenney: Under the new rules?

>> Nash: Yeah.

>> Kenney: Yeah, So those new rules will be published soon.

I mean, yes, we have them available to us and they have to be published next in the state Bulletin.

But the first thing we're going to do is get this inventory, get a sense of where PFAS is around the state.

>> Nash: Will your department be taking the inventory?

>> Kenney: Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

We'll require it to be submitted to us.

We'll look to see where the risk is.

And then this is the genesis of maybe where we do like a buyback program.

Like, think of like a regional airport that maybe has PFAS but wants to get rid of it.

They have other ways to suppress fires, or maybe they don't need as much as they have.

So, you know, things that other states have done is to a buy back program where they safely bring it back and then send it out for destruction.

So it gives us the authority to start making or the ability to start making better decisions.

>> Nash: And will that start this year?

>> Kenney: Yeah.

>> Nash: Okay.

>> Fine: It's just been a number of different events that are aimed at trying to make politics less boring and more accessible to more people.

>> Nash: Catch that conversation about the upcoming Democratic primary debate with Mark Fine of Dukes up in about 25 minutes, and stick around for part two of my interview with Environment Secretary James Kenney before that.

Centuries ago, towns and cities across the West were founded and sustained by industry, the kind that's now shrinking and in some cases, gone completely.

Mines have closed in towns that depended on them.

Railroad towns might see an Amtrak stop only a few times a week, if at all.

And farming and ranching have consolidated.

After the last nearby coal mine closed in 2003, the city of Raton, New Mexico, has watched its population drop and businesses shudder.

A town that once supported four elementary schools now has just one.

But city leaders are trying to reverse that decline, and now they are looking to the great outdoors to help them do that.

With help from The Nature Conservancy, they recently bought two private ranches.

The City of Raton and the state of New Mexico will soon manage those parcels as public lands.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates the outdoor recreation industry contributed more than $3.5 billion to New Mexico's economy in 2024.

As correspondent Elizabeth Miller shows us.

The goal is to build a system of trails and a campground that helps her tone tap that sustainable resource.

>> Segotta: Living here all my life.

Born and raised.

Spent a little time away in the Bay Area of California.

But I've been here most of my life.

It's been 23 years out of the coal mine in the engineering field.

I was the chief surveyor out there from the 70s through the mid 80s, and that all the downtown businesses were thriving.

They were full.

You'd come down on a Saturday afternoon.

Sidewalks were full.

Stores were full.

And it was just a cool little town.

But then, you know, things started happening.

The mines shut down, the racetrack disappeared.

Kind of pull right in here.

It's been tough.

It's it's hard on small towns.

It's hard on small town America all across.

I've been in my last job.

I was in communities all throughout the state.

And, you know, people say, well, things aren't happening in Raton well take a drive through across the state because it's not happening in all of the state.

>> Elizabeth: Cute little Main street.

>> Segotta: It is.

It's is where it all happens.

>> Elizabeth: What do you think we lose if we lose these little small town communities?

>> Segotta: You lose Americana.

You really do.

You lose a lot of street.

>> Come on in.

>> Segotta: Just like the the warmth of a small town.

The friendliness, the comfort of knowing that people care and they care about their citizens.

That's what I think you miss when these little towns disappear.

Oh, why don't we walk back down through here?

But, you know, as the mines went, we had freight all through here almost on a daily basis.

And when the mine shut down, we lost the freight business.

We still have Amtrak.

Amtrak comes through three days a week.

It was used to be every day, but it is now just three days a week.

Our population started dropping.

We started getting lower attendance at school.

And like I said, 2009, after the 2008, it just crumbled.

And we've been trying to build back ever since.

So we're trying to tap into the outdoor environment.

It was missed opportunity in the past because everybody thought coal mines going to be here forever.

We've got still reserves that would last well into the next century.

Kind of got behind the eight ball a little bit.

But now we're saying, okay, we're open still.

We're open for business.

Come see us.

Great water, great weather and just love this place.

>> Chatterly: Open space for us Outdoor recreation is part of our economic development plan.

The trust for Public Lands did this great research project when they looked at Fisher's Peak State Park, and they talked about having 50 mile trails we'll keep will bring in 130 non-local visitors, which which results in about $11 million in direct spending, which is about for towns, our size is about $1,300 per person.

We're hoping that as we have more outdoor recreation going on in our community, we'll have different effects.

