Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"Lack of potable water drove high Covid-19 rates in Native American communities. That realization may help them gain better representation in upcoming negotiations about Colorado River water."

"Heavy rains have dispersed highly toxic dioxins throughout the Sanders Beach neighborhood for years. Now residents hope the Biden administration will help put an end to their misery."

"Texas, already the U.S. state with the most wind energy capacity, is catching up to California in utility-scale solar capacity, according to a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday."

"Thousands of abandoned oil wells dot the Permian Basin in west Texas and New Mexico, endangering humans and wildlife. With oil costs plummeting, they’re likely to proliferate. Who is going to cover the cleanup costs?"

"An urban wildlife refuge is meant to alleviate generations of environmental racism that has beset the historic neighborhood of Mountain View. That’s assuming it can meet the community’s needs".

"Two New Mexico Native American communities have sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a revision to federal rules regarding waterways they argue violated federal responsibilities toward tribes."

"New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas filed a lawsuit against the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission intended to block a project to build a temporary storage facility for high-level nuclear waste in southeast New Mexico.

The project was proposed by New Jersey-based Holtec International and would be designed to hold spent nuclear fuel rods from plants across the country temporarily while a permanent repository was designed and built.

"Wildfire experts in Northern New Mexico are urging the community to prepare for a hot, dry summer with potentially worse conditions than previous years, and they say the idea of a wildfire “season” is slowly dissipating as climate change makes the state’s forests more susceptible to blazes year-round."