Adrian Hedden
Carlsbad Current-Argus
achedden@currentargus.com

Carlsbad’s iconic underground rock formations were left inaccessible for the past two weeks as federal agencies shut down with Congress locked in a partisan stalemate over legislation to fund the government’s operations.

The shutdown means many federal programs will remain unfunded – and employees will be furloughed – until the deadlock is resolved. At the heart of the stalemate is an attempt by Democrats to force Republicans, who control both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, to roll back cuts to a variety of government programs, particularly those that affect funding for health care.

Among Democrats’ major concerns were the scheduled expirations of tax credits to help families pay for health care under the Affordable Care Act and the ACA itself, which is set to expire at the end of 2025.

The Senate failed for the eighth time Tuesday night to pass a continuing resolution passed by the Republican-led House of Representatives on Sept. 19 to partially fund the government through Nov. 21.

At Carlsbad Caverns, the logjam meant the park and Visitors Center was closed during the funding cutoff that began with the Oct. 1 start of the federal fiscal year.

No access was being granted to the Cavern itself, nor were programs such as the bat flight shows being held with the park unstaffed throughout the shutdown.

Most national parks throughout the U.S. were accessible during the shutdown, but areas normally locked outside of business hours or secured for public safety were closed, according to a contingency plan published last month by the U.S. Department of the Interior – the parent agency of the National Parks Service.

Carlsbad Caverns is usually open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except for Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, but all park access and services were shut down until Congress votes to reopen the government, according to an Oct. 1 Facebook post from the park.

Interrupted services included entry into the caverns, through the natural entrance of elevators, access to the visitors center, bat flight shows and all roads leading into the park.

Most park staff were furloughed. Those needed for security and critical functions such as water treatment were still working but were not receiving paychecks during the shutdown.

All park regulations remained in effect during the shutdown, despite limited enforcement staff.

The Facebook post also noted the park service would provide “critical information” about park access and safety, but that “services may be limited.”

“We will provide updates when we are able to reopen,” read the post.

Nearby Guadalupe Mountains National Park remained unstaffed but accessible during the shutdown, according to its website, with the gated access to McKittrick Canyon closed.

White Sands National Park near Alamogordo was partially reopened on Saturday, Oct. 11 until Friday, Oct. 17, according to that park’s website, with the Visitors Center open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and several hiking trails accessible. It was unclear if the park will remain open should the shutdown continue into next week.

Federal oil and gas operations continue

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management’s Carlsbad Field Office was partially shuttered, along with all bureau offices across the U.S.

This agency, also within the Interior Department, manages federal public land around the country, and in southeast New Mexico is responsible for 3.5 million acres of federal land and 7 million acres of mineral estate.

That means the agency oversees permitting for oil and gas drilling and operations in New Mexico’s booming Permian Basin oilfields.

Those activities continued during the shutdown, the contingency plan read, even as the Interior Department estimated 2,400 bureau employees would be furloughed. Before the plan was implemented, the agency estimated 9,250 workers were active across the Bureau of Land Management.

Throughout the lapse in funding, the bureau would continue its law enforcement and border security operations, read the plan, along with emergency response and inspections and enforcement of oil and gas operations.

Permitting also was expected to continue, including for transmission lines and rights of way where such activities could be funded by fee collections, the plan read, along with “activities necessary to protect life and property that are not otherwise exempted.”

Processing of oil and gas, coal or any other energy permit or documentation will be excepted by staff on an “on call” basis, read the plan “to the extent such plans are necessary to protect human life and federal property.”

Bureau of Land Management staff did not respond to a request for comment.

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

Adrian Hedden
Artesia Daily Press

Eddy County Commissioner Hayley Klein was hired as Artesia’s first city administrator during the Tuesday, Oct. 14, city council meeting after months of candidate interviews and a unanimous vote by councilors.

The vote, following a motion made by District 4 City Councilor Michael Blunt and seconded by District 1 Councilor Raul Rodriguez, came after an executive session that lasted about two hours.

Rodriguez said Klein will be paid an annual salary of $135,000 and is expected to begin her job in November as she resigns her current position as executive director of the Artesia Chamber of Commerce, where she’s worked for more than 20 years, and aid in finding her replacement.

In her new job, which was created by the Artesia City Council by a unanimous vote at its July 22 meeting, Klein will be tasked with aiding Mayor Jon Henry in the city’s day-to-day operations. Officials said her responsibilities will include improving interdepartmental coordination, tracking ongoing projects and identifying funding sources such as grants for city projects.