One effect might be that we would attract an outdoor retailer, of course.

Fuel our gas tax directly impacts our roads and the leveraging we have with state grants on fixing roads, our restaurants, shopping, just helping our town develop a little more robustly.

As we get people here, we can keep them here longer and particularly here where they could connect to eventually.

Colorado is the hope downtown Raton all the way to Colorado and back.

>> Cory: We█re keeping an eye on it because things have gotten drier.

>> Elizabeth: We're standing in Buck Ridge Ranch, which is private land, on its way to becoming public land and an outdoor recreation asset for the town of Raton.

But ecologically speaking, why is it important that this space be preserved as open space?

>> Cory: Well, this is a this is an area that has a tremendous amount of biodiversity, a tremendous amount of wildlife.

So you have this massive wildlife migration corridor that the Nature Conservancy is expecting to become more and more important.

It's mapped as a resilient connector between the mountains and the prairie, as we expect the climate to be moving around on us.

There are so many unique species that live and rely on the grasslands.

There are migrants that rely on the grasslands, migrating birds, shorebirds, grassland birds, big game.

Elk is something that most people envision with connect with the mountains, but that's actually a prairie animal.

>> Elizabeth: Globally, grasslands are one of the fastest disappearing ecosystems.

What's happening?

>> Cory: They're being converted to other uses.

And that is extraordinarily problematic for a variety of reasons.

But but for perhaps most importantly, because of the ecosystem services that grasslands provide to massive population centers.

So you look behind me right now, this Buckeridge Ranch and the Bartlett Mesa Ranch, they're in the watershed directly for not only the town of Raton, but the water flows into the Canadian River.

The headwaters of the Canadian River, which then snakes down, curves through New Mexico, across the Texas Panhandle and into Oklahoma.

And just within that zone, it is the primary fresh drinking water source for more than three quarters of a million people.

You kind of have this perfect mix of, you know, this perfect opportunity to to do something that's going to be wildly impactful for the community, but also checks all the boxes for, you know, conserving a really important area.

>> Elizabeth: Alright JJ, so talk me through how these two ranches fit into this wider conservation effort.

>> Autry: Yeah.

So it's pretty cool.

So kind of start with where we are.

So this yellow property right here this is Buckeridge.

So this property, this beautiful landscape that we're sitting in is, is actually where we're at.

But this story starts quite a while ago back in 2018.

If I get my dates right, the city of Trinidad actually contacted the Nature Conservancy and was curious about about 4000 acres of this property right here that at one time was known as the Crazy Frenchman Ranch.

So most people now know it as Fisher's Peak State Park.

And so we said, let's not look at 4000 acres.

That would be an economic engine for your community.

But let's look at 19,200 acres.

And we were able to purchase what is now known as Fisher Peak State Park.

Then Raton to the south here was able to kind of hear, you know, what was going on on the other side of the border.

And they said, well, we like what you guys are doing there, and we see what the city of Trinidad is able to do.

What can we do this in the green, which is known as Bartlett Mesa, we were able to to pick that up.

And now that became a state wildlife area.

And being able to then piece those together, then you basically got Raton, you've got Buck Ridge, Bartlett Mesa, you got Sugarite State Park, James M John and Fisher's Peak.

That then comes all the way back into the city of Trinidad.

Ecology is still being protected.

Conservation targets are still being protected, but it's not being subdivided so much that the biology is not moving through there.

>> Colby: The puzzle pieces are coming together in a way that could open up for this incredibly diverse trail network, horse packing, backpacking, whatever it is, you could go through all these different environments and essentially link the city of Raton to the city of Trinidad, which, just as an outdoor recreation as myself, sounds beyond amazing.

>> Elizabeth: The first times you came up to this ranch on the adjacent ranch, Buck Ridge Ranch and Bartlett Mesa Ranch, which are now both on their way to becoming public land, what did you see?

Like what?

What was the experience like?

>> Chatterly: It was incredible.

We came up the first time on sunrise, up on Bartlett Mesa, and just watched the sun come over the edge of the plains.

So we're in this gorgeous place with all this rimrock and the colors.

There was a bobcat running around, you know, just the coolest, most beautiful things.

We're so connected and we look at these properties all day long.

You know, I can sit on my porch and look over here, but I don't you know, I haven't been able to this point to come up here and recreate.

