— Book Review —“The Orphaned Land: New Mexico’s

Environment Since the Manhattan Project””

Title: “The Orphaned Land: New Mexico’s Environment Since the

Manhattan Project”

Author: V.B. Price

Photographer: Nell Farrell

ISBN: 978-0-8263-5049-7

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press, www.unmpress.com

By Rosanne Boyett

Beacon Staff Writer

Editor’s note: Book review articles are available online at

www.cibolabeacon.com/bookreviews.

This work provides a detailed overview of environmental

degradation statewide, specifically the military’s nuclear waste.

“The biggest environmental lawsuit in New Mexico’s his-

tory was effectively kept out of the news for more than two

years . . . A $4 billion lawsuit against General Electric and

other corporations . . .” wrote author V.B. Price.

New Mexico’s newspapers and television stations did not

want to give credence to the fact that the military and a major

national company had been guilty of dumping toxic waste into

Albuquerque’s South Valley water supply, according to the au-

thor.

The state’s challenges with the massive illegal dumping of

toxic waste is part of the on-going legacy that began when New

Mexico became home to the military-industrial complex during World War II, which included the advent of the Manhattan Project.

The steady flow of dollars into the state’s economy during the past seven decades has led many people, including elected officials,

to turn a blind eye to disposal issues.

The contamination was primarily caused by the military industrial-complex, including the nuclear weapons’ industry.

Price spent more than seven years researching industrial waste disposal methods, the military’s documentation efforts, and the sub-

sequent contamination of state waters.

He pointed out, “New Mexico is among the poorest states in the union and has