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20 Years | 20 Stories
The Law Center's "Living Treasure"
“How is someone from a traditional society supposed to respond to an agency that compares a twin-engine Cessna to an act of nature?”
“Without the Law Center’s excellent legal services,
we would not be as effective as we are.”
Still an environmental champion.
LAW CENTER CELEBRATES 20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!
This issue marks the second of four Green Fire Reports that will celebrate the Law Center's twentieth anniversary over the next year. As part of that celebration, we are happy to share Twenty Years | Twenty Stories, which will focus on the clients, volunteers, staff members, donors, and victories that have seen the Law Center from its earliest days to the present.
Win a Chance to Shoot a Sheep!
Law Center attorneys are accustomed to challenging, complex cases. But it is not very often that they deal with the truly bizarre…like the Red Mutton Hunt case.
In 1988, Doug Meiklejohn was contacted about a macabre money-making scheme proposed by a leaseholder in the Lincoln National Forest . The leaseholder proposed to paint targets on sheep, turn them loose on his allotment, and then raffle off chances to “hunt” the animals.
The Law Center has not frequently argued on behalf of grazing animals on public lands. However, when the Forest Service announced the public
comment period, Doug joined with animal protection advocates and environmentalists to come to the rescue of the beleaguered livestock. “After we absorbed the fact that there were actually people in the world who would pay to shoot a painted sheep, we went to work figuring out legal strategies,” remembers Doug. “We successfully argued that hunting sheep in a federal forest was a very inappropriate use of public lands,” he says. “We also argued that the raffle was illegal because gambling in New Mexico was against the law at the time.” The Forest Service agreed with the Law Center and its allies, and nixed the Red Mutton Hunt scheme.
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First Donor
The Law Center has grown into one of New Mexico ’s most respected environmental organizations, with hundreds of supportive members, dozens of cases under its belt, and a crack legal team. And it all started with a $25 check.
That check came from our first donor, Lynda Taylor (Pictured with family) . Lynda is a nationally-recognized activist and policy advocate who worked at the Southwest Research and Information Center at the time. “I didn’t have much money to give, but I was so happy that Doug Meiklejohn was getting attorneys together. Working with vulnerable communities that were in the down-and-dirty fights with polluters and regulators, I realized that they needed lawyers dedicated for fighting on their behalf. That check was my way of showing my commitment to the Law Center ’s cause.”
One of those communities was Sunland Park, where residents enlisted Lynda and the Law Center in their fight against a medical waste incinerator and a landfill (please see Fall 2007 issue of the Green Fire Report for more information on this case.) “The incinerator company never in a million years thought we could shut it down. But we had the right mix of people at the right time. We stopped it dead in its tracks,” she remembers. It was just one occasion when she saw her early investment in a tiny non-profit law office pay off.
Since that time, she has been an invaluable supporter of the Law Center . Before the Law Center could afford to hire a Development Director, Lynda helped the staff to identify foundations that would be likely to fund its work. Later she joined the Law Center ’s Development Committee to help increase individual gifts to the organization. Lynda, her husband Robert Haspel, and their children hosted our annual event in 2000, and played host again for our 20th Anniversary Kick-Off Event in Santa Fe . The Law Center awarded Lynda with the Community Environmental Advocacy Award in 1999.
The Law Center thanks Lynda and her family for their tremendous support of our work over the past twenty years!
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Law Center's Oldest Case Still Flying High
Long-running cases seem to be a hallmark of the Law Center , with several complex cases having spanned more than a decade, and several more creeping up on their tenth anniversaries. But only one has the distinction of being our longest-running case. Is it A, B or C:
A) Our work to prevent the expansion of the Southwest Landfill in the South Valley of Albuquerque.
B) Our representation of Taos Pueblo in its efforts to prevent the expansion of the Taos municipal airport.
C) Our fight against Hydro Resources, Inc. in its bid to open uranium mines in and near the Navajo communities of Church Rock and Crownpoint?
The answer is B. Although it is not our most highly-publicized case, Doug Meiklejohn’s thirteen years as counsel to Taos Pueblo marks it as the Law Center’s oldest case.
Gil Suazo, who is a former governor of Taos Pueblo, has worked on the issue for ten years. “Even without the expansion, overflights impact the Pueblo,” Gov. Suazo explains. He continues that increased airplane traffic would threaten the Pueblo’s culture with increased noise pollution and visual disturbances, and possibly cause damage to the tribe’s 600-year-old landmark adobe structures.
