Gallup Sun

The City of Gallup has closed its Customer Care Department until Jan. 20 due to unforeseen circumstances.

Customers may submit their utility payments on the city's online payment portal at https://utilities.gallupnm.gov or by telephone at (505) 726-4218. Payments for building permits will be processed at the City Clerk's Office.

Please call (505) 726-6138 for any questions regarding utility bills and payments.

‘Like a demon that’s always behind us,’ the Jackpile Mine toxic legacy continues’

In the village of Paguate as June Lorenzo’s grandmother knew it growing up, orchards and fields of wheat and corn carpeted nearby hillsides. Streams traversed a verdant valley where people hunted and grazed sheep near the small farming community in Laguna Pueblo. This was before a massive mine cratered the nearby land and altered the skyline. Lorenzo has looked for old photos of that landscape, but they’re hard to find. That place exists now only in stories from elders.

For a significant stretch of its 30 years in operation from 1953 to 1982, the Jackpile Mine was one of the world’s...

Oak Flat, Ariz. is a rallying point for tribal members, legislators

Sacred to Western Apache and other Indigenous people, the beautiful lands of Oak Flat, Ariz. are also home to species like ocelots and endangered Arizona hedgehog cacti.

Sadly this place of beauty, healing, and prayer is in danger. Multi-national mining conglomerate Rio Tinto — with a long, proven record of ecological and cultural destruction in other parts of the world — intends to replace its rolling hills with a massive copper mine.

The Center for Biological Diversity and its allies are working to save it.

 

BACKGROUND

For many centuries Oak Flat has played a fundamental role in the culture of Western...

SANTA FE – A new court-based program will assist New Mexicans facing the possible loss of housing during the pandemic and provide landlords with an alternative to evicting tenants unable to pay their rent.

The Eviction Prevention and Diversion Program will be piloted in the Ninth Judicial District of Curry and Roosevelt counties starting Feb. 1, and will be expanded statewide in March.

“Courts will provide trained facilitators in eviction cases to help landlords and tenants resolve disputes over rental payments,” Chief Justice Michael Vigil said Jan. 4 when he announced the program. “The goal is to negotiate a settlement acceptable to property owners and renters, allowing...