Adopting the Environment

Tags

Adopting, Coal, Environment, Forest, Nature, Pollution, Raven's Ridge, Santa Fe Ski Valley, Testimony, Tranquillity

Note from Elaine Pinkerton: Today’s guest blogger, attorney MARIEL NANASI, writes forcefully about a topic dear to my heart. Protecting our country’s great outdoors—saving the air we breathe and the earth we walk on. Read of the  battle she is heading up against the Public Service Company of New Mexico and their continuing coal and nuclear resources. Her story is educational and inspiring!

Mariel on Raven’s Ridge

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I’d never written an appellate brief to a Supreme Court before. More than 56,000 pages in the record. PNM (Public Service Company of New Mexico) submitted more than ten rounds of testimony by a dozen witnesses. The task seemed insurmountable; yet I knew the case better than anyone else and there were people dedicated to co-production and others offering assistance and cheering us on!

PNM, the state’s largest electric monopoly was forced to close half of its coal plant because it was polluting the skies as far away as Utah and Arizona with its toxic emissions. In real life there are no borders, pollution travels unrestricted. The contested issues central to the brief related to PNM’s selection of resources to replace the lost capacity from the retirement of the two coal units.

It is perhaps true that every generation feels that theirs is fraught with the most trying challenges, yet somehow I am convinced that the consequences from a warming planet, are more existentially baffling and crisis laden than any other.

So there I was 8am til 11pm or 1am day after day for more than two weeks glued to my office chair, papers strewn all over my desk, staring at my wide screen computer. Opening up countless files on my computer, searching through transcripts, reading and re-reading Orders and digging to find exhibits, weaving in the law from legal precedent, and trying to conjure up the perfect words to convince the highest court in New Mexico that the agency whose responsibility it is to regulate the most powerful company in New Mexico had failed to do so. PNM chose to replace the closing of coal with the purchase of more coal and more nuclear. The Public Regulation Commission (PRC) is supposed to regulate PNM on our behalf, but it abrogated its duties when it agreed to waive Commission rules in order to approve PNM’s coal and nuclear purchases.

The Public Regulation Commission must make decisions based on “substantial evidence”. Sounds reasonable. And, yes, in order for the PRC to approve PNM’s coal and nuclear acquisition PNM had to ask the PRC to waive its own rules and analysis requirements designed to protect ratepayers, and adopted as consumer safeguards. You may ask: how can there be “substantial evidence” if the PRC had to waive its own standards in order to allow PNM to generate electricity from the burning of more coal and nuclear? That’s the essence of our appeal.

My eyes were tired. The white in my eyes were graying. We filed the brief in the New Mexico Supreme Court at 4:56 pm on the date it was due. I texted my friend, Charlotte, to see if she would hike with me and we hiked the Raven’s Ridge trail, in the Santa Fe ski valley the next day.
I was so grateful for the softness of the million tones of green in the forest. Nothing was uniform: the multi-layering of tall plants, short ones, wild leafy bushes and shady protective trees was easy on my eyes. I felt held by my surroundings as if the green beauty was actually healing the strain in my cluttered mind and calming my heart. The gentleness was profound and I was grateful for my friend’s patience with my slow pace. Aah, this tranquility is what we are fighting to protect.

Reciprocity empowers.

Mariel Nanasi is an attorney and the Executive Director of New Energy Economy, an environmental advocacy organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is the co-author of the brief New Energy Economy v. New Mexico Public Regulation Commission, which can be found on the organization’s web site: http://www.NewEnergyEconomy.org

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Elaine blogs about adoption, hiking, and travel. Her guidebook Santa Fe on Foot, published by Ocean Tree Books,  will be out this Fall. 

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Lost and Found

Tags

Above the clouds, adoption, adoptive parents, birthparents, Dealing with Adoption, Gratitude, Hiking, Mother/Son, Mountain weather, Planning, Raven's Ridge, Santa Fe National Forest, Winsor Trail

“Not all who wander are lost.” -J. R.R. Tolkien

(Note: But some are. The good news is that even if lost, the lucky ones will be found.)

