Like Nevada, New Mexico has rejected a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.

Responding to the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission's plan to issue a license for a Holtec International facility in southeast New Mexico, the legislature passed Senate Bill 53 mostly along party lines, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed.

The bill said no nuclear storage permits will be issued without support from state officials and not before the federal government has identified a permanent disposal site.

John Buchser, nuclear waste issues chair for the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club, said a plan to safely transport nuclear waste via railroad from the east to a Western state has not been adequately studied.

"It's probably 10 years of research and then further decisions on, 'is that actually going to proceed?' And then dealing with the resistance of 'nobody really wants it,' " Buchser explained.

Nevada's Yucca Mountain was originally designated for the temporary nuclear waste repository, but strong state and regional opposition eventually killed the proposal. In New Mexico, city and county leaders from Carlsbad and Hobbs recruited Holtec to propose the nuclear-waste storage facility, and believe in its safety and promise to provide local jobs. The bill was signed by the governor hours after it passed.

Buchser hopes New Mexico's decision will put more pressure on Congress to create a permanent disposal site. He pointed out the problem of storing spent nuclear fuel is not unique to the United States, but some countries approach the problem differently.

"Finland is probably the best case, where they actually started with the premise, 'Let's talk to the people and ask them what they want to do with this?' " Buchser observed. "Instead of starting from the premise of the United States which seems to be, 'Let's define a site, and then we'll see what the public thinks about it.' "

A recent poll found 60% of New Mexico voters opposed the Holtec site, including 56% of those in southeast New Mexico. Those opposed to the "interim" storage site could become a substitute for permanent storage, with the radioactive waste possibly abandoned in New Mexico for a million years.

New research shows ancient chili peppers were likely growing in Southwestern states like New Mexico millions of years earlier than previously thought.

Scientists believe birds - which, unlike people, lack heat receptors and don't wince, or worse - when eating the spicy "berry-like" fruits, and spread their seeds across vast areas.

Now, researchers at the University of Colorado say a previously collected fossil shows they were growing in the Americas as much as 50 million years ago - much earlier than the 15 million years ago previously thought.

Study senior author, Stacey Smith - an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - said finding a fossil that upends settled facts is unexpected.

"All of these sort of distinctive members of the family made of eggplants, chile peppers, tobacco," said Smith, "all of these were around long, long before humans ever encountered them. So they were sort of hanging out waiting for us."

As of March 2023, "roasting green chile" is now the official scent of New Mexico. Lawmakers approved and the governor signed a bill making it the first state in the country with an official aroma.

It's estimated the Land of Enchantment produced a whopping 53,000 tons of the peppers in 2022.

Researchers say the chile-pepper fossils originally were collected from the Green River Formation in northwestern Colorado. The findings challenge the previous scientific understanding that nightshades originated from South America.

Smith said she's a bit awed and happy she's able to relate how the fossil discovery has transformed her understanding of plant diversification.

"'Oh that's a fossil of that kind of lizard' or 'That's a fossil of this kind of plant,'" said Smith. "So, it just so happens that we are the people who study those kind of plants and we look at that fossil and say, 'Hey, that's a chile pepper' - and we're 100% certain that it's nothing else."

The findings were recently published in New Phytologist, noting the entire nightshade family - including peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and more - is much older and was more widespread than previously documented.




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A U.S. Supreme Court case that began in Idaho has weakened protections across the nation under the Clean Water Act.

The justices on Thursday handed down a 5-4 decision that will undo federal safeguards for wetlands. The case stems from a couple's attempt to build a house in Priest Lake, Idaho. The Environmental Protection Agency informed the couple that backfilling on the property violated the Clean Water Act because it was affecting sensitive wetland habitat. The couple sued the agency.

Alex Funk, director of water resources and senior counsel for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, said the decision is a blow in many respects, including to people who enjoy the outdoors.

"For the hunting, fishing and sporting, and even kind of the broader outdoor rec community," he said, "these wetlands provide so many public values that are now at significant risk from development and other impacts."

In its decision, the majority wrote that Clean Water Act protections extend only to wetlands "indistinguishable" from larger bodies of water. It could affect up to 90 million acres of wetlands across the country.

Funk said wetlands are vital ecosystems providing benefits that tend to go unrecognized.

"If anything," he said, "this is going to put major setbacks on things like our ability to adapt to climate change, respond to extreme weather events, drought."

He noted that these habitats are essential for clean water, flood mitigation and storing carbon. Wetlands cover 386,000 acres in Idaho, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

For the first time in nearly three years, the widespread drought that has had Iowa in its grip is predicted to end. The latest drought outlook says the tinder-dry weather pattern will lift later this year.

The last time no part of Iowa was abnormally dry was in April 2020, according to the federal Climate Prediction Center's latest seasonal outlook. Justin Glisan, Iowa's state climatologist, said much wetter-than-normal spring weather, including the severe weather events that came with it, will kickstart the state's long climb back from the drought.

"Three years of precipitation deficits stacking up to 25 inches below average," he said. "We've started to put a dent in those longer-term deficits. We're seeing improvement, and contraction of the drought region."

May and June are normally Iowa's wettest months, and Glisan said the precipitation is still "ramping up." He added that this will be good for farmers who are planting crops and can look forward to more moisture than they've had recently.

Parts of Iowa have seen rainfall up to 6 inches above normal recently. Glisan said it's being driven by the El Niño weather pattern that is expected to intensify in the coming weeks. El Niño results from warmer-than-normal Pacific Ocean temperatures near the equator, and causes more rain in the Midwest. That's a positive for farmers, he said, as opposed to the La Niña pattern, which creates drier conditions in the region.

"We're moving in the right direction, trend-wise, in terms of the large-scale atmospheric setup that would support more rainfall during the growing season," he said, "as opposed to those La Nina signals that we had for the last three years."

Ironically, despite the pervasive drought, Iowa corn yield averages in the past two years have been among the state's highest in history.


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