Local news in brief, June 29

| The New Mexican

6/28/2008 - 6/29/08

Retail mail service ends in Pojoaque

POJOAQUE — The U.S. Postal Service has closed the last portion of its Pojoaque post office.

The agency announced in March that it would end retail services at the post office on N.M. 502 near Jacona after longtime operator JoAnn Serna was unable to renew a bond.

The service set up a temporary post office in March in a van at the shopping center near the Pojoaque Supermarket. Postal Service spokesman Sam Bolen said at the time the mailboxes at the post office, which had operated at the location more than 20 years, would remain open, but he didn't know for how long.

Late last week, Pojoaque residents received notices in their curbside mailboxes that the contract for the longtime post office had expired. The location closed Friday.

Box holders from the now-closed office can pick up their mail a the mobile van on West Guiterrez Street between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Retail postal services are also now available inside the new Nambé Falls Travel Center at the Pojoaque exit of U.S. 84/285 near the new Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino.

Builder finds new Eldorado water leak

ELDORADO — An Eldorado builder said he found another leak in Eldorado's public water system on Saturday. John Hawkins said he noticed a patch of green grass along a Lamy-area road and stopped to investigate.

Hawkins estimated the leak had run several months, because of the height of Blue Gamma grass growing in the muddy effluent.

He reported a similar leak in May which, like Saturday's leak, was caused by a failed pressure relief valve.

It wasn't immediately clear how much water had been lost because of the leak. "It was quite a bit," said George Haddad, a member of the board that oversees Eldorado's privately managed water system. "It was flowing out and it was with force."

Haddad said he has been told the valves that failed were rated at 150 pounds per square inch on a line that pushes water uphill to Eldorado from Lamy Creek, sometimes at more than 200 psi.

Haddad emphasized the broken valve was installed before the water district condemned and took control of the system and hired Operations Management International as an operator. Haddad said he could not estimate how long water might have flowed through the broken valve.

Memorial honors crash victims

Mothers Against Drunk Driving plans to cut a ribbon today at a Las Vegas, N.M., memorial for members of a family killed in a 2006 drunken-driving accident on Interstate 25 near Santa Fe.

Paul Gonzales, Renee Gonzales and daughters Jaqueline, Selena and Alisha died after Tesuque resident Dana Papst collided with their minivan as he drove the wrong way on the interstate in a pickup. Papst, who police say was drunk, died of his injuries shortly after the crash.

The memorial, which is a satellite installation of MADD's statewide New Mexico Memorial of Perpetual Tears, features a landscaped area with benches, five pillars and five trees. The ribbon cutting at Paul's Corner at Mills and Second streets, across from Robertson High School, is set for 1:30 p.m.

State works to restore voice mail

The state's Department of Information Technology said it hopes to have service fully restored to the state government's voice mail system by Monday.

Employees will still have to reset their voice mail settings, however.

The system went down last Sunday after a hard drive that manages the voice mail system failed, affecting 6,800 employees in Santa Fe. The department throughout the week has been restoring service.

An internal investigation into a missing backup hard drive that could have helped the department reset the service sooner is still ongoing.

As for the value of the missing equipment, department spokesman Andy Lenderman said the backup hard drive had a "minimal cost."


Police call slayings drug-related

LAS VEGAS, N.M. — State police say the fatal shootings of an unmarried couple in their Northern New Mexico home were drug-related.

Lt. David Martinez says a small amount of marijuana and items related to drug use were discovered in the couple's mobile home north of Las Vegas.

The bodies of 24-year-old Damian Lucero-Ortiz and 25-year-old Stephanie Dimas were found in their living room last Dec. 20.

Martinez said the killer wasn't a stranger or secret intruder, and it appeared the couple had let in the gunman.

He says there didn't appear to be a struggle before the killings.

Artists' Obama T-shirts on display

T-shirts by New Mexico artists inspired by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the likely Democratic candidate in November's presidential contest, will be on display at the Hahn Ross Gallery on July 6.

The shirts are part of the Sprouts for Change project, a group that enables artists of all ages to act as agents for change.

"Barack Obama's unique and refreshing vision for the future is changing the natures of American politics and driving a new wave of passion from the group up," Tom Ross, the group's founder, said in a release. "This is event is intended to give a creative voice to people who have been inspired by Senator Obama and to raise awareness of his campaign among the young people of the country who are our future leaders," he said.

The shirts will be on sale, and proceeds go to the Meds and Food for Kids group, which helps fight malnutrition.

The show is from 4-7 p.m.

Grant targets abandoned mines

The U.S. Interior Department has awarded the state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department a $4 million grant to reclaim abandoned mines around New Mexico, but the federal agency has restricted how the state can spend the money.

The Interior Department has limited most of the grant to the reclamation of abandoned coal mines. The money can be used to close mine openings and to remove environmental and safety hazards.

"The federal government's decision limits our ability to address the threats posed by abandoned hard rock mines, particularly uranium mines," Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Joanna Prukop said Friday. "The legacy of past uranium mining must be addressed."

The state is inventorying closed uranium mines to determine how many sites have yet to be reclaimed. It has created a database of all uranium mines that reported production and has cross-checked the list with reclamation records, finding more than half of the 259 uranium mines have no record of any reclamation.

The Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department said the grant could provide needed funding for the uranium mine project if the Interior Department's restrictions are removed.