ABQJOURNAL BIZ: AROUND N.M.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

AROUND N.M.

Journal Wire
          Open Pit Cleanup Is Under Way
        CUBA, N.M. — The Santa Fe National Forest says cleanup of groundwater beneath an open pit copper mine near Cuba is under way and it will take several years to complete.
        Forest officials say federal stimulus funding of more than $1 million has supplemented the multi-million-dollar project.
        A bioreactor treatment plant constructed at the site started pumping groundwater from the inactive Nacimiento Mine this week. The water will be treated and released into Senorito Creek.
        Biological processes are being used to remove acid and precipitate dissolved heavy metals from the contaminated groundwater.
        Officials estimate that 25 million gallons of water will be pumped and treated by the time the project is done.
        The mine sits at the edge of the Santa Fe forest, just southeast of Cuba.
        Carlsbad Farmers Want More Water
        CARLSBAD — Carlsbad Irrigation District farmers are complaining they're not getting enough irrigation water.
        The district's board of directors set an allotment of 1.6 acre-feet per acre to start the irrigation season. District manager Dudley Jones says that could increase later in the season if storage reservoirs in northeastern New Mexico receive enough water from snow melt.
        Otis farmer James Walterscheid says the allotment isn't enough. He says it's getting harder each year for farmers to determine what and how much they are going to grow.
        Jones says, however, the board has to be conservative at the start of the season because it cannot rely on projected runoff.
        Fed Repeats Pledge To Hold Rates Low
        WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve repeats its pledge to hold interest rates at record lows to foster the economic recovery and ease high unemployment.
        But its decision draws one dissent. Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, for the second meeting in a row opposes keeping the yearlong pledge.
        The tension illustrates the Fed's challenge in deciding when to signal that higher rates are coming. Hoenig thinks the economy is strong enough for the Fed to telegraph that rates will rise soon to prevent inflation. But the others think the low rates will continue to be needed to feed the economic recovery.
        Thieves Rob Eli Lilly Of $70M in Drugs
        HARTFORD, Conn. — Thieves staged a Hollywood-style heist at a pharmaceutical warehouse over the weekend and made off with about $70 million in antidepressants and other prescription drugs, authorities said Tuesday.
        Thieves cut a hole in the ceiling of an Eli Lilly & Co. warehouse in Enfield, a northern Connecticut city that borders Massachusetts, before dawn Sunday and rappelled inside, where they disabled an alarm and apparently loaded pallets of drugs into a waiting vehicle, police said. The value of the drugs at pegged at $70 million. They included the antidepressants Prozac and Cymbalta and the antipsychotic Zyprexa.

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