People sometimes say there's just not enough to do.

And we are in a small town and sometimes it can feel that way.

But having these opportunities of other things that are good for the soul to come out and do, I think is going to be great for our town.

>> Nash: Thanks to Elizabeth Miller for reporting that story and to our own Lou DiVizio, Joey Dunn, and RJ Torres for helping bring it to life.

Let's return now to my conversation with New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney about recent changes to how his department is able to deal with the toxic, forever chemicals where PFAS.

We left off talking about a new rule that gives his department the authority to regulate firefighting foams made with those chemicals.

Next, we're going to discuss another recently approved rule that requires warning labels on everyday consumer products and what the future holds for rules like these.

As Kenney prepares to leave office.

>> Nash: Your boss, Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico, is termed out.

She's finishing up at the end of the year.

What is the staying power of rules that are being propagated through this environmental improvement board?

If the next governor of New Mexico doesn't have the same priorities.

>> Kenney: So good news is that this is in both state law and state administrative code.

So you would have to change both the legislative.

You'd have to go to the legislature and undo the state law.

To reduce these protections we secured for New Mexicans.

So the staying power is is pretty high.

We also have a whole team of career people at the environment department who are, you know, working on these rules, working to provide technical assistance, working to enforce the rules, so >> Nash: that may stay through the next administration.

>> Kenney: Exactly, exactly.

But one other thing to think about.

You know, I know New Mexico's shifts, political winds on occasion.

One of the things that's really interesting about the PFAS Protection Act, or, you know, all our PFAS legislation, it all got passed in one session.

You know, it's taken us four years to get clean fuels through.

We still don't have comprehensive climate legislation.

But my point is we had a really strong bipartisan support.

And let's face it.

Where is PFAS contamination?

You know, literally the red zone, the hot zone.

It's in rural New Mexico in deep red counties.

And so you have you have bipartisan support for our work on PFAS, unlike some of the other bills we bring.

>> Nash: What do you see as the difference there?

Why?

>> Kenney: Because, you know, whether you have exposure to to people or exposure to groundwater or exposure to the agricultural sector, you have legislators who live in those communities that really want to do the right thing for those.

For those individuals, they are supportive of public health.

They are supportive of, you know, protecting their economic base.

I mean, think about this.

I've had an individual more than one in Curry County come up to me and say, “I'm not able to pass my propert down to my kids because it has no value anymore.

>> Nash: Because of the contamination.

>> Kenney: Yeah.

So if that pulls at your heartstrings or public health strings, great.

But the other thing to think about is if your property has no value, where is a county going to get its tax revenue from.

Right.

So there's there's much of a public health focus and environmental focus and an economic focus associated with PFAS.

>> Nash: Okay.

Well, and PFAS isn't just in these firefighting films you've mentioned.

It's in our homes.

It's all around us.

There's another new rule that the Environmental Improvement Board approved in March that is about labeling the consumer products that contain PFAS.

What's required under that rule?

>> Kenney: Yeah.

First, I am really proud of this role because we are the first state in the country to pass a rule that that takes a chemistry flask, something you might remember back from, you know, high school or college chemistry, or maybe trying to forget from high school and college chemistry.

But we take this little icon of a flask.

We put the word PFAS in it, and it will be on any product that contains intentionally added PFAS.

Why I'm proud.

>> Nash: That█s the symbol?

>> Kenney: That's the symbol and why I'm proud of that and why that's important in New Mexico is, you know, we're not we speak in English.

We speak in Spanish, we speak in Vietnamese here.

We have different levels of understanding or different levels of education.

So if we just put a label on something that said this contains perm poly floral, it doesn't translate well >> Nash: It█s kind of stuff that people might skip over.

>> Kenney: Exactly.

So we've brought a civil right to save products being in your home through this icon.

>> Nash: Okay.

And when does it roll out?

>> Kenney: January.

>> Nash: Okay.

>> Kenney: So we're excited to see it happen.

>> Nash: And how does that rule that was approved in March.

Relate to the PFAS Protection Act, which is the statute that you're talking about.

It was signed into law last year that one phases in bands of these consumer products over time.

So the the labeling, I imagine connects with this phasing out of these products altogether.

>> Kenney: Yeah.

So you're gonna see certain products disappear from the shelf that contain for.

So let's say it's a baby or juvenile products like clothing.

