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

>> Nash: This week on New Mexico In Focus environmental groups oppose the state, revisiting a rule to allow the use of fracking wastewater for crops and construction.

We hear from their attorney.

>> Fox: But is the science at a point, as I've said, to allow large scale discharge to surface in groundwater?

The scientists we talked to say no.

>> Nash: And State Senator Mo Maestas On how his legislation to overhaul the state's police misconduct board is working out.

New Mexico in Focus starts now.

Thanks for joining us I'm Nash Jones.

So the state board responsible for ensuring cops are certified to work in New Mexico and for holding them accountable when they step out of line, has struggled for years to fulfill its duties.

There have been fits and starts for the Law Enforcement Academy Certification Board.

Periods of crippling inaction, accusations of unfair treatment, a strong aversion to transparency and more Democratic State Senator Antonio Mo Maestas Spent a couple of years trying to shore things up for the board, finally getting a bill passed and signed into law in 2023.

But in the last year, plus, old problems and new ones have bubbled up, threatening to cripple a seldom seen but vitally important agency.

So later this hour, executive producer Jeff Proctor digs into that mess with Maestas Also, there is a new New Mexican in the Trump administration.

We're going to update you on the confirmation of former U.S.

representative and state Republican Party chair Steve Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management.

Our field reporter, Cailey Chella, is back with us this week as well, with a look at a labor fight between the state and so-called permanently temporary workers at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

Then, with an outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship making global headlines, you as a new Mexican may have felt a little ahead of the curve in your familiarity with the illness, but not so fast.

I sit down with the hantavirus expert from UNM Health Sciences Center to understand what's different about the strain found here and what his new research reveals about what we've misunderstood about it.

But first, the state's Water Quality Control Commission made a controversial decision last week when it approved a petition to revisit a rule it created just one year ago regarding how fracking wastewater can be used.

Currently, the toxic soup known as produced water, even if treated, can't be released beyond the oil fields.

The oil and gas industry backed petition seeks to change that, allowing 13 counties to acquire permits to discharge it into groundwater and surface waters, including for commercial, industrial or agricultural purposes.

Tannis Fox, senior attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center, joins us to break down what that rule would do, why a coalition of environmental groups strongly opposes it, and what's to come in the rulemaking process.

Tannis, thanks so much for being here.

Before we dig into the petition that the commission just accepted, let's back up just a little bit.

Can you talk about what produced water is exactly and how it's being deployed currently.

>> Fox: Produced water is a waste byproduct from will and gas operations, and it's produced constantly through the drilling and production process.

And it's a combination of both what's called formation water and that is water that is in the geologic formations from which oil and gas comes, and from the fracking, the hydraulic fracturing fluids that are added to the drilling process in order to make the drilling process more efficient.

And both sets of water that produce, produce water have potential contaminants in them.

The formation water, even though it's natural, can also have naturally occurring contaminants such as naturally occurring radioactive materials.

The fracking fluids also can contain harmful water contaminants.

>> Nash: Okay and then how is it being used right now?

>> Nash: So produce water is really a toxic soup that can contain up to over 1000 chemicals.

According to the sort of Seminole Seminole article on produced water.

And right now it is reused within the oil field for drilling purposes.

In New Mexico, about 60% of the produced water produced is reused within the oil field.

That number, in our opinion, should and could be higher, but it has increased over time and then the remainder is, generally speaking, disposed of, like dispose of waste in deep well injection through deep well injection.

>> Nash: Okay.

And the petition that we're talking about, it aims to create a rule to change how and where this produced water can be discharged.

What would the rule allow for if it were to come to fruition?

>> Fox: Well, just backing up a little bit right now, the rule in place from the Water Quality Control Commission is not to allow any discharge whatsoever to groundwater and surface water.

That rule was passed about a year ago.

This petition from a group called the Water Alliance would allow discharge both to groundwater and to surface water.

And New Mexico discharge to groundwater is really a land, any kind of land application because of the potential for any kind of water discharge to migrate down to the water table.

>> Nash: Okay.

All right.

And who requested it?

You mentioned the water alliance.

Who are they and who else is involved in this this petition rulemaking process?

>> Fox: The Water Alliance brought this petition.

They are a industry backed nonprofit group, >> Nash: and it's an acronym for Water Access, Treatment and Reuse.

>> Fox: Correct.

And they are aligned with the oil and gas industry.

And then also the city of Bloomfield.

The counties of San Juan and Lee are also joint petitioners.

>> Nash: And your organization, the Western Environmental Law Center, represents a coalition of environmental groups that oppose this proposed rule.

What is your argument against it?

>> Fox: In our view right now, the science is not there to support large scale discharge of treated produce water to surface or groundwater.

That's that's the real issue here is can treated produce water, be treated to a level that meets all meets all water quality standards, both for groundwater and surface water?

>> Nash: And is that in part the fact that the science is out on this?

Because we don't know actually what's in this stuff.

>> Fox: That's one of the really big problems with produce water, because as I said, it contains it can can contain up to a thousand chemicals, not not in one set of produced water, but it, it varies from well to well, the contents.

Geologic formation to geologic formation.

State to state.

The hydraulic fracturing fluids.

What the contents of those are also varies producer to producer, and those contents aren't required to be disclosed.

So you've got this, mix of potentially dangerous chemicals in this water and you don't know what's there.

And so that's one of the problems.

Another one of the problems is that even knowing what some of the potential contaminants are in there, we don't have we have information that there are potentially hazardous, but we don't necessarily have what are called water quality standards for those contaminants.

And so even though we know that they could be harmful to human health of the environment, we don't know at what levels to be able to say what's safe or what's not.

