Mexico Environment Department Research Articles

Agricultural soils of the Animas River watershed after the Gold King Mine spill: An elemental spatiotemporal analysis via portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy.

In August 2015, 11.3 million L of heavy metal-contaminated water spilled into the Animas River from the Gold King Mine (Colorado, USA).National attention focused on water quality and agricultural production in areas affected by the spill. In response to local concerns, surface soil elemental concentrations were analyzed in three New Mexico agricultural fields to determine potential threats to agronomic production. Irrigated fields in the Animas watershed were scanned using portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) spectrometry to monitor the spatiotemporal variability of Pb, As, Cu, and Cr. A total of 175 locations were scanned using PXRF before and after the growing season for 3 yr. The geostatistical model with the lowest RMSE was chosen as the optimal model. The lowest RMSE for the elements ranged from to 0.10 to 0.44 m for As, from 0.50 to 0.98m for Cr, from 0.15 to 0.91m for Cu, and from 0.14 to 0.44m for Pb across the models selected. The spatial dependence between the measured values exhibited strong to moderate autocorrelation for all metals except for As, for which spatial dependence was strong to weak. Some areas in each field exceeded the New Mexico Environment Department soil screening limit of 7.07mg As kg-1 . All sampling locations were below the screening limit at last sampling time in 2019. Mixed models used for temporal analysis showed a significant decrease only in As below the screening value at the end of the study. Results indicate that the agricultural soils were below the soil screening guideline values.

Asthma vs. PM2.5: A Bridge Between Health and Environmental Surveillance.

Asthma vs. PM2.5: A Bridge Between Health and Environmental Surveillance.

Tribe at a Crossroads: The Navajo Nation Purchases a Coal Mine

Tribe at a Crossroads: The Navajo Nation Purchases a Coal Mine

Hypersensitivity pneumonitis withMycobacterium aviumcomplex among spa workers

The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) investigated the cause of two cases of hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) in spa maintenance workers with laboratory confirmed Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC). The investigation occurred in tandem with worker protection and swimming pool regulatory investigations by the New Mexico Environment Department at the spa where the workers were employed. The investigation was conducted in order to identify unreported cases, exposure source(s), and to prevent further worker exposure. NMDOH surveyed 57 spa employees about symptoms and exposures, categorized jobs according to self-reported exposure to water, and computed odds ratios for symptom reporting by exposure category. Environmental isolates from spa water and filter swabs were cultured and compared to patient isolates by the Environmental and Applied Microbiology Team, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Workers with the highest exposure reported more HP-like symptoms (OR = 9.6), as did intermediate exposure workers (OR = 6.5), compared to workers with no aerosolized water exposure. Two of 13 environmental isolates were closely related to one of the patient isolates. Workers were likely exposed during spray cleaning of cartridge filters in a poorly ventilated work space. Recommendations include inhibiting organism growth in spa systems, assuring the use of respiratory protection, and adequately ventilating work spaces where filters and equipment are cleaned.

What was the groundwater quality before mining in a mineralized region? Lessons from the Questa project