“I hope I can bring my experience to the city, and maybe elevate the city’s communication internally and with the public,” Klein said, noting the she intends to help support city projects and funding sources.

She said she will also help maintain relationships with the city’s benefactors, as Klein noted much of its financial support comes from the private sector.

“Since it’s a new position, I’ll have to figure out the lay of the land and establish relationships with the different departments,” Klein said.

Henry, who also serves as a New Mexico state representative for District 54 covering portions of Eddy, Chaves and Otero counties, said when the city administrator position was created in July that adding the post to the city’s management structure would not only reduce strain on the mayor but also create consistency among municipal departments.

“The mayor has a tough job doing other political stuff, and his other obligations,” Rodriguez said. “Now, we’ll have a point of contact for the day-to-day operations.”

In addition to her job with the Chamber of Commerce, Klein serves as District 2 Eddy County Commissioner, an office previously held by Henry who did not seek reelection to the commission after opting to run for the Legislature in 2024. Klein was elected last November.

She said she intends to keep her position on the Eddy County Commission after assuming her duties with the city, but will abstain from “any votes related to city business.”

Rodriguez said the city researched state law and believes she can maintain the posts without any conflicts.

“She is able to maintain both positions without any issues,” Rodriguez said. “We did our research to make sure everything was kosher, and we didn’t have any conflicts.”

Henry recommended Klein for the administrator position at Tuesday’s meeting after “much thought and reviewing of several candidates.”

“I do appreciate everybody that applied,” he said. “It was a very, very tough decision.”

Rodriguez said the city received multiple applicants for the city administrator’s job and made its decision after months of interviews and discussions. He said the city ended with two finalists: Klein and the city’s Infrastructure Director Byron Landfair.

“I would like to thank the candidates for the city administrator,” he said. “That was probably the toughest decision I’ve had to make as a city councilor,” he said. “I think we are in a blessed position, and it is a win-win for the city.”

And Klein said the role will allow her to further share the story of Artesia’s and southeast New Mexico’s contributions to the broader State of New Mexico, as the region is known for generating much of the state revenue through the oil and gas industry.

“All of our little cities are really important to the state, and southeast New Mexico provides so much,” she said. “It’s important for the state to remember us.”

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

Laurel Berry
Alamogordo News

Holloman Air Force Base and the Sacramento Mountains Foundation co-sponsored a free screening of the Lois Lipman movie “First We Bombed New Mexico” at the Flickinger Center for Performing Arts on Saturday, October 11. The film tells the stories of families that have been affected by the radiation released during the Trinity test, which was the first atomic bomb to ever be detonated, on July 16, 1945, some 50 miles from Alamogordo, and their efforts to be included in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).

Lipman, who has won 16 awards for the film, said: “My goal is to get this film shown, to get it into the communities, especially the smaller communities. It has been shown at 35 festivals, Barcelona, in Paris.” She was met with obstacles when she began to gather funding for making the film but remained determined.

“How do I make a film that will impact people? It’s too big. People can’t connect to thousands of people dying. But my way of making a film, the way I was taught, is that you have to find one character that people can connect with and it’s through the eyes of that one character that you tell a story that touches the world,” she said.

That character was Tina Cordova, whose family lives in Tularosa and has been affected by cancer. Cordova herself is a thyroid cancer survivor. Together with the late Fred Tyler, Cordova started the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium in 2005 as a way to compile cancer statistics as well as other health data from communities around the Trinity test site. Generations of residents have suffered high rates of cancer.

RECA was enacted in 1990 to provide one-time payments as reparations to residents who may have developed cancer or other specified radiogenic illnesses as a result of exposure to radiation from atomic weapons testing or the process of mining or transporting uranium. However, it did not include New Mexico downwinders, as they are called.

It’s incomprehensible to Cordova that New Mexico was left out of the original RECA agreement.

“If you’re acknowledging that harm was done to people as a result of testing, wouldn’t you think first about the people of New Mexico, because the test at Trinity was incredibly fallout producing? They knew right afterwards that they had spread radiation all over New Mexico and beyond and so how they never acknowledged that when they recognized people in Nevada, I don’t know,” Cordova said.