And so that is one of the problems is we don't know what's in it and it's difficult to treat.

>> Nash: Would you be opposed to any rule that would allow produced water to be used outside of the fields at all, even in a limited capacity?

>> Fox: The rule right now that the Water Quality Control Commission passed a year ago, that we did support, does allow for pilot projects outside the field.

As long as they're not discharging.

We strongly support the science moving forward, and the science is moving forward.

And the rule in place allows for pilot projects to take the produced water and to study characterization.

That is what's in the produce water and to study how to treat it.

>> Nash: Why is that rule, which as you mentioned, is a year old already being rethought?

If it just we just went through this and that, that rule was established.

Why is it already being brought back?

>> Fox: Well, I got to say, I've been in representing and before the Water Quality Commission, Water Quality Control Commission now for over 20 years, and I've never seen a rulemaking process like this where the Commission passes a rule and almost the next day there's a petition to undo that rule.

And that's what happened.

Under normal circumstances, the Water Quality Control Commission would not allow that that petition to reverse what they had just done for a year and a half worth of work, I might add, to go forward.

>> Nash: What's abnormal about the current circumstances, >> Fox: the this petition and the reuse of produced water is really a governor priority, and she's made that very clear in public statements.

>> Nash: Yeah.

New Mexico is experiencing a water crisis.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has seen the cleanup and reuse of produced water as a potential part of this larger solution that she's that she's proposed.

How much of a dent could produce water make in in our need for water as a state?

>> Fox: Well, reuse or produce water is no panacea given given the numbers, the state generates over something.

Over something north of 2 billion barrels of produced water each year that produce water.

If it were treated, probably only about 50% of the total amount could actually be reused.

>> Nash: Because it would get clean enough >> Fox: Yeah, because it cleans up and it produces.

It's going to produce.

You know, one of the issues is it produces a waste product itself that then has to be disposed of.

And and so the numbers industry isn't really generating a lot of numbers, but produce water is not going to solve the water scarcity problem in New Mexico.

Reuse of produce water.

Brackish water, industrial wastewater is only potentially part of the solution, but conservation is another part of the solution.

>> Nash: Well, following the commission's recent vote, spokesperson for the governor, Liam March, told Source New Mexico in a statement that Lujan Grisham wants to advance science based solutions, including safe and responsible wastewater reuse.

She went on to say that that this vote establishes a pathway to ensure that all of the evidence is on the table before a decision is made.

What do you make of the governor's statements?

>> Fox: I don't think anybody can disagree with the proposition that if we're going to reuse industrial wastewater, that it should be done safely.

Nobody disagrees with that.

I think where the the disagreement lies is what is the state of the science and technology today.

Have there been any large scale studies that show that treated produced water can be safely discharged to ground or surface water?

And from our point of view, there are not.

>> Nash: Water Alliance co-founder Matthias Sayer argues that there's a substantial body of new research since the existing rule went into effect, and accuses critics like your organization of being resistant to hearing it.

What's your response?

>> Fox: That is absolutely not true.

I'm a former New Mexico Environment Department employee.

I believe in the science and the science is developing.

But is the science at a point, as I've said, to allow large scale discharge to surface and groundwater.

The scientists we talked to say no.

>> Nash: So no new research or no substantial new research that would show it was safe since the existing rule went into effect.

>> Fox: Correct.

>> Nash: But there is new science.

>> Fox: Yes, it is developing and it should develop.

>> Nash: Okay.

Well, this petition is going to kick off a really long process.

It already has.

That's going to begin with a hearing.

What role could Lujan Grisham leaving office at the end of the year.

Play in the timeline of when that hearing is scheduled.

>> Fox: Well, that is a good question.

We the hearing is not set yet and we don't know when the hearing will be set.

There was discussion in the commission the other day that it would be set maybe at the end of the year or the beginning of next year, because they've got a very full, fulsome schedule between now and the end of the year.

>> Nash: But the difference between the end of the year and the beginning of next year is very big.

When we've got a shift in governor.

>> Fox: That is quite true.

>> Nash: So is your organization familiar with pressures to get this hearing scheduled before Lujan Grisham leaves office?

>> Fox: The Environment Department had had taken the position during the legislative session that the hearing could be held by the end of the year.

I think that that would be hard.

It's a really complicated rule.

And, you know, it's like 40 some odd pages, single spaced.

And part of the problem with the rule is that there are 20 of those pages that are supposed to contain limits on the, on the 400 potential contaminants, and that have been identified that could be in produced water from the specifically really from the Permian Basin are left blank.

Those effluent limits, they have an upper and lower range and they're left blank for those 400 contaminants.

>> Nash: So they have to be figured out.

>> Fox: Yes.

And part of our argument was this petition is no ready for prime time, because this critical information is not in the petition.

>> Nash: Okay.

And so it sounds like your organization would like to see the hearing scheduled next year.

>> Fox: Yes.

Yeah.

We don't have I mean, this is like what's missing is part of the heart of the petition.

and it's really super complex.

You can imagine 400 contaminants.

What are the levels?

What are safe levels?

>> Fox: It does sound complex.

In addition to that complexity being part of why you want the hearing to be pushed out.

Is is the governor's race playing any kind of role in that?

When we know that Deb Haaland, in many ways the front runner in the race today, is opposed to the reuse of produced water beyond the oil fields.

>> Fox: Well, you know, I think for our for our purposes, we we really need the hearing to happen at the next year because it's so complex >> Nash: and not because the governor at that time may be somebody who, unlike Lujan Grisham, opposes this rule.

>> Fox: Well, I mean, that could be something that should be taken into account by the Water Quality Control Commission because, you know, do we want a, you know, a hearing to go forward and then for it only to be requested to be stopped by a new governor?