My 40-year-old son  was visiting me for the weekend. Since we both love hiking, we

A brief period of sun before the clouds lowered.

decided to climb to Deception and Lake Peaks, located in Santa Fe National Forest, both above 12,000 feet. We had just one day available for the hike. This particular Saturday was iffy, threatening rain and cold mountain top temperatures. An early start was mandatory. Fortified by Starbucks, we drove to Santa Fe Ski Basin and were forging up Winsor Trail shortly after 7:30 a.m.

A few hours after embarking, we’d traversed Raven’s Ridge and were above the treeline. The temperature had dropped from 50 degrees to below 40. Wind picked up; Cloud level lowered. Reaching Lake Peak, which is just beyond Deception, involved scrambling over a rocky ledge. Because my son is stronger and faster, I told him that Deception would be my final destination. I’d wait while he went on to the more technical destination of Lake Peak. Then, when he’d gone the difficult extra half mile, he’d turn around, come back and we’d reunite forces.

He instructed me to wait on a boulder near the grove of trees next to the end of Raven’s Ridge and at the base of Deception. He’d be back, he promised, in 30 minutes or less. Though this seemed like a fine plan, that’s when the trouble began.

Deception Peak lives up to its name.

You might say it was my fault. Instead of just sitting on a boulder near the grove of trees, I decided to keep warm by temporarily joining some hikers who were headed toward Lake Peak. My plan was, after the 20-minute trek to keep warm, to take the same path down to the tree line and wait for my son.

At the top of Deception Peak, all paths are just slight demarcations in the rocky dirt, one resembling another. Shivering from the cold wind and realizing that it had been MORE than 30 minutes since I was to meet my son, I mistakenly started down a path that led to another ridge, NOT Raven’s Ridge. Thus began a scary interlude of searching. I tried my smart phone. No voice reception. Panicking, I decided to start sending texts. Here, transcribed, is our broken conversation….

ME: I’m here at the top
SON: Top of what? Went past treeline yelling and I didn’t see you
ME: I went back down and I’m headed toward the trees on the path…go down the path
ME: I;m headed right to the trees where you told me to wait…down the path
SON: I am already down a ways. Head down and I’ll wait
ME: Okay, I’m coming down
SON: Make sure you are on the right path. Stay on the ridge
I’m down about a half mile on but where it starts to go up again…

At this point, texting failed, and I was practically running, not at all sure I was headed toward the right landscape. When you’re lost in the wild, everything can begin to look alike.

Then a minor miracle! It came in the form of two other hikers, total strangers, who were there when I needed help. The first hiker was a man with a long white beard who looked as though he’d stepped from the last century.

“I’m headed toward Raven’s Ridge,” he said, after I’d explained my plight. Another five minutes and we were at the grove of trees where I’d been told to wait. I learned that the stranger’s name was Paul, then hugged and thanked him for being a Good Samaritan. He went on toward Lake Peak and I hurried toward the path that my son was already partially down. Another hiker appeared from nowhere, a young man named Jason and a few of his friends.
“Are you Elaine,” he called out.
“Yes, I’m sort of lost and I’m looking for my son.”
“He’s looking for you,” said the young man. He escorted me a half mile down the trail where my son, who’d hiked two extra miles, was awaiting. It turned out that Jason and his pals were doing field work to qualify for the local Search and Rescue Team. After thanking him profusely, I made a feeble joke:
“Well, at least I gave you a case study.”

My son was relieved but furious. As we hurried down the trail, it started to rain. “I

At the top of Deception, Lake Peak in the background.

can’t leave you alone for a minute,” he grumbled. “You’re a terrible hiker.” Thoroughly chilled, we reached the car in record time. Fortunately, my son’s a forgiving soul and reneged on his decision never to hike with me again.

In retrospect, the episode reminded me of my adoption, of how I’d been lost but then found. It was fate that my birthmother was not able to be a parent. Figuratively and literally, she lost me. My adoptive parents, by a series of fortuitous events, found me and my brother and provided us with a stable home and good childhood. Above all, what I gained from this memorable day, was a sense of gratitude. Oh yes, and this as well: follow directions. and pay attention to the landscape.