You know, maybe it's a product that a bid for a child that contains PFAS.

Those may be phased out completely and you won't see those on the shelf.

What you will see are safer product choices.

And to the extent that a product is still allowed to be sold, meaning it's not phased out, but it does contain PFAS, then you'll see the label on that product or its packaging.

>> Nash: Okay.

And the phasing out process is over many years, right.

It starts in January until 2032.

But there are, as you're mentioning, certain exempt products that will never be phased out over that period of time.

Why did they get an exemption?

Why did they get a pass?

>> Kenney: So, you know, let's be practical about this, that I don't think New Mexicans are going to choose a PFAS to say like.

“We no longer want a cell phone.

“We no longer want.” >> Nash: because there is no cell phone that doesn't have PFAS.

>> Kenney: Exactly.

So there are certain products that are manufactured here or shipped into New Mexico that are necessary for the functioning of our society.

They're necessary for emergency purposes, medical devices, pharmaceuticals.

>> Nash: And there's no way around including PFAS in those products.

>> Kenney: Well, let me point out this.

They're required to have a label though.

So here's here's the beauty to the regulatory process is that if a manufacturer wants to avoid labeling, then avoid putting PFAS in the product to the extent you can't.

Let's be honest.

I mean, our rules are about honesty.

They're about transparency.

And, you know, you as a consumer may have a different risk tolerance than I as a consumer have.

And but those products will be available.

They'll be labeled.

And to the extent you don't want PFAS in your product, you know, you can choose not to buy it.

Or you can call that manufacturer.

>> Nash: And you're talking a bit about kind of that individual level choices and responsibility that people can take.

As this as this rule becomes implemented, as the Protection Act is phased in over the next several years.

What can New Mexican, individual New Mexicans do today to help reduce their risk to PFAS exposure?

>> Kenney: Great question.

And I think sometimes this topic feels overwhelming and hopeless.

And I'm here to say that there's many things you can do to start reducing your risk today.

Things like that are that are grease resistant, that are waterproof, you know, start limiting your exposure to those.

You know, I'm a big popcorn fan.

>> Nash: same >> Kenney: Are you?

So air pop that popcorn.

Don't don't buy microwave popcorn because those bags contain and have historically contained PFAS.

Make decisions about maybe you can't afford to buy organic produce today, but maybe you can afford to buy some organic produce in some conventional produce.

Right.

So organic produce tends to not have the pesticides that contain PFAS on them, whereas conventional produce, some pesticides contain PFAS.

>> Nash: For folks who want to make those kinds of decisions.

The tips that you're giving right now.

Can they find those?

Does your department offer those?

>> Kenney: Absolutely.

So on our website, if you go, just go to the New Mexico Environment Department's website and look up PFAS.

We have a whole bunch of practical tips that are linked right there.

But, you know, shop local, think about, think about, you know, your grandmother, your grandfather.

They didn't have PFAS pans depending upon how old >> Nash: and those could be the nonstick versions.

>> Kenney: So, you know, if you have a stainless steel pan, watch a YouTube video about how to make it nonstick by heating it up, throw a little olive oil in it.

And if you if you do it right and get familiar with it, you don't need a nonstick pan.

Maybe the convenience of when you bake a cake.

You don't, you know, use a little bit of brown parchment paper as opposed to just relying on the nonstick quality of the pan.

There's a lot of things you can do with just a little bit of education.

>> Nash: Secretary.

Thanks so much for your time.

>> Kenney: Yeah.

Thank you for having me.

>> Nash: Thanks to Secretary Kenney for coming in to discuss the new rules guiding his department's work around PFAS.

Early voting for the primary elections and the race for New Mexico governor began Tuesday, and we're getting a clearer picture of where the contest stands on the Democratic side.

And it's not close.

The Albuquerque Journal published a poll over the weekend by Research and Polling, Inc., a local company with a reputation for consistently hitting the nail on the head.

It found former congresswoman and Interior Secretary, Deb Haaland way ahead of Bernalillo County District Attorney, Sam Bregman, with 52% of proven Democratic and independent voters planning to vote for Haaland and 30% for Bregman.

That's an even wider margin than another recent poll that Emerson College conducted for KRQE TV.

That one had Haaland ahead two, but by 16 points instead of 22.

I asked research and polling president Brian Sanderoff about why they came up with different results.