I don't know.

I don't know what a new governor would do, but it it is it does present a question mark for this hearing.

>> Nash: Besides the date of the hearing, is there anything else that you're looking out for in terms of next steps as this lengthy process moves forward?

>> Fox: We were looking out for we're gathering our experts.

We're working with coalition members.

We are talking to members of the public.

I think one thing that I would really like to say is I think that this issue is really tearing the state apart in a way that I haven't seen other water quality control commissions do over, you know, two and a half decades.

And so I think that I think the process should come to a stop.

I think there should be a reset, and I think there should be.

And this governor could do that too.

I think there should be a conversation among all the state stakeholders, a real conversation about what we're doing and why.

>> Nash: Tannis Fox, thank you so much.

Thank you to Tannis Fox for coming down to Albuquerque to share her take on the petition and next steps.

We're going to keep you updated as that process moves forward.

Following that interview, we gave the governor's office and the state Environment Department the opportunity to respond to specific statements that Fox made.

Neither did so.

The environment Department declined to comment, and the governor's office sent a general statement about Lujan Grisham position, similar to the one that I quoted in the interview.

In related news, we have an update on the governor's strategic water supply.

While the proposal originally included reusing produced water that was stripped out because of the controversy and pushback that Tannis Fox just outlined, the version lawmakers passed and funded last year solely focuses on cleaning up and putting to use more than 1 trillion gallons of natural, salty, brackish water that lies beneath the state.

The state environment Department announced this week that it has awarded $13 million in contracts to map, test and treat brackish water.

These new awards tap a $40 million fund the legislature created last year, and add to a set of seven grants announced in December.

Albuquerque based WSP received about $9 million to map water quality and quantity in the middle Rio Grande basin, along with feasibility studies.

Another Albuquerque shop, Indy Water, is slated to use its $3.7 million share to pilot a mobile desalination plant for rural and tribal communities.

Finally, Massachusetts based company Harmony and we'll put about $271,000 towards a more efficient desalination system at a farm in Lake Arthur in hopes of informing a scalable model.

The legislature this year approved an additional $35 million for brackish water projects.

The environment department says it will open applications for that funding in August.

>> Maestas: A license i s a permission to have a particular job.

This is an incredibly difficult job.

Not everybody's made to be a police officer.

It's not their bad if they can't do that job.

But yeah, the intent was that internal affairs and work product and interviews and things of that nature were made public.

But the actual allegations and the the fact that the complaint exists, the fact that that someone is suspended or revoked, that's, that needs to be public.

>> Nash: Catch that conversation with State Senator Mo Maestas in about ten minutes.

For decades, some workers at the National Hispanic Cultural Center have been state employees, but only in name.

Classified as temporary, they were denied benefits like health insurance, paid time off and retirement even though they work full time schedules, and even though a state agency oversees the cultural center.

After nearly two years of fighting for a full slate of rights, those workers are now on the doorstep of a massive victory.

The state labor board earlier this month unanimously sided with the workers, agreeing that the way that the state classified their employment status was nothing more than a ruse.

The ruling means those workers will get to join a union, as could hundreds of other state employees who are deemed temporary.

In focus reporter Cailley Chella has the story.

>> All: Cheers!

>> Cailley: Rosemary Gallegos is celebrating.

She's been working essentially full time as a set and exhibit designer at the National Hispanic Cultural Center for more than 20 years, and now the state labor board says she should finally get the full benefits to show for it.

>> Gallegos: If you really look at it the way it is, I would be retiring right now on a retirement fund.

Where is it?

You know what I'm saying?

So, I mean, this is 20 plus years that I have given a lot of me to them.

>> Cailley: But she says she didn't get much back.

The National Hispanic Cultural Center falls under the Department of Cultural Affairs, which is a state agency.

Gallegos says over the years, the state has cut employment benefits bit by bit.

She's not exactly sure who held the scissors, which made the fight that much more difficult.

Then came the last straw.

>> Gallegos: In 2024, they decided to get rid of our sick leave and our vacation leave.

That was it for me, I said, you know now it's wrong.

>> Cailley: Jacob Saavedra loves his job.

He's been what the state, calls a temporary customer service rep for over four years now.

>> Saavedra: I really like my coworkers, and I like the I like the mix of cultural things that I get to see being there from the art to the performances that otherwise I probably might have not have gone to see, like flamenco.

So it's broadened my horizons quite a bit.

>> Cailley: And as someone living with chronic illness and a disability, he found the Hispanic Cultural Center to be one of the rare workplaces willing to accommodate him.

>> Saavedra: With my health stuff, I need something that's reliable and consistent, but also is willing to work with me.

>> Cailley: After catching Covid, he thinks while working the ticket booth in late 2024, he fell into a five week coma.

>> Saavedra: And I think if I had a job that was more corporate, I wouldn't have a job after the coma, they would have cut me.

And that's another thing that's really hard to find, is a job where they're willing to keep you on board through hardship.

The coma took a lot out of me, and so even, even just getting ready in the morning is a lot.

>> Cailley: His hospitalization and time away from work added new gravity to his temporary worker status and lack of benefits.

>> Saavedra: Medicaid actually dropped me because I had made too much money the previous year, so they had dropped me and I had no annual leave, no sick leave.

I couldn't I couldn't get donated leave from anyone in the state because of our position as temporary.

>> Saavedra: But the financial burden was deep.

Grace Saavedra, Jacob's mom, began working at the center to support him.

>> Grace: We had to cover prescriptions out of pocket because they were releasing him.