“First We Bombed New Mexico” tells the story of those who experienced the Trinity test and the subsequent fallout as well as their children and grandchildren who continue to suffer unusually high rates of cancers, as noted by physicians who worked in the communities in the subsequent years. It follows Cordova and other members of the consortium as they fight to bring awareness to their cause, meet with members of Congress and eventually find an unlikely ally in Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who helps sway enough senators to vote in favor of adding New Mexico downwinders to RECA.

For the residents, being added to RECA is as much about being acknowledged as it is about the reparations. It should be noted that Congress did not extend reparations to include health care. Medical bills for treatment of these diseases often greatly exceed the $100,000 payment that the government is offering.

After the screening, Cordova and Lipman held a question and answer session to address concerns from those in the audience, and applications were available for residents to take home. Currently, applications are accepted only via the mail, but an online option will be available soon. Those affected now have until December 31, 2027, to apply for compensation. More information can be found at trinitydownwinders.com.

Artesia Daily Press Editorial Board

The city’s hospital enjoys a good reputation and the levy, which raises between $4 million to $ 7 million a year, is used to fund operating expenses. There is no plan to use this money to pay for a new hospital that is envisioned for the future.

Artesia stands almost alone as a rural hospital that enjoys solid financial footing. By contrast, many rural hospitals throughout New Mexico are in danger of closing.

If there is a crack in the administrative structure and operation of Artesia General, it may be in its failure to communicate clearly with the public about the need for passage of the levy in the Nov. 4 election– compounded by a slight touch of institutional arrogance.

For instance, when the editorial board of the Artesia Daily Press met with hospital representatives to discuss the levy the only hospital executive in attendance was Khush Ghadiali, director of communication. No hospital administrators were on hand to explain the details of the levy or to discuss matters such as the total expenses and revenues of the hospital.

Hospital CEO Joe Salgado argued the need for approval of the levy in a letter to the editor that appears in today’s newspaper, and he showed up for a poorly attended public meeting last week at Kith and Kin, but he did not meet with our editorial board.

Instead of sending those who actually run the hospital to our meeting, the hospital sent two representatives of the governing board, Karen Waldrip and Danny Parker to explain how the board doles out the money after requests from the hospital. Both were informed and articulate, but they do not run the hospital.

Last spring the levy was narrowly defeated in a mail-only election with a dismal turnout of about 12% – of 10,000 ballots mailed to voters only 1,246 were filled out and returned to Eddy County officials to be included in the vote count. The mail-in ballots apparently left voters confused as to the purpose of the election, even to the point of thinking the ballots were junk mail and throwing them away.

Holding a mail-only election on such an important issue may in itself have demonstrated poor communication and arrogance, apparently reflecting a belief that voter approval was a done deal.

There is also reason to believe that some voters said no to the levy, or didn’t vote at all, because they were frustrated with the state of health care in New Mexico and decided to take it out on the hospital, or that they were concerned about lack of transparency regarding hospital-related issues such as air transport services for Eddy County patients.

As to the levy, our news story last week clearly explained its purpose and significance:

“The levy, paid on property taxes for homeowners and businesses within the Artesia Special Hospital District which encompasses most of the city limits and about 10,000 voters, is used to supplement the hospital’s operating costs.

“The district, which owns the land the hospital sits on, acts as a landlord while collecting the levy from taxpayers and providing the funds to the hospital at its board’s discretion and based on requests from hospital officials.

“The levy was first implemented in 1979, when the district was established mainly to spend the funds. It had been renewed every four years since.

“That changed on June 3, when a special mail-in election resulted in 638 votes against renewal and 608 in favor.

“Approval of the mill levy in next month’s election would not raise taxes but would maintain the current levy of $2.70 per every $1,000 of a property owners’ net taxable property value within the district. It was last renewed in 2021 and doesn’t expire until Dec. 31 of this year so passage in November would keep the levy in effect without interruption.

“Hospital officials maintain that about 80% to 90% of the levy is paid by commercial entities, mostly large oil and gas companies, and that it funds between 5% and 10% of the hospital’s operating budget.”

Artesia enjoys many benefits smaller communities lack – benefits that surpass even the city’s legendary high school football team and the spectacular Bulldog Bowl. Revenue and work provided by our rich oil and gas industry is a boon to us – and we have an excellent hospital, an institution that is essential to the health of our citizens.

But the hospital is lucky to have us, the voters, and perhaps the lesson here is for the citizens to be treated with more openness, consideration and respect.