He said it's in part because Emerson contacted voters by text and email along with holding panels, whereas research and polling swears by speaking to people on the phone.

>> Sanderoff: We've been doing this for 40 years, and so we know some of the tricks of the trade to doing it in New Mexico.

The big difference between the polls actually was they had a lot higher proportion of undecided voters.

And that was because they had a higher proportion of independent voters in their poll.

>> Nash: Sanderhoff█s poll included 12% independent voters.

This election marks the first time New Mexico will run semi-open primaries, meaning independent voters can choose to participate in one of the major party primaries without changing their registration.

Sanderoff said that while research and polling has a firm grasp on the well-worn patterns of New Mexico elections how many independents will take the opportunity is a big unknown.

>> Sanderoff: And we're not sure.

And so we had 12% of our sample of independence.

It might end up being at eight - it might end up being 18.

No one really knows.

That will really depend in our surveying of that 12% independence, we found a lot of them really had no idea that the law had changed.

So I think over time in New Mexico, the independents are going to play a bigger role in primaries.

I think it might be a little less this time, because a lot of people are still getting accustomed to it and even learning for the first time.

Also, registered independence tend to turn out at lower rates even in general elections.

So here we're trying to get them to vote in the primary, but it's hard enough to get them to vote in a general.

But time will tell.

Hopefully we'll get a good solid turnout.

>> Nash: The poll found Haaland ahead of Bregman with both men and women, but far more so with women.

She also pulled better with voters of all education levels, but the gap widened among those with a college education.

The only demographic Bregman pulled better than Haaland with were self-described conservatives.

>> Sanderoff: But the catch is that only 12% of Democratic primary voters identify as conservative.

And so, yes, I think that Deb Haaland's progressive policies worked to her political advantage in a Democratic primary because so many of Democratic primary voters are liberal or progressives.

>> Nash: With the poll coming out before even early voting has begun and more than a month before Election Day.

Sandra said he thinks there's a good chance the race will narrow.

As the weeks go on.

>> Sanderoff: Partly because, first of all, Deb Haaland.

She she got into this race right after she left the secretary of interior.

You know, he's been campaigning for more than a year, had a lot of money, a lot of name recognition.

So I think Sam Bregman was more in a catch up mode.

And so from that perspective, theoretically, you'd expect the race to narrow as time goes on.

Then again, does he have the resources necessary to get his message out, and could she expend even more if she needed to?

>> Nash: You can explore the polls results at ABQ Journal, and keep an eye out for research in polling.

Republican primary poll, which is set to publish in the Journal this weekend.

Speaking of the primary election, some of you may have seen that our station is airing a debate next week between Bregman and Haaland.

The two Democratic candidates looking to replace termed out Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Early voting starts at county clerk's office on May 5th, then expands to other voting locations on the 16th and primary.

Election day is June 2nd.

Bregman and Haaland will square off this Saturday at CNM Smith Brasher Hall, and you can watch the debate right here on NMPBS Thursday night, May 7th at 7:00.

Now, an important note.

This is not our debate.

Strictly speaking.

And you'll hear more about that in a minute.

Rather, our station is the broadcast partner for Dukes Up, a local charitable group that promotes pro-democracy ideas, conversations and, yes, debates.

We invited Mark Fine an Albuquerque based civil rights attorney who does the Dukes up thing on the side.

We invited him in to talk about the upcoming event with Jeff Proctor.

Most of you know Jeff as the executive producer of our show.

Well, tonight you will see him in his other role.

Our station's executive producer for public affairs.

>> Jeff: Mark, thank you so much for being here, for what promises to be a bit of a meta conversation.

>> Fine: Thanks for having me.

>> Jeff: You bet.

You're here, as am I, wearing a slightly different hat than what folks are used to seeing from you.

You're a civil rights lawyer by trade.

You're also part of something called Dukes up.

Mark, what is Duke's up and how and why did it come to be >> Fine: So dukes up is and and loose organization of really what started as friends and friends of friends who, you know, wanted to like take political action of some kind.

Try to make politics a little bit more accessible for more people.

And so we ended up doing what I think is probably best thought of as like pop up events, putting up billboards for certain messages.

We did a mayoral forum and one on one conversations with candidates where we had to eat hot sauce while they tried to take off on the hot ones.

And so it's just been a number of different events that are aimed at trying to make politics a little bit more accessible for people, a little bit more entertaining, a little bit more like fun.

