Adrian Hedden
El Rito Media News
achedden@currentargus.com

Visitors to state parks throughout New Mexico will be paying higher fees for admission, camping and boating in 2025.

The New Mexico State Parks Division of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department opted to hike fees to increase revenue to the division, with most of the changes adding additional cost for visitors who don’t live in the state. Past fees were consistent, regardless of residency.

Officials said the new fees are expected to raise the State Parks Division’s revenue by $4.8 million.

That money will help maintain New Mexico’s 35 state parks, including Living Desert Zoo and Gardens and Brantley Lake in the Carlsbad area, said Division Director Toby Velasquez.

“State parks offer invaluable outdoor experiences, but our fees haven’t kept pace with rising operational costs,” Velasquez said. “These adjustments are essential to enhance visitor experiences and protect our parks for future generations.”

Here’s what to know about the changes taking effect Jan. 1.

Living Desert Zoo cost increase

The fee to enter Carlsbad’s Living Desert Zoo, located off Pierce Street on the north side of the city, will rise from $5 to $10 in 2025.

Entrance fees upped at other parks

Visitors to New Mexico’s other state parks who do not live in the state will be charged a $10 fee to enter, while residents will enter for free from Oct. 1 through April 30. A $5 entrance fee is assessed to residents in the remaining months, which are considered “peak season.”

Day-use fees are assessed per vehicle, per day. Residential rates are provided to those with a New Mexico ID or in-state license plates.

Camping fees increase

Fees for both camping in primitive, or undeveloped, campsites and at developed sites will increase.

The fees for primitive sites will increase from $8 per vehicle, resident or non-resident; to $10 per vehicle for residents and $15 per vehicle for non-residents. Developed camping fees will increase by $10 a vehicle to $15 for residents and $20 for non-residents.

Water hookups were free before the changes, but will now cost $5 a day, while electric hookups will go from $4 per day to $10 a day next year.

Annual passes almost double in cost

An annual day-use pass for New Mexico residents will increase from $40 to $75 for the peak season, excluding Oct. 1 to April 30 when entry is free to residents. Non-residents will pay $150.

Camping passes for residents go from $180 to $300, while non-resident passes will jump from $225 to $600 to camp all year in New Mexico parks. Annual camping passes for seniors and the disabled were increased from $100 to $150. That fee is also assessed for members of the military.

Boating rates going up

Boaters at New Mexico state parks pay a fee based on the size of the vessel, ranging from 16 feet or less to 65 feet or more. The previous fee range charged $28.50 to $66 to register a vessel based on its size. The new fees range from $60 to $180. Launching a non-motorized vehicle will remain free.

New boat safety rules take effect

Starting in 2025, users of non-motorized vessels must wear a personal flotation device such as a life jacket approved by the U.S. Coast Guard. Non-motorized vessels include anything powered by hands, feet, oars, paddles or pedals.

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.

 Adrian Hedden
El Rito Media
achedden@currentargus.com

Eddy County’s newly elected officials were sworn into office during the Eddy County Board of County Commissioners’ first meeting of 2025.

The Jan. 7 swearing-in ceremony followed the results of the Nov. 5 general election in which the county’s voters chose three commissioners, the county sheriff and the country treasurer. New Mexicans also voted for U.S. president, all three of the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and one of its U.S. Senate seats, along with state offices.

Hayley Klein was sworn in to replace Artesia Mayor Jon Henry as District 2 commissioner and Phillip Troost assumed the District 3 seat vacated by Fred Beard, who did not seek reelection. Henry ran successfully for state representative.

District 5 County Commissioner Sarah Cordova was also sworn in after being reelected in November.

Cordova was chosen as commission chair and the previous chair, District 4 Commissioner Bo Bowen, was named vice chairman. Bowen and District 1 Commissioner Ernie Carlson both have two years to serve on their current terms.

Matthew Hutchinson was sworn in as Eddy County sheriff, succeeding Mark Cage who was ineligible to run for re-election after serving two four-year terms. Patricia Carrasco was sworn in as country treasurer, replacing Laurie Pruitt who decided not to seek reelection.

Klein and Troost ran unopposed in the general election, securing their seats in the June Republican primary. Cordova won the Democratic primary and ran unopposed in November.

Hutchinson and Carrasco won their Republican primaries and ran unopposed in the general election.

The newly elected officials will benefit from pay raises recently approved by the commission. Under the new salary structure, the sheriff’s annual salary will increase from $78,000 to $153,000; the county treasurer’s pay jumps from $75,000 to $129,000; and commissioners’ pay will increase from $26,000 per year to $44,000.

Officials welcomed to Eddy County

Artesia Magistrate Judge Jimmy Foster presided over the ceremonies at the Eddy County Administration Building in Carlsbad.