But we have a he has a wonderful friend and coworker, Liz, who actually said, suggested we need to do a GoFundMe.

I mean, we got a lot of help from coworkers and friends and family that without that, there was no way we would have been able to to make it through all of this.

No way.

>> Cailley: Things were tough for a number of employees at the center.

Jacob, Rosemary and others had been stuck in a hired and fired cycle for years, where the state would repeatedly sign them to one year contracts, with short breaks in between so they could claim them as temporary workers and deny them benefits.

>> Gallegos: You know, we get fired every year, rehired within a week, maybe two weeks, sometimes two months, depends.

There were years where I actually was an emergency rehire and boom, I was in the next day.

>> Cailley: Joining a union quickly emerged as the only path forward for Gallegos and her coworkers.

>> Hello, Albuquerque, welcome to May Day.

I'm really, really glad you're here.

>> Cailley: And when the legal fight began in 2024.

The state argued the workers had never finished a full one year probationary period required to join the union, but the labor board didn't buy it.

And at a hearing on May 5th, the three board members voted unanimously.

>> Nelson: I will make a motion that we uphold and affirm the report of the hearing officer in this matter.

>> Nash: I'll second that motion.

>> Vaile: All in favor, say I.

>> All: I.

>> Green: And a final decision was made that these temporary workers or so-called temporary workers of the National Hispanic Cultural Center can join our union.

>> Cailley: The board's decision followed a damning recommendation from their hearing examiner, who found the Department of Cultural Affairs and the State Personnel Office had violated the workers rights and should pay compensatory damages for the years of benefits they denied.

>> Green: The decision that they're able to join the union means that they will now be entitled to the rights we have in our union contract.

>> Cailley: We're talking paid time off, sick leave, retirement, the right to a fair disciplinary process, the right to file a grievance, etc.

I wanted to know the state's perspective.

So I reached out to the State Personnel Office, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the director at the National Hispanic Cultural Center after the labor board decision, and they all declined an interview.

The Department of Cultural Affairs saying that their legal team is still reviewing the matter, and the state personnel office saying that they can't comment on what they're considering still active on going litigation.

>> Green: We're really just hoping that they don't appeal this further.

It just feels like they're trying to drain our union resources.

This has been a costly fight for us, and but we think it's worth it because people deserve to join a union and have benefits in their workplace, especially as state employees.

>> Cailley: The Administrative Office of the courts tells us that the state does want to keep fighting.

Their next step would be to take it to a district court and ask a judge to reverse the labor board's decision.

But Green says even if the state doesn't go that route, they have other ways of pushing back.

I'm concerned that the state is going to make it hard.

The state, of course, still holds the controls on making sure these folks get benefits, right.

They're the ones that push the button that says, take out the insurance contributions, or take out the pension contributions and make sure these people are actually accruing leave.

And we're going to have to hold the state accountable to doing that.

>> Cailley: Still, she says she's pleased with the outcome.

>> Green: This is a big win.

I think there's been a lot of question in the state about who qualifies as a public employee that can join a union under the Public Employees Bargaining Act.

And so this was a new decision that I think allows a wider variety of employees to join a union.

>> Cailley: Earlier this year, Democratic State Representative Patricia Roybal Caballero sponsored a measure to find out how many other state workers are incorrectly classified as temporary.

It failed.

The most recent state numbers, which are from March, show there are 792 employees labeled temporary, though it's not known how many of those are miscategorized.

For now, the workers at the National Hispanic Cultural Center are hanging on to their win.

But for the rest of the state, the work is just beginning for New Mexico in Focus.

I'm Cailley Chella reporting.

>> Bradfute: So the the cardiopulmonary virus is really quite rare.

We only see a handful of infections per year in New Mexico.

There's a couple of dozen in North America every year.

And then for this Andes virus, a couple one 200 or so a year in South America.

So it doesn't spread like Covid.

It doesn't spread like flu.

So while there is some transmission, it is something that you can contain with good public health measures.

>> Nash: Stay with us for that conversation about New Mexico's strain of the Hantavirus in about 15 minutes.

So things have gotten messy at the state's board charged with investigating police misconduct.

As of late, it's adopted a new secrecy policy that makes it impossible for anyone to get information about its investigations.

The board's former CEO and the Law Enforcement academy's former deputy director have sued the state's public safety department, alleging financial mismanagement, interference and retaliation by a cabinet secretary and others.

The board oversees police training and the certification required for every cop in the state, and it's supposed to be independent.

Democratic state senator Mo Maestas thought he'd seen to that with a bill he sponsored in 2023, but the allegations spilling into public view over the past year, plus threaten to undermine that legislative work.

To get the senator's take on what's happening at this.

Often invisible but always important agency.

Executive producer Jeff Proctor brought Maestas for a chat.

Here's Jeff.

>> Jeff: Senator, thank you for being here.

And welcome to New Mexico in Focus.

>> Maestas: It's great to be here.

>> Jeff: Any time I am talking to a lawmaker about a piece of legislation that they have sponsored.

The real question that I want to get at is, what problem were you trying to fix with that law?

So I'd like to win the clock back just a bit.

Give me a little bit of the landscape of how police certification and the accountability system statewide were working back in the day.

What were you trying to fix with Senate Bill 19 in 2023?

>> Maestas: So we looked at some very old structures.

The Law Enforcement Academy was attached to DPS director appointed by the governor.

Yes.

So we were looking at very old structures.

The law enforcement Academy was part of Department of Public Safety.

Its director was appointed by the gov.

And it did three things.

It trained the officers and set the tone for other local law enforcement academies.

It dealt with certifications, theoretically suspending or revoking licenses of police officers and deputies, and also came up with the training curriculum.