So it's not.

Yeah.

So try to make it less boring and more accessible to more people.

>> Jeff: Cool, I've enjoyed the events in the past.

By the way, you were on this program last May.

We were both wearing our different hats than we were talking about the end of the federal consent decree at the Albuquerque Police Department.

If memory serves correctly, you called me not to terrifically long after that to talk about the race for New Mexico governor, where did you see space for Dukes up in that context?

>> Fine: Yeah, I mean, I think a very similar motivation, which would be which was to try to engage the candidates and engage the public and bring them together in a way that was different than the norm, that, again, that that was more accessible to people who otherwise might not be involved in politics.

So we we saw it as one of probably multiple different forums that would be hosted by different groups and ours, we thought would be maybe aimed at a slightly younger crew, a little bit of the outside of the kind of political norm.

And yeah, trying to do some of the things we try to do in other events to try to make them entertaining, fun.

>> Jeff: We're going to skip ahead.

Obviously, you and I have spent a lot of time on the phone in the last many months and in person, kind of planning this whole thing, but at some point, things settled with what this event might look like.

Dukes up even sent out a news release back in February announcing a candidate forum.

Obviously, that's not where we are at this point.

Things have changed and new news releases have gone out, etc.

etc.

lamentably, there has been a fair bit of misreporting from political blogger Joe Monahan and others.

The criticism sort of being this is not a real debate, Mark.

What is the format?

What are people going to see when they tune in to NMPBS next Thursday night?

>> Fine: The format is in some ways a what I understand to be a pretty traditional debate.

The candidates will provide opening and closing statements, and in between they'll be asked a series of questions.

The questions will be posed to the question will be posed to the first candidate.

They'll have a minute and a half to answer.

The next candidate will have a minute to respond, and then the first candidate who has answered the question and ask the question will have 30s to rebut the response.

I think the nuances here are that there will be what amounts to like a jury who will be of citizens in New Mexico who are undecided on which of the candidates they intend to support, and their role in the debate will be to decide if they think that the candidate failed to answer the question, if the candidate evaded the question, and if they feel that the candidate evaded the question, then they're going to signal that that position and then that candidate will not be able to will not have the opportunity to provide a 32nd rebuttal.

So I think what makes this debate unique really, is that mechanism, which is really just a mechanism to try to cure what is often at least a criticism that I have about debates, which is that you see a question asked and then you see, like, you know, a response that doesn't really address the question.

And, you know, the the candidate chooses to to speak to certain talking points instead of actually answering the question.

So it's a mechanism to to avoid that as much as possible.

And then the questions are coming from organizations in New Mexico who are working to protect democracy and civil liberties in New Mexico.

And in many instances, there are experts in their their the areas in which they work.

I guess all of them are experts in that area.

And so it's we're deferring to them in a large, in a sense, to, to to know what questions are most important for the people that they serve and get those questions in front of the candidates.

>> Jeff: So one thing I want to get to is when you and I first started having conversations about this, I think that we both assumed and we agreed that we both assumed that these two candidates, Sam Bregman and Deb Haaland, would be debating elsewhere.

As it turns out, that's not the case.

This is it.

I wonder if Duke's up feels a little bit of additional pressure or excitement as a result of this being the only opportunity people are going to get to see these two folks debate?

>> Fine: Yeah, certainly when we thought about doing this, we did not expect that that we would be hosting the only debate, you know, as a debate, it's welcome in the sense that, I mean, it's bringing a lot of attention to it.

So all of a sudden, Duke's up, which is toiled in relative obscurity for many years, is like, you know, at the center of, of, of this debate.

So it's exciting in that way.

But I think it's also like, I think maybe there's some frustration that this is the only debate.

And I think that we are maybe receiving some of that frustration, as if we had designed this being the only debate that happened.

And of course, that's not not the case.

So so yeah, it's been a strange journey in that regard to to end up being the host of the only debate of the primary.

>> Jeff: Indeed, you mentioned that Duke's Up has been collecting questions from sort of community based groups, and I'll get to that in just a second.

But while we're here, I would like to just clear a couple of things up about our role.

New Mexico in Focus.

This show had no role in doing any of this and putting any of this together.

It's not a production of New Mexico in Focus.

NMPBS is the broadcast partner for Duke's Up, which means that we are going to produce this thing.

We are going to air this thing.