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New Mexico Environment Department and supported by Molycorp, Inc (currently Chevron Minerals), has completed a 5-year investigation (2001–2006) to determine the pre-mining groundwater quality at Molycorp’s Questa molybdenum mine in northern New Mexico. Current mine-site ground waters are often contaminated with mine-waste leachates and no data exists on pre-mining ground-water quality so that pre-mining conditions must be inferred. Ground-water quality undisturbed by mining is often worse than New Mexico standards and data are needed to help establish closure requirements. The key to determining pre-mining conditions was to study the hydrogeochemistry of a proximal natural analog site, the Straight Creek catchment. Main rock types exposed to weathering include a Tertiary andesite and the Tertiary Amalia tuff (rhyolitic composition), both hydrothermally altered to various degrees. Two types of ground water are common in mineralized areas, acidic ground waters in alluvial debris fans with pH 3–4 and bedrock ground waters with pH 6–8. Siderite, ferrihydrite, rhodochrosite, amorphous to microcrystalline Al(OH)3, calcite, gypsum, barite, and amorphous silica mineral solubilities control concentrations of Fe(II), Fe(III), Mn(II), Al, Ca, Ba, and SiO2, depending on pH and solution composition. Concentrations at low pH are governed by element abundance and mineral weathering rates. Concentrations of Zn and Cd range from detection up to about 10 and 0.05 mg/L, respectively, and are derived primarily from sphalerite dissolution. Concentrations of Ni and Co range from detection up to 1 and 0.4 mg/L, respectively, and are derived primarily from pyrite dissolution. Concentrations of Ca and SO4 are derived from secondary gypsum dissolution and weathering of calcite and pyrite. Metal:sulfate concentration ratios are relatively constant for acidic waters, suggesting consistent weathering rates, independent of catchment. These trends, combined with lithology, mineralogy, and mineral solubility controls, provide useful constraints on pre-mining ground-water quality for the mine site where the lithology is known.

English

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New Mexico Environment Department, has completed a 4-year investigation (2001-2005) to determine the pre-mining ground-water quality at Molycorp's Questa molybdenum mine in northern New Mexico. Current mine-site ground waters are often contaminated with mine-waste leachates and no data exists on pre-minng ground-water quality so that pre-mining conditions must be inferred. Ground- water quality undisturbed by mining is often worse than New Mexico standards and data are needed to help establish closure requirements. The key to determining pre-mining conditions was to study the hydrogeochemistry of a proximal natural analog. Main rock types exposed to weathering include a Tertiary andesite and the Tertiary Amalia tuff (rhyolitic composition), both hydrothermally altered to various degrees. Two types of ground water are common in mineralized areas, acidic ground waters in alluvial debris fans with pH 3-4 and bedrock ground waters with pH 6-8. Siderite, ferrihydrite, rhodochrosite, amorphous to microcrystalline Al(OH)3, calcite, gypsum, barite, and amorphous silica mineral solubilities control concentrations of Fe(II), Fe(III), Mn(II), Al, Ca, Ba, and SiO2, depending on pH and solution composition. Concentrations at low pH are governed by element abundance and mineral weathering rates. Concentrations of Zn and Cd range from detection up to about 10 and 0.05 mg/L, respectively, and are derived primarily from sphalerite dissolution. Concentrations of Ni and Co range from detection up to 1 and 0.4 mg/L, respectively, and are derived primarily from pyrite dissolution. Concentrations of Ca and SO4 -2 are derived from secondary gypsum dissolution and weathering of calcite and pyrite. Metal:sulfate concentration ratios are relatively constant for acidic waters, suggesting consistent weathering rates. These trends, combined with lithology, mineralogy, and mineral solubility controls, provide useful constraints on pre-mining ground-water quality for the mine site where the lithology is known.