The meeting was also the first with the new Eddy County Manager, Mike Gallagher. The county manager oversees day-to-day operations of county government.

“I’m looking forward to working with this board – there are some very talented people,” said Gallagher who was appointed in December, resigning his previous job as manager of neighboring Lea County.

Gallagher’s contract with Eddy County includes a $249,500 salary for an indefinite period, he said. His salary in Lea County was $246,000.

Gallagher introduced his family during the public comment period following the swearing-in ceremony.

“We just want to take this opportunity to thank you for welcoming us,” said Gallagher’s wife Rachel Gallagher. “We’re excited to be here.”

Cordova thanked the Gallaghers for coming to Eddy County.

“We hope you enjoy the community very much,” Cordova said. “We’re really excited to have you here.”

Bowen said Gallagher’s experience in Lea County, located east of Eddy County and sharing New Mexico’s portion of the Permian Basin oilfields, makes him well-prepared for his new job as both communities continued to grow rapidly amid increased fossil fuel demand.

“I think he’s going to be a big asset to us as a county,” Bowen said. “I look forward to the upcoming year and what we can do together.”

Other commissioners expressed their excitement to serve the county in the coming years.

“I want to thank the people of Eddy County, specifically those from District 3, for trusting me,” Troost said. “God bless Eddy County.”

Klein, who also serves as executive director of the Artesia Chamber of Commerce, said the county “was awesome” during her onboarding process since being elected.

“I’m glad to get started with the new year,” said holdover Carlson. “It’s a new start with new commissioners. We have always been successful at getting things done, and that will continue.”

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.

Adrian Hedden
El Rito Media
achedden@currentargus.com

A sense of tension and rising concern about crime and violence encased the Alamogordo community after the murder of a police officer in 2023 and last year’s fatal shooting of an Indigenous teenager by a county sheriff’s deputy.

On Wednesday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham responded to those concerns by holding a crime-focused town meeting at Alamogordo’s Tays Center. The meeting also aimed to ratchet up support for Lujan Grisham’s public safety agenda about two weeks ahead of the 2025 Legislative Session starting Jan. 21 in Santa Fe.

The governor advocated during the town hall for legislation that would add stiffer penalties for felons in possession of firearms during the commission of violent crimes and expand a court’s ability to hold repeat offenders in pretrial detention.

“In many places in New Mexico, they’re out in 2-3 hours. That’s very frustrating to the men and women that are public safety officials keeping our communities safe,” Lujan Grisham said. “If you’re a repeat offender, you have to make a stronger case to be released during the trial.”

Alamogordo, a town of about 31,000 in Otero County, is where repeat offender Dominic De La O was convicted in November of murdering an Alamogordo police officer in 2023 and sentenced to life in prison.

That followed the June 2024 death of 17-year-old Elijah Hadley who was fatally shot by an Otero County Sheriff’s deputy answering a call for a welfare check on a person in a roadway median. It was later reported that Hadley, a member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, was carrying an airsoft gun when he was shot by police. That shooting was under review by the New Mexico State Police.

A small group of audience members repeatedly chanted “Elijah” during the meeting, in recognition of the boy’s death, and held up signs reading “Apache Lives Matter.”

“It was a really rough year,” Alamogordo Mayor Susan Payne said to the audience of about 200 residents and community leaders. “Criminal justice has been a big initiative of mine, criminal justice reform.”

Greg Gutierrez with the League of United Latin American Citizens argued that widespread homelessness must be addressed if New Mexico is to see a reduction in crime. He said the organization raised funds to support the homeless, providing basic resources they need including food and shelter. He asked the city and state to join such efforts and bring a state-funded homeless shelter to Alamogordo, rather than “teaching cops to be more aggressive.”

“People that have mental health issues, they don’t need to be beaten and shot at, they need help and assistance,” Gutierrez said.

Payne responded that along with providing basic needs to the homeless, the community must also teach them life skills and provide services to help people lift themselves out of poverty.

“When does it end?” she said. “If we don’t teach them, they will just keep coming to us.”

A ‘revolving door’

The Alamogordo City Commission passed a resolution last year prioritizing criminal justice and public safety and inviting Lujan Grisham to hold a town hall in Alamogordo, Payne said.

This was after the governor held a trio of town halls over the summer in Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Espanola, followed by additional meetings the governor did not attend in rural areas such as Carlsbad, Farmington and Clovis.

“We need to be able to express what we want her to hear,” Payne said of the governor. “We’re not Las Cruces, our views are very different. We need that opportunity to speak to her.”

The governor said one thing Alamogordo does have in common with other cities in New Mexico is a “revolving door” effect when repeat offenders such as known drug traffickers are quickly let out of custody ahead of trial. She said many are not prosecuted because of mental health issues that lead to them being deemed incompetent to stand trial.