So we looked at that and it was just very archaic.

It was inefficient.

There was not a lot of things happening.

It was, reporting was was horrible.

There was really no accountability.

So over the course of a couple, three years, we changed the laws and we created two new agencies, the Standard and Trainings Council, to come up with a modern curriculum for police and also a certification board similar to the bar in terms of you can graduate law school, but you don't, you're not a member of the bar until you take the test and answer questions.

So that way the law enforcement academy is not the bad guys.

They do the training, they're the good guys.

And then the certification board deals with misconduct allegations and theoretically can suspend or revoke a person's license to be a police officer.

>> Jeff: One of the things that happened with Senate Bill 19 was you created some separation.

You created some independence for that board.

It's no longer in the DPS structure.

You went so far as to include a definition in that law of administratively attached.

Senator, what does administratively attached mean in this context, and why was that important for you to bake into the law?

>> Maestas: It's very important that these agencies are independent.

So, as you know, state government, as you have the secretary, you have the department, you have divisions and bureaus underneath the governor and the secretary administratively attached is essentially independent.

It usually has a board that hires an executive director.

So there's a dozen or so agencies and you're attached simply for clerical support, budget support, auditing, you know, things of that nature.

But when we administratively attach these two agencies to the Department of Public Safety, it didn't happen that way.

They're not independent as of now.

>> Jeff: And we will get to some of that and due course.

But it sounds to me like part of what you were trying to get away from was a reporting structure where the cabinet secretary oversaw the folks trying to do that accountability work.

You wanted to get away from that, correct?

So it's not part of the executive branch.

It's independent.

There's nobody putting the thumb on the scale.

We want them loyal to the law.

We want them to professionalize policing and deputizing in this state so that police officers prioritize their profession, their professional license over there, buddy, or their agency.

So they're not just an APD cop.

They are a police officer employed by the city of Albuquerque.

>> Jeff: Gotcha.

So the first sign of trouble in Paradise that I saw with this new structure that you had set up was in January of 2025.

Source New Mexico published a story based on a leaked email from then board CEO Joshua Calder.

He was alleging interference, the type of which you had tried to get away from when you crafted the law.

Were you aware that there was static before that story published?

>> Maestas: Not so much.

We knew that it was slow going in terms of appointing the board members.

Then the board members hire a CEO.

Calder would have been fantastic if he would have stayed.

And then Calder hires his staff.

This is an agency.

It's not just a volunteer board.

And then when the email hit and the, you know, misconduct allegations were made public.

It was just very unfortunate that he was not able to keep that job.

>> Jeff: What was your reaction when you read that email from him to the board saying, I'm getting interference from Cabinet Secretary Jason Bowie.

He's not letting me do my job.

You as the person who sponsored that bill.

How did you take that?

>> Maestas: Just very frustrating.

Very frustrating that that was happening.

Very frustrating that that they weren't following the letter of the law.

And so we went into a legislative session that year soon thereafter.

And we were trying to fix some stuff, but it was just there was too much, too much animosity.

And it was difficult to pass a bill that session.

>> Jeff: Okay.

Among the sources of friction that we learned after reading that source story and the email that it was sort of built around, was that Secretary Bowie did not want Mr.

Calder and the board investigating citizen complaints against officers.

It was Bowie's perspective that what they should be doing is just focusing on allegations that come from the law enforcement agency itself.

I wonder when you wrote the bill, did you intend for the board to be able to investigate complaints from everyday folks?

>> Maestas: Absolutely.

That's the whole point.

I mean, in a perfect world, you get an email the next day when you get pulled over.

And how did I do?

You know, like when a plumber comes to your house, they, we wanted it, we didn't put that in statue because it was unnecessary.

The law enforcement academy dealt with private complaints.

But I think when there was some high profile officers that that were complained about then this, new policy was invented that we only take complaints from police officers.

>> Jeff: And I want to specify one of those in a moment.

But why was it important to you that citizen complaints be allowed to be investigated, in addition to complaints from their employing agencies?

>> Maestas: I mean, that's the whole point.

Every police officer in the state is a government employee.

You have the right to petition your government.

And so to complain to the agency and then the agency does nothing.

You know, we want we want democracy to prevail.

We want these government officials to be held accountable.

And frankly, a lot of the complaints may be frivolous and doesn't deserve higher scrutiny.

But a citizen complaining about its government official is paramount to democracy, in my opinion.

>> Jeff: Gotcha.

One of those cases specifically, you had mentioned some high profile officers.

I think a lot of my viewers will be familiar with Police Chief Harold Medina, who was the APD chief at the time.

He'd been involved in an automobile accident, and a city councilor, Louis Sanchez, filed a complaint with the Law Enforcement Academy Certification Board that seemed to stick in Bowies craw and create some static between him and Calder.

Do you remember it that way?

>> Maestas: Apparently, that was the first one that triggered this, this invented policy of citizen complaints.

So Harold Medina, you know, ushered APD through the DOJ process, is very well respected in the law enforcement community.

And so that complaint was not dealt with like every other complaint.

>> Jeff: Gotcha.

I want to move to another policy.

And I think you may be able to break some news here on the show this week.

I got to say that during my 20 years covering the criminal justice beat as a reporter, I was always frustrated with the old system prior to your bill that I was not able to get information about police misconduct investigations from the old board.

So needless to say, when I read Nick Gilmore's story in the Santa Fe New Mexican a couple of months ago, saying that law enforcement agencies, in the course of trying to make a hiring decision, also weren't able to get information from the board.

And then I learned later that the officers themselves, the targets of these misconduct investigations, they're not able to get information from the board.