But we didn't have a role in writing the questions for the debate either.

Where what are some of the specific groups who did send you guys questions?

>> Fine: Yeah, I mean, your characterization is 100% accurate.

Some of the organizations that have sent us questions, the ACLU, center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, there's there's quite a few, but yeah, it's been and it's it's been an interesting process, actually, because we invited even more than we've received and it's changed over time.

But it's been it's been interesting to see the response.

And people who represent these groups who are participating seem really excited to have the opportunity to pose this question to the candidates and to have a bit of a spotlight on the organizations as well.

Some of them don't need a spotlight, but some of them are less known and are excited to to be in this position.

>> Jeff: What are you and what is Duke's up hoping that people take from this?

What do you hope to walk away is?

>> Fine: There's a few, I guess goals.

Foremost would be that that the public is educated about the candidates and gains a deeper understanding of of the candidates policies and dispositions.

So that would be number one.

But we're I mean, one of the things that I guess I didn't mention in describing Dukes up, is that we're always trying to get people together in person.

And so it's like an opportunity to have an in-person gathering of people who are like, kind of like minded to us.

And so I think that's real important too.

And then, as I think I mentioned before, just to like hopefully make politics and policy and this debate in particular more accessible to more people.

>> Jeff: Mark, thanks for walking me through this.

And honestly, it has been a delight and a pleasure for us to get to work with you guys so that people get to see these two candidates do this.

>> Fine: We really appreciate you as a broadcast partner.

Thank you.

>> Jeff: Thank you.

>> Nash: One last point on the editorial process for the debate If things go a little long on Saturday for our broadcast window, Dukes up, not NPS will decide what makes AR and what doesn't.

Mescalero Apache tribal members have watched the results of human caused climate change rip through their landscape in recent years, devastating habitats along the way.

Wildfires and the floods that come after are an ever increasing risk.

A school project got student Cody Rice thinking about how he could help.

Rice is part of a four student team developing wildfire and flood warning sensors that they hope will someday be used to protect their southern New Mexico community.

For this week's installment of Indigenously Positive, Our Partnership series with nonprofit Newsroom New Mexico, in-depth correspondent Bella Davis and producer Benjamin Yazza bring you the story of the student's efforts to step in before it gets a little too late.

>> Rice: So here we have our wildfire sensor is a pretty little compact device.

>> Bella: In the past few years alone, wildfires in southern New Mexico have burned thousands of acres of Mescalero Apache land, sometimes forcing tribal members to evacuate.

And last year, flooding through areas scarred by fires severely damaged the tribe's fish hatchery and took three lives in nearby Ruidoso.

A group of Mescalero Apache high schoolers are trying to help.

They're building wildfire and flood warning sensors they hope will protect their community.

>> Rice: For me, it's kind of devastating to see, especially like knowing that it might get worse.

So I think just having that ambition to do something now before it gets a little too late and wanting to do something for my tribe.

>> Wheeler: We came out to the fire center because just due to like the fires that happened back in 2024, this summer year.

After the devastating wildfire in Ruidoso, they got a lot of rain.

And this past summer it was a bad flash flood.

>> Padilla: Yeah.

So you usually get floods right after a fire, especially if it's a really unhealthy fire that kind of moon scapes the ground.

So what it does it it burns away all the vegetation that holds the soil in place, such the grasses, you know, the scrub oak and the trees as well.

So when it does that, the soils really loose and it's not held together by anything.

>> Reynolds: The floods came through this canyon and washed out everything behind us and killed like 500,000 fish.

>> Salazar: Being here for 11 years.

It's nothing that I've quite seen before.

Like I said, with this flood, it caused a great impact to the fishing community in the southwest because, like I said, a lot of tribes get our fish from us when we stock out the fish to the lakes and we, you know, people see us driving.

They get all excited.

They're waving their fishing poles, their nets, and, you know, it's just like they seem smiles on their faces, just knowing that we create memories for families for generations.

You know, it's kind of just went away with the flood.

You know, just seeing all that progress.

So that kind of took a pretty big toll on us.

>> Hatchery worker: This guy was actually in our pipes before.

And then when the flood happened, he actually they got swept out into the recently.

So there's actually a few big ones in here that that were in the pipes.

>> Aldava: With the wildfires.

We always have not only burns down trees, but it also essentially scars our lands that we could be using for cultural reasons.

