Federal, state and local pubic safety agencies conducted a training exercise June 8, 2011 in Taos, New Mexico USA.

The exercise simulated an incident in which a possibly toxic "white powder" was delivered to and released in Town Hall.

The exercise involved evacuating all civilians and establishing a perimeter before state and federal officials could arrive with hazardous materials specialists with the NM National Guard.

Eletha Trujillo, Taos County's Emergency Response Manager: "I will open the envelope and find the white powder substance, initiate the call to 911 dispatch, The exercise begins. Our responders will come out..."

What they were evaluating in this exercise is on-site incident management and evacuation.

Cathy Connelly, Taos Information Office, read a statement about the incident.

Everything went very well for all.

This video was shot exclusively for The Taos News Media Center by Rick Romancito.

TAOS – A Taos man with a history of wildlife crimes has been charged with 39 counts of poaching in connection with the illegal killing and possession of 29 deer, five bears, one cougar and four elk through August 2010.

Ray Cortez, 25, also is accused of outfitting without a license and throwing the carcasses of several deer and elk off the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. He pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to appear for a pre-trial hearing April 19 before Taos Magistrate Betty J. Martinez.

Cortez previously was convicted of hunting cougars in a closed area, hunting cougars without a license, hunting turkeys during a closed season, and violating the Valle Vidal summer closure.

The current charges against Cortez were filed Jan. 21 following an investigation by Department of Game and Fish officers that included three search warrants that turned up evidence alleging that Cortez possessed numerous game animal parts but no licenses or carcass tags to show legal ownership. A charge of tampering with evidence was filed after officers rappelled into the Rio Grande Gorge and recovered heads and carcasses of 12 deer and five elk.

Because of his earlier convictions, Cortez could face substantial enhanced criminal penalties. Many of the confiscated deer were trophy size, which subject him to possible enhanced civil penalties to reimburse the state for the loss of valuable game animals.

The Department of Game and Fish encourages anyone with information about wildlife crimes to call Operation Game Thief toll-free at (800) 432-4263. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for rewards in information leads to charges being filed.

wildlife.state.nm.us

Video 6min 50sec.  Each spring, community members along the acequia system in Taos, New Mexico USA get together to clean the irrigation ditches in preparation for watering fields and gardens during the warm weather months.

This video shows the cleaning of the San Francisco de Pauda Acequia in the Lower Ranchitos area of Taos.

An acequia is a community-operated waterway used in Spain and former Spanish colonies in the Americas for irrigation. Particularly in Spain, the Andes, northern Mexico, and the modern-day American Southwest, acequias are usually historically engineered canals that carry snow runoff or river water to distant fields.

The Spanish word acequia (and Valencian séquia) comes from Classical Arabic "as-sāqiya", which means "the water conduit". The Arabs brought the technology to Spain during their occupation of the Iberian peninsula. The technology was adopted by the Spanish and utilized throughout their conquered lands.

Most acequias were established more than 200 years ago; many continue to provide a primary source of water for farming and ranching ventures in areas of the United States once occupied by Spain or Mexico
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Acequias are gravity chutes, similar in concept to flumes. Some acequias are conveyed through pipes or aqueducts, of modern fabrication or decades or centuries old. The majority, however, are simple open ditches with dirt banks. In many communities, the ditchbanks are important routes for non-motorized travel.

Known among water users simply as the Acequia, various legal entities embody the community associations, or acequia associations, that govern members' water usage, depending on local precedents and traditions. An acequia organization often must include commissioners and a majordomo who administers usage of water from a ditch, regulating which holders of water rights can release water to their fields on which days.

In New Mexico, by state statute, acequias as registered bodies must have three commissioners and a majordomo. Irrigation and conservation districts typically have their own version of majordomos, usually referred to as "ditch riders" by members of the districts.

It was shot and edited by Rick Romancito for The Taos News Media Center, taosnews.com.

Some text: Wikipedia

News Video - 1min 35sec. As New Mexico endured record cold — two mountain towns hit 36 degrees below zero — natural gas service to about 30,000 homes across a large swath of the state was cut off after suppliers in West Texas curtailed production because of rolling electrical blackouts caused by the harsh weather.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez declared a state of emergency and ordered most state offices closed Friday to conserve gas supplies. Public schools throughout much of the state closed for the same reason, as did Albuquerque city offices and large employers such as Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of New Mexico.

Martinez urged people to dial back their thermostats to reduce gas consumption, and emergency shelters were set up to take in people without alternative heating sources.

The outages extended from Taos and Questa in the north to Alamogordo and Tularosa in the south, Domme said. Albuquerque, the state's largest city, was spared widespread service disruptions, although the suburbs of Rio Rancho, Bernalillo and Placitas were hit.