This new policy had developed for like, hard core secrecy.

I wonder, did you intend for that level of confidentiality when you wrote the bill?

>> Maestas: No, certainly not.

Certainly not particularly for the officers.

One of the criticisms of the old inefficient way of doing things was that officers were held in limbo for a year or two, not knowing if they're going to lose their license or whatnot.

>> Jeff: Not even knowing sometimes if they were being investigated.

>> Maestas: Right, right.

And so the, we want transparency we created in the statute a database.

If somebody is suspended or revoked, it's public information that if a chief is hiring somebody from another town, they know some of the history.

A license is a permission to have a particular job.

This is an incredibly difficult job.

Not everybody's made to be a police officer.

It's not their bad if they can't do that job.

But yeah, the intent was that internal affairs and work product and interviews and things of that nature were made public.

But the actual allegations and the and the the fact that the complaint exists, the fact that that someone is suspended or revoked, that's, that needs to be public.

>> Jeff: Gotcha.

It was based on a legal interpretation.

My understanding is by an attorney at the New Mexico Department of Justice.

I want to read you a little passage from the statute that he was basing this interpretation on.

It says “Internal Affairs and other investigation documents provided to or developed by the board for use in a certification case shall remain confidential.” How should that be interpreted, and do you think the law needs to be tweaked?

>> Maestas: It should be interpreted for investigative documents.

You know?

Post the initial allegations or the fact that they exist in the first place.

But yeah, that if when we do revisit this statute, we will make that much more clear.

It's, you know, I'll take full responsibility.

It's my bill.

It's not an intellectual exercise writing these bills.

It's sausage.

And we try to get the tastiest sausage on the books.

But it is disappointing that that was interpreted that way.

It's my understanding.

I was at the meeting last week and officer's names.

>> Jeff: The board meeting.

>> Maestas: So I was at the certification board meeting last week.

And the agenda did have officer's names.

So I think the board's going to revisit that initial interpretation.

But to me, the key words is, and I argue the policy, the words as investigative documents provider develop, not the initial documents >> Jeff: I see.

Okay, let's get viewers up to speed on the current state of play at the board.

Just in the last couple of weeks, the aforementioned Mr.

Calder has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Public Safety and Secretary Jason Bowie.

Brian Cox, the former deputy director of the Law Enforcement Academy, has filed a lawsuit that is eerily similar to Mr.

Calder's.

The allegations include violations of the state Whistleblower Protection Act, misappropriation of funds, retaliation by Bowie and others at DPS.

I'm certainly not going to ask you to comment on the specifics of ongoing litigation, but I wonder how all of that smoke surrounding this entity strikes you more broadly.

>> Maestas: Well, it's unfortunate that litigation had to transpire, but I'm glad it did, given the, you know, the frustration of the two plaintiffs in this situation.

In a perfect world, these administrative agencies have their own bank account, their own autonomy, you know, their own ability to function under the statute.

And it's just simply has not happened.

And it's not just the executive, the LFC the legislative finance committee, they don't necessarily love administrative agencies.

We do as policymakers because sometimes that's what's necessary to produce good government.

So there has been, to put it lightly, a lot of growing pains in developing these independent agencies.

>> Jeff: Gotcha and the misappropriation of funds piece.

I want to just kind of zero in on that for a moment, if I may.

You have had some questions yourself about the way the money works for the Law Enforcement Academy Certification Board.

You dashed off a letter to Secretary Bowie earlier this month, and I'm going to quote from that letter what you said was “the monumental duties that these two independent agencies are tasked with still have not come to fruition.

You close the letter by asking what part of administratively attached don't you understand?

What were you... what specific concerns were you wanting Secretary Bowie to address?

>> Maestas: Well, I mean, the statutes clear.

And we even put a special provision in DPS outlining the administratively attached agencies.

There's a statute dealing with administratively attached, you know, these these agencies are administratively attached.

We didn't point to this statute in the bill, but I think the the Department of Public Safety views these employees as Department of Public Safety employees, their employees of the certification board.

And so the certification board should have its own line item in the budget, which it doesn't.

I believe it did the first year, but does not now, which is are bad.

It should have its own bank account, its own ability to spend and track its own money.

The budget is presented through the department, but is totally under the control of these administratively attached agencies.

And that has not happened.

>> Jeff: You were not wanting DP to have control over the budget for this board.

And the statute, as I read it, does create a situation where it should have its own bank account.

Am I misreading that?

>>Maestas: It should.

It should know it has to be independent.

I mean, theoretically in the same office space or down the hall, but it needs to be independent from DPS to, you know, get the structure right, get the institution right.

I think every... sheriff that I... you know, the point is to get the institution right, to get the incentives right within those institutions.

Every sheriff I speak to looks forward to these agencies to be fully developed.

They should have their own bank account, but at the same time, administratively or bureaucratically, they have to have their own agency codes within the budget process.

So what I'm hoping to do is I've got an agreement from the executive and legislative finance leaders that they will act as if they have their own administrative codes in this upcoming budget cycle.

So hopefully House Bill two next January will have its own individual line items for these agencies because the budgets were increased.

But when you look at it on paper, the DPS budget was increased.

And I'm saying, hey, that money should go to these agencies, >> Jeff: which has sort of created the landscape in which some of these allegations may have arisen.

I wonder, has Secretary Bowie responded to the letter, have you had a chance to speak with them?

>> Maestas: No, I haven't spoke to the secretary just yet, but I've learned a lot since that letter.

And it's just... it's more... it's more difficult than, than it seems to create these agency codes and create these agencies as independent with their own bank account.

>> Jeff: Gotcha.

I want to ask one more question before I let you out of here.