Lujan Grisham said that as of last year 16,000 criminal cases had been dismissed statewide since 2017 for this reason, with “thousands” representing repeat, violent offenders.

“It is clear that if they’re coming before a judge multiple times that this is a serious risk in our communities,” Lujan Grisham said. “That notion that you won’t be held accountable in this state means that people will come here (to commit crime).”

Payne said she agreed with the governor’s past statements that crime and public safety are frequently linked to mental health and substance abuse issues, which she said the state and local communities can work together to address.

Payne said mental health and crime sometimes “go hand in hand.”

Crime bills fail so far

Last year, Lujan Grisham proposed multiple failed reforms to New Mexico’s criminal justice laws, including steeper penalties for felons in possession of firearms and bills to strengthen the state’s ability to require repeat offenders with documented mental health problems to undergo treatment.

After Lujan Grisham-supported legislation failed to materialize during the 2024 regular legislative session, the governor called a special session in July, pushing earlier priorities and several others intended, she said, to address widespread crime in New Mexico.

The session was ended by lawmakers hours after it started on July 18, with lawmakers passing only a relief funding bill to support those rebuilding their homes and businesses in the wake of the South Fork and Salt Fires in Ruidoso.

Last month, the governor urged lawmakers to hike funding by $4.5 million for the State’s Organized Crime Commission, following a December report from the commission that recommended the increase be approved via a special appropriation across fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

The commission was formed in the 1970s, but its report issued Dec. 23 said that the body had rarely been fully utilized since the 1990s, and that Lujan Grisham revived it in May 2023. Her intention was to crack down on human, drug and firearm trafficking in the state and surrounding areas, the report read.

“I’m very proud of the commission’s work, including its aggressive approach to fighting the cartels in human trafficking, fentanyl, and cannabis,” said Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, who leads the commission.

Adrian Hedden
El Rito Media
achedden@currentargus.com

Southern New Mexico is host to what conservationists say are some of the state’s most imperiled species of fish, birds and reptiles, and the species’ status has ignited a debate pitting ecological preservation against economic progress.

Several federal decisions on protections for New Mexico’s native animals suffering dwindling populations were made in 2024, with others potentially to come in 2025.

The decision-making centers around the Endangered Species Act, which allows plants and animals to be listed as either “endangered” or “threatened.” Endangered means extinction is imminent, and such a listing requires critical habitat to be set aside and a recovery plan to be developed.

Threatened means an endangered listing could soon be warranted, and tasks the agency with studying and tracking the species in decline, aiming to prevent its numbers from dropping lower.

Here’s a rundown of endangered species actions in New Mexico in the last year, and what could be coming.

Pinyon jay at center of lawsuit

The pinyon jay, a bird native to the forests of southern New Mexico, feeds on the nuts of the iconic pinyon pine trees throughout Lincoln National Forest. The birds deposit nuts in the soil to store them for winter, which allows more trees to germinate and grow.

The jay’s numbers decreased by about 85% in the 13 states where the bird dwells across the American West, according to a report from Defenders of Wildlife. Half of the remaining population was expected to be lost by 2035.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to review the status of the species while it conducted its own research in response to Defenders of Wildlife’s petition that the bird be listed as endangered.

That group sued the agency this year after the release of its Domestic Working Plan in October, which appeared to push off a final decision on the bird to 2028. In 2025, the lawsuit could be taken up by U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, perhaps leading to an earlier decision.

Peñasco least chipmunk endangered

The Peñasco least chipmunk was afforded the highest level of federal protections to prevent its extinction, as the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed Dec. 9 to list it as endangered.

The animal is native to the Sacramento and White mountains in southeast New Mexico, mostly in Lincoln County and within the Lincoln National Forest.

Today, the chipmunk survives only in the White Mountains within the forest and is imperiled by the loss of conifer trees it uses for cover from predators while foraging for food, the Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Along with listing the chipmunk as endangered, the government designated about 4,386 acres in Lincoln County as critical habitat, read a news release from the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The designation excluded Mescalero Apache tribal lands in the region and the Ski Apache Resort operated by the tribe under a special use permit with the U.S. Forest Service, the release read.

The chipmunk’s listing was opposed by the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau, which argued it would damage the local agriculture industry.

Pecos pupfish proposal draws industry ire

On Nov. 21, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the Pecos pupfish as threatened, opening a 60-day public comment period that will conclude this month, with a 12-month finding required in January 2026.

Threats to the pupfish include drought and climate change, the announcement read, along with declining water quality and the invasive sheepshead minnow, which was introduced to the river in the 1970s and ’80s. The larger sheepshead grows faster and outcompetes the Pecos pupfish for food and other resources, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Today, the species is limited to Chaves County just north of the Permian Basin oilfields and an “isolated” population in Salt Creek in Reeves County, a western Texas area where oil and gas operations are plentiful.