>> Bella: We first met the students at the New Mexico Governor STEM challenge.

Since 2019, dozens of schools around the state have participated in the competition, where students showcase their solutions to problems facing their communities.

This year, they focused on natural disasters.

>> Raynor: It's not about winning.

It's about getting out there and learning how to compete in this world with people that don't look like you.

And we have some bad situations in some, some places when we went and being the only indigenous school went and you can see it sometimes.

So but we we overcome it.

We overcame in and now we, we have a very successful STEM program, he admits.

Cloud.

>> Aldava: Mr.

Raynor, he really helps us out because we're indigenous and he kind of wants to get our tribe and our name out there, because you could search up astronauts and then, you know, you would get astronauts of any ethnicity, but you wouldn't see one of a Native American.

So he really incentivizes us to do our best and really get into the STEM spirit, because it's important that we show everyone else that we're still here as indigenous people >> Rice: take something potent, like a Sharpie, you know, as that smell.

We place it near the sensor on the LED, and the sensor will pick up those readings from the detection, and it'll give off indication like there might there's like a hazardous particles in the air.

And you can see that it dropped below 60.

When it drops below 60 kiloohms.

indicates that the air quality has gone bad.

It might be smoke.

It might be something that fire crews might want to check out and do, like a test.

>> Reynolds: My grandpa was a fire fighter and he really like, supports this project because there is no detection systems like that.

And he said how it's just the satellites and how really unreliable it is.

>> Padilla: It's like with this last incident, the satellite hotspot thing didn't pick it up for for an hour after they had already noticed the fire.

>> Bella: Research in recent yea on the kind of sensor the students are building has been promising.

A sensor in Colorado identified a flare up at a controlled burn site and sent out an alert, giving firefighters a 37 minute head start before the first 911 call came in.

But this technology isn't always affordable.

>> Rice: I remember we were looking online and we did see a sensor that was kind of like in the $400 region, and then it was also from like a different agency that provided the results to you, and you had to kind of wait to get those results.

So that's kind of like, I guess it's a good option for maybe large scale agencies that might need a clean or an effective way to get readings from a wildfire.

But also, I guess, having that creativity and taking things a little step further and making your own sensors, how we can kind of, avoid that kind of issue.

>> Bella: Another challenge the students have been working through has to do with coding, basically writing instructions that tell a small computer how to read the data the sensor collects and interpret what it means.

That same issue has come up with the flood sensor they're building, which is earlier along in development.

>> Aldava: We would have it in the, the river, and we would have it at a certain point where if it gets to an abnormal height, and then it would kind of let us know that, you know, there might be a flash flood happening and, you know, be on the lookout.

Coding.

It's actually quite a challenge.

>> Wheeler: When we like try to like do the code into the sensor just shows like an error, like what's going on with the code.

But we couldn't really find out what was the problem with it.

>> Reynolds: There's so many limitations.

And then also just being a child and a girl, people underestimate you and maybe don't listen to you.

And it's really frustrating because I think this could have a huge impact.

And maybe it's not being valued as much as it should.

It's just important to keep going.

Seeing like, the problems in my community and really inspiring me to help everyone, it was like such a big thing, you know, it's so much more than the people that tried to belittle me.

I think finding things to help my community was so much more important than all of that, and it just really has kept me going.

>> Raynor: This is just a prototype year, so what I like to do is with the projects, you know, most kids like to do new projects every year with this one.

I want them to.

What's the next step?

What's the next step next year?

And when he graduates, what I want to do is Cody Bell senior.

So his job is to find the underclassmen to take that project over so it can continue.

I think with more testing and really working out the kinks and maybe getting higher in systems, we would want to present it to the Tribal Council and maybe get it funded and placed more areas.

>> Rice: I know some students they probably think that they can't do, they can't do anything or, you know, it's out of their reach, especially with new technology.

But I think learning to you adapt to that change and having that motivation that it's your tribe, it's your land, you know that you should do something about it.

>> Nash: Thanks to NMPBS█s Benjamin Yazza and New Mexico in Depth█s and Bella Davis for their work on the indigenously positive series.

And to everyone else who contributed to this week's show, join us here next week when we will begin our candidate interviews for the primary race for New Mexico governor, starting with the Republicans for New Mexico PBS, I'm Nash Jones.

Until next week, stay focused.

Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by viewers like you.