What else will you be keeping an eye on?

As it looks like there are some problems with these entities that you helped to get set up with your legislation.

Are there additional legislative fixes beyond cleaning up that language that we spoke to a moment ago?

What else can you do as a state lawmaker to get done what you wanted here, which was to have a truly independent board that's in charge of licensure, essentially, and police accountability statewide?

>> Maestas: There's a lot of wor still to be done.

These can be model examples for the rest of the nation.

The way we do it here in New Mexico, the way it needs to be done.

So we have six months to educate both gubernatorial candidates and get the new governor on board.

But I think the key is with the training curriculum.

Our statutes are so old, they're from the 80s and 90s.

Police officers and deputies need 40 hours every two years, and they literally take a week off and just sit there for 40 hours receiving some type of training.

Training should be ongoing.

It should be weekly.

Monthly.

It should be video training in class on the field.

You know, it should be two, 400, 200 to 400 hours a year.

And so to get there, it's a difficult task because we need to take out the statutory requirements, which have handcuffed the training module and let the training counsel do its job.

So I think if we get confidence in these two agencies, we get good leadership on the training council.

They can hire the best and brightest from throughout the country, theoretically international policing.

And we could have the best trained police officers and deputies in the country right here in the state of New Mexico.

>> Jeff: I think that a lot of people would look forward to that being the case.

Senator Maestas Thank you so much for helping us understand what's going on over there.

>> Maestas: Thank you very much for having me.

>> Nash: Thanks to Senator Maestas For making the time.

We will be keeping an eye on how those lawsuits play out and what becomes of that secrecy policy.

It's official.

The Senate has confirmed New Mexico's former Republican congressman, Steve Pearce, as director of the Bureau of Land Management.

The Senate confirmed the former chair of the New Mexico Republican Party on a 46 to 43 party line vote as part of a package deal with 48 other nominees.

During his confirmation hearing back in February, Pearce said that New Mexico's second congressional district, which he represented for seven terms, had great examples of what multiple use of public lands means >> Pearce: Hunting and access and outdoor sports are drivers of one local economy in another area.

Oil and gas provide the jobs.

Yet another has national parks and monuments.

>> Nash: While in Congress, Pearce called for the federal government to sell off public lands to help pay down its deficit and opposed to the creation of the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument outside Las Cruces, environmental groups and New Mexico's two Democratic senators have strongly criticized the confirmation in a statement.

Senator Ben Ray Luján said he voted against Pearce because, quote, “his record makes it clear that he will not stand up for our public lands.” In his February hearing, Pearce argued for preserving natural spaces and protecting tribal lands while also prioritizing mineral extraction.

>> Pearce: President Trump has proven we can achieve his vision of energy dominance while provid clean air, water and soil.

The security and economic health of the country, especially the western states, rest squarely on the shoulders of the BLM.

We can and must balance the different uses of public land.

>> Nash: Pearce's confirmation comes quickly on the heels of the Trump administration ending the Public Lands Rule, which required the BLM to consider conservation along with development in its decisions.

The BLM oversees more than 13 million acres of land across New Mexico.

>> Nash: The whole world, it seems, has been talking about the hantavirus since an outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship began last month.

So far, the World Health Organization has linked 11 cases and three deaths to the cruise.

In the ship itself docked in the Netherlands to be disinfected just this week.

As this global story played out.

There were countless reports about this new virus.

Whereas here in New Mexico, the state with the highest rate of hantavirus cases in the country, we knew it wasn't new.

But how much of our local familiarity with hantavirus actually applied to what played out at sea?

Well, to help us explain why New Mexicans didn't know as much about the cruise ship outbreak as we may have thought, and some new research on the virus here in New Mexico.

I sat down with Doctor Steven Bradfute, a leading hantavirus researcher, an associate professor at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.

>> Nash: Doctor Bradfute, welcome to New Mexico in Focus.

Thanks so much for being here.

>> Bradfute: Thanks for having m >> Nash: So when news broke of the passengers on the MV Hondius cruise ship, I felt like as a new Mexican, the world was learning about a virus that I already was very familiar with.

And I imagine a lot of other New Mexicans felt the same.

But it turns out the strain that was on the cruise ship and the strain that's prevalent here in New Mexico are different.

How so?

>> Bradfute: So there's two groups of hanta viruses.

There's those that cause a kidney disease.

And then the ones in the Americas cause cardiopulmonary or heart and lung disease.

And so the main one in North America is sin nombre virus, which we know well in New Mexico and Central America is primarily choclo virus.

South America, it's primarily this Andes virus that you're discussing that was on the cruise ship.

And the difference with this virus causes a very similar syndrome than what we see here in the United States, but it can spread in a limited fashion from person to person.

And that's what makes Andes virus different.

>> Nash: Alright and the sin nombre strain It's actually made some headlines as well, including being found to be the cause of death of Betsy Arakawa, Gene Hackman█s wife.

What are the symptoms of that local strain and how deadly is it?

>> Bradfute: So the symptoms are easy to miss it first, because it can seem like a lot of other infections.

It's typically headache, body ache, fatigue, and a lot of GI symptoms.

And so a lot of times people don't realize they have a respiratory infection until a couple of days later.

You get a very severe respiratory syndrome with shortness of breath and extreme fatigue.

And that can lead very quickly to severe disease.

And unfortunately for these hantavirus in the Americas, the lethality rate is around 35%.

So about a third of people that get sick do die from disease.

>> Nash: How does that compare for folks who aren't familiar with like lethality rates?

>> Bradfute: Yeah, that's a great question.

So if you look at something like SARS-CoV-2 before we have vaccines and therapeutics, lethality rate 1 or 2-3%, something along those lines.