The current Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) process has taken more than fifteen years and is not yet finished. It has been a frustrating process for Pueblo members, who not only have to contend with a drawn-out administrative process, but also with cultural roadblocks. “We have to try to get people to understand the concerns of how the airplanes impact the Pueblo,” he says. “Many don’t understand our way of life and what we’re talking about.” The FAA has generally ignored extensive comments provided by the Pueblo, even when those comments have been prepared with the help of an FAA-funded airport expert.
A good illustration of this, remarks Meiklejohn, was a noise analysis performed by the FAA several years ago. “The FAA measured the noise of an airplane and argued that it should not be problematic for the Pueblo because it was no louder than a thunderclap. How is someone from a traditional society supposed to respond to an agency that compares a twin-engine Cessna to an act of nature?”
Still, Suazo says that the Pueblo is thankful for the work of the Law Center, and Doug’s role in deciphering legal issues and in responding to the FAA. “The agency is taking us more seriously now – we’re starting to talk with higher-level officials. But our success remains to be seen. We always remember that the FAA is in the airport building business, and our job is to protect our way of life.”
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SouthWest Organizing Project
"Together, we’ve taken on the fights that no one else would take on,” explains Robby Rodriguez, Director of the SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP), one of the country’s leading advocates for social justice and a long-time Law Center ally and client. “No one else that I know of would have taken on Intel, one of the biggest corporations in the world, and a darling of New Mexico’s state government.
“But SWOP, the Law Center and Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water were too concerned about the health of local residents and the protection of our water resources to shy away from that David-and-Goliath fight.” Rodriguez is referring to the Law Center’s representation of SWOP in two proceedings against the multinational computer chip manufacturer. One involved the company’s attempt to purchase water rights from southern New
Mexico while the other was a long-standing fight to force the plant to clean up its toxic air emissions. In the former case, Law Center Staff Attorney Doug Wolf represented SWOP in a victorious effort to prevent the company from purchasing $1.5 million in water rights from farmers near Socorro. The ruling stymied the company’s attempt to use the rights to offset 4 million gallons of groundwater used at the Rio Rancho plant every day.
Unfortunately, SWOP and the Law Center were not so successful in forcing the company to clean up its air emissions. But Rodriguez, who cut his teeth as a college intern working for SWOP at the Intel hearings, maintains that taking on the fight was important in its own right. “It’s important to win these battles because human health and the health of the environment are at stake. But it’s also about giving communities the power to go into these battles against the government and giant companies. Without attorneys it would be tremendously difficult – and sometimes impossible – to go into court or hearings and make sure that the voices of affected residents are heard. Without the Law Center’s excellent legal services, we would not be as effective as we are.
The Law Center first started working with SWOP in 1990 on the Sunland Park incinerator case, and since that time has worked closely with the organizing group. In addition to Intel, Law Center attorneys have represented SWOP efforts to prevent the expansion of the Southwest Landfill and the extension of Universe Boulevard in Albuquerque, to negotiate for environmental improvements by the Stericycle medical
waste treatment facility in the city’s Wells Park neighborhood, and in the successful effort to add language to the State’s Solid Waste Management Regulations that provide significant protections for low-income communities faced with proposed landfills.| top
The Law Center's "Living Treasure"
While the Law Center has had many tremendously talented and passionate individuals serve on its Board, it has had only one bona fide “Living Treasure” serve at its helm: Edith (Edie) Pierpont. Edie was named a “Treasure” by the Network for the Common Good in 1991 because of her tireless work for New Mexico’s environment, including a stint as the Law Center’s first Board President.
For nearly two decades, Edie was a force to be reckoned with at the State Legislature, where she was a close ally of the Law Center, lobbying on behalf of the New Mexico League of Women Voters on land use, water, hazardous waste and nuclear waste issues.
She smiles when remembering the “many, many hearings” that she sat through with Doug Meiklejohn over the years, having worked closely with him on many legislative initiatives, including the successful efforts to gain passage of the land-mark Solid Waste Act of 1990 and the New Mexico Mining Act of 1993.
“The Law Center was a much needed force that could take on cases against environmental threats,” she remembers when asked why she supported the Law Center in its early days. “Doug and his staff gave real teeth to the environmentalists working to protect our land and water.”
While she has retired from much of her volunteer work, Edie is still as passionate about saving the earth. With a view out her kitchen window of the Galisteo Basin (See "The Battle For the Galisteo Basin") , she cites water protection, land use and global warming as the issues that should be foremost in the minds of today’s environmentalists.
The Law Center thanks Edie for her two decades of support and guidance.
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To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Green Fire Report online edition, to receive a text-only version, or to submit comments to the Law Center staff, please email nmelc@nmelc.org. The New Mexico Environmental Law Center is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit law firm. We seek to protect the environment and communities of New Mexico using legal advocacy and public education. All donations are 100% tax-deductible, unless otherwise noted. Thank you.