But the agency believes the population could be restored throughout the region, and the Permian Basin Petroleum Association expressed dire concerns that a listing could negatively impact the industry’s access to water needed in drilling.

Texas sues over dunes sagebrush lizard

The dunes sagebrush lizard native to southeast New Mexico and west Texas was listed as endangered in May 2024, despite allegations by the oil and gas industry that the efforts to do so were meant to stymie fossil fuel production.

The lizard dwells in the sand dunes that are typical of the arid landscape but recently have seen an influx of oil rigs and pumpjacks as energy development boomed in the area.

The sand that makes up the dunes is often mined for use in hydraulic fracturing – the process commonly known as “fracking” that oil companies use to pump a mixture of sand, liquid and chemicals underground to break up rock formations and extract crude oil and natural gas.

Conservationists argued that oilfield infrastructure also encroached on the habitat of the lizard, impacting the shinnery oak bushes the species relies on to breed and hide from predators.

Despite these concerns the State of Texas and its Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on Sept. 23, 2024, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas’ Midland-Odessa Division.

The suit sought to overturn the listing, and was awaiting a decision from the court that could reopen thousands of acres in the Permian to development.

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.

Adrian Hedden
El Rito Media News
achedden@currentargus.com

Republicans in southeast New Mexico said they were preparing to defend the region’s defining oil and gas industry, while batting away Democrat proposals GOP leaders said could derail the state’s main economic driver.

The 2025 Legislative Session opens Jan. 21, running until March 22 at the New Mexico Capitol in Santa Fe. Lawmakers from across the state will convene during the session to propose bills that will first be debated by multiple committees before facing votes on the House and Senate floors.

From there, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will have until April 11 to sign or veto bills. Any bill not acted upon by the deadline will be automatically “pocket vetoed” by the governor.

Ahead of the session’s start, lawmakers had from Jan. 2 to 17 to prefile bills, with several already published by senators and House representatives.

New Mexico Sen. Larry Scott (R-42) represents parts of Eddy, Lea and Chaves counties in the southeast corner of the state – a known Republican stronghold amid the Democrat-controlled Legislature – and said proposals already put forth by the majority party were alarming for their potential impacts on industry.

Oil and gas contributed about $15.2 billion in overall income to New Mexico in 2023, according to a June 2024 report by the Legislative Finance Committee, accounting for almost half of the state’s overall income.

But with that windfall came environmental concerns from Democrats.

House Bill 35, pre-filed by Rep. Debra Sarinana (D-21) of Albuquerque, would establish “children’s health protection zones” throughout the state and require increased monitoring of oil and gas operations in those areas – defined in the bill as any space a mile from the property line of a school.

Scott, an engineer in the oil and gas industry, said the protection zones had no basis in science and that he and fellow GOP members in the House and Senate were ready to push back on such proposals.

“The regulatory environment with respect to oil and gas will be at the forefront of progressive initiatives,” Scott said. “I think we’ll be playing a lot of defense. I think we can make a case that (setbacks) are completely unnecessary.”

Sarinana debated the benefits of her proposal during interim committee meetings held across the state in the months ahead of the session.

HB 35 was one of four bills Sarinana pre-filed to address environmental issues, joining bills to ban new air pollution emissions in areas where ozone, or smog, levels are high; increase state authority to penalize operators that release emissions; and encourage the use of electric school buses by New Mexico public schools.

“We’re looking at the health and welfare of our kids. That’s why we’re doing this. They’re going to school and doing their jobs, and still getting exposed to this,” Sarinana said of the setback language during a Sept. 13 visit to Hobbs for a meeting of the interim Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee, of which she is a member.

Scott questioned whether such legislation would gain enough support, even from Democrats, to pass through the Legislature. Still, he worried that Lujan Grisham’s administration could impose the rule as policy even if the bills fail.

He said this was done before by the governor and her cabinet with a mandate requiring newly built businesses and homes to include electric vehicle charging capabilities and also with regulations enacted by the New Mexico Environment Department in 2022 to mandate more inspections for natural gas leaks at oil facilities and to require car dealerships in New Mexico to sell more electric vehicles.

“I think the current administration has used regulation when they couldn’t get similar policy through the legislative process,” Scott said. “That’s wrong.”

Sen. David Gallegos (R-41), representing Eddy and Lea counties, questioned budget requests by agencies such as the New Mexico Environment Department to hire more full-time employees devoted to oil and gas oversight.

“My fear is they’re going to look into the enforcement side, and write more tickets for oil and gas,” he said. “We don’t want to impact the industry that pays for children’s schools.”

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.