Beyond the Bench: Nurses Adapt to Changing Health Care Climate

Vol. 113, No. 12 EnvironewsOpen AccessBeyond the Bench: Nurses Adapt to Changing Health Care Climate Tanya Tillett Tanya Tillett Search for more papers by this author Published:1 December 2005https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.113-a814AboutSectionsPDF ToolsDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InReddit With increased emphasis being placed on the importance of environmental health comes the need for an expanded variety of environmental health care practitioners. Nursing is one of several professions that are augmenting and advancing the capabilities of their practitioners to meet this need. Now the Community Outreach and Education Program (COEP) of the University of New Mexico’s Center for Environmental Health Sciences has partnered with the New Mexico Environment Department to create an environmental health nursing internship as a component of its outreach program.In cooperation with the university College of Nursing, the partners recruit nursing students who are interested in implementing environmental health care initiatives in the surrounding community. For four years, the program has taken nursing students beyond the traditional curriculum and shown them firsthand how interaction with environmental factors affects human health. The program also gives students valuable experience in taking measures to abate hazardous exposures in communities.The interns are currently working on a number of projects that will affect different community members. They are helping to develop surveys and compiling data for a project investigating uranium exposure and subsequent kidney damage among the Navajo Nation, whose members live near and work in uranium mines. They are gathering and assembling materials for a community education and survey project on mercury in surface waters and other environmental health concerns among the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. They are helping COEP staff write and field-test an integrated environmental health curriculum on diabetes for middle school students. And in a fourth project, they are helping to develop a best-practices manual for applying farm waste fertilizer to croplands in a way that minimizes human exposure to aerosolized waste.The local ties of some of the nursing interns have enhanced the program’s role as an effective community advocate. Intern Krystyn Yepa is a Native American from the Pueblo of Jemez who became interested in environmental health nursing because she wanted to understand some of the health effects in her tribe resulting from exposure to different pollutants in the environment. “Learning about the different environmental health problems that exist in New Mexico has given me the willpower to finish nursing school to ultimately achieve my goal of improving the health and lifestyles of my people by placing importance on the environment,” she says.Yepa explains further, “As a Native American, I was raised to respect and appreciate the environment, and working at the COEP has only strengthened my values related to the environment.” She also credits the internship with teaching her important assessment tools that lay emphasis on the environment when completing a health history on patients, something a traditional nursing internship would not likely provide.“The nursing interns have been an incredible asset to our COEP,” says staff member Stefani Hines. “It is a mutually beneficial situation on many levels—the student nurses gather valuable real-world experiences in environmental health; the nursing school has access to additional, unique placements for their students; we have additional support for projects, which helps make them better; and the communities we work with benefit from the students’ efforts as well.”Dedicated, enthusiastic environmental health nursing interns will only continue to play an important role in advancing the COEP mission. One project currently in development will help community members get involved in city and county zoning processes, which will both encourage a healthy community mindset and minimize exposures to pollutants.Effecting change in Southwest communities.Krystyn Yepa (right) is one of several nursing interns working with Navajo and Sioux communities to reduce exposures and increase knowledge through a program of the University of New Mexico Center for Environmental Health Sciences.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 113, No. 12 December 2005Metrics About Article Metrics Publication History Originally published1 December 2005Published in print1 December 2005 Financial disclosuresPDF download License information EHP is an open-access journal published with support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. All content is public domain unless otherwise noted. 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Bureaucrats, Politics, and the Environment

Bureaucrats, Politics, and the Environment. By Richard W. Waterman, Amelia A. Rouse, and Robert L. Wright. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. 184p. $24.95.This is not a book about the environment. Rather, it is an effort to improve existing models of bureaucratic behavior, especially in regard to how bureaucrats relate to the larger political environment. It relies on data from questionnaires from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the New Mexico Environment Department.

Bureaucrats, politics, and the environment

The bureaucracy in the United States has a hand in almost all aspects of our lives, from the water we drink to the parts in our cars. For a force so influential and pervasive, however, this body of all nonelective government officials remains an enigmatic, impersonal entity. The literature of bureaucratic theory is rife with contradictions and mysteries. Bureaucrats, Politics, and the Environment attempts to clarify some of these problems. The authors surveyed the workers at two agencies: enforcement personnel from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and employees of the New Mexico Environment Department. By examining what they think about politics, the environment, their budgets, and the other institutions and agencies with which they interact, this work puts a face on the bureaucracy and provides an explanation for its actions.

Outbreak of Salmonellosis Associated With Beef Jerky—New Mexico, 1995

In February 1995, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) was notified of cases of salmonellosis in two persons who had eaten beef jerky. An investigation by the New Mexico Environment Department determined that these cases were associated with beef jerky processed at a local plant. An investigation by NMDOH identified 91 additional cases. This report summarizes the investigation of this outbreak.