>> Nash: So it's really high.

>> Bradfute: It's very high.

Ebola the most common version of Ebola virus is around 40-45%.

Smallpox around 10%.

So these are Hunter viruses are very pathogenic.

>> Nash: Now, while it's incredibly deadly, how prevalent is it in humans.

>> Bradfute: So the cardiopulmonary viruses is really quite rare.

We only see a handful of infections per year in New Mexico.

There's a couple of dozen in North America every year.

And then for this Andes virus, a couple one 200 or so a year in South America.

>> Nash: And, well, there's only a handful of cases in New Mexico we do have consistently the highest rate in the nation.

Is that right?

>> Bradfute: That's right.

We have more hantavirus infections than any other state in the US.

>> Nash: Okay.

And, you know, for for decades there was warnings that it was the deer mice that were that were the carriers of the sin nombre hantavirus.

You have some recent research that shows that they're actually not alone.

What did you find?

>> Bradfute: Yeah, so my lab found that when we looked at rodents throughout New Mexico, we actually saw sin nombre virus present in many different species.

In addition to deer mice, we find it in the deer mice, but we also find it in house mice, gophers, chipmunks, pack rats.

And so what we wanted to look at is whether or not the virus could actually not just infect these animals, but could they shed live virus in their droppings.

And we were able to find that they are able to do so.

So we do think that different rodent species can carry and shed sin nombre virus.

>> Nash: And so is there is there a reason why we thought it was just deer mice?

And what's the difference between what they're able to do in terms of shedding in these other critters?

>> Bradfute: So that's an area of active research is whether or not these other rodents can carry and shed virus, but how much do they interact with humans compared to deer mice when people get infected, is it mostly deer mice that that can infect them?

Or are these other rodents able to transmit directly to humans?

They have the capability of doing that.

But whether or not that happens based on proximity is an open question.

>> Nash: Okay and does that also why hunter viruses is generally concentrated in northwestern New Mexico?

That's kind of the origin of the sin nombre virus in New Mexico.

And we mostly see the handful of cases you were referring to in the northwest.

I think the one case so far this year was in Santa Fe County.

Why would that be if these creatures, the mammals that you're referring to, that are more plentiful than we thought?

Are all over the state and all over the southwest for that matter?

>> Bradfute: Well, that's a great question.

So something we looked at is we looked at rodents throughout the state, and we found similar levels of infected rodents, similar percentages of infected rodents in areas where people don't get hantavirus in the state, such as the southeast where it's rare, versus the northwest.

So it could be a number of things.

It could be that the transmission is more efficient than the northwest.

Maybe do two things like elevation and relative humidity, where the virus can be more easily aerosolized for infection It could be we have slightly different strains in those areas.

Or it also could be we're under diagnosing infections in certain regions of the state.

>> Nash: And will you continue your research to to answer some of these questions?

>> Bradfute: Yeah, my lab is working on all three of these questions right now.

They're difficult to do, but it's interesting work that I think is important.

>> Nash: I think we've establish that while the lethality rate is high, the prevalence is quite low.

The risk is quite low.

That said, I think this cruise ship story has had people a little bit more fearful of catching hantavirus than maybe on a everyday news cycle.

Do you have any tips for folks on how they could reduce their risk for catching this virus?

>> Bradfute: Yeah, absolutely.

So the virus is normally spread when people inhale aerosolized rodent droppings basically.

So you might be cleaning out your shed and sweeping up.

And then there's rodent droppings that get aerosolized.

So what we like to tell people is that anytime you see areas of a lot of rodent activity, or when you see rodent droppings and you're going to be in that area, the CDC website and the New Mexico Department of Health website have really great instructions on how to safely clean up those areas.

So you use a disinfectant in the contaminated areas.

You try to see if you can get sunlight and air to air out those areas.

Use a well fitted in 95 mask and gloves after you've disinfected it, and paper towels to clean up.

You don't want to sweep.

You don't want to use a shop vac.

So there's ways you can really mitigate that risk.

>> Nash: And it's really just around these droppings.

And if you see them and cleaning them up, are there other risk factors that folks should be aware of or steps they can take?

>> Bradfute: I mean, theres... it's not unusual for patients to not really have a good idea of, oh, I don't necessarily remember a huge exposure that I had.

And so, so sometimes, you know, you just have to take the best precautions you can.

>> Nash: Okay, anything else that you feel like with how much folks are talking about in thinking about hantavirus, that you would like them to know, either from your research or what you've observed in New Mexico compared to what we're seeing on this global scale right now?

>> Bradfute: Yeah, so these hantaviruses are... they cause this cardiopulmonary syndrome, they are dangerous, but they are pretty rare and they don't spread... So the only one we know of Andes virus virus can spread person to person.

The largest outbreak we've had with this Andes virus is about is 32, 34 people over a period of 2 or 3 months in Argentina.

So and it was very it was able to be controlled with isolation and contact tracing, where you isolate individuals that are sick, you see who they've been around and they become sick, you isolate them and so on and so forth.

So it doesn't spread like Covid, it doesn't spread like flu.

So while there is some transmission, it is something that you can contain with good public health measures.

>> Nash: Okay thank you, Doctor Bradfute.

Appreciate your time.

>> Bradfute: Thanks for having me.

>> Nash: Thanks to Doctor Bradfute for breaking that all down and everyone else who contributed to the show.

And join us here next week for another report from our very own Cailley Chella as she delves into a community effort to rebuild a veteran shelter in south central New Mexico after a resident partially burned it down.

For New Mexico PBS, I'm Nash Jones.

Until then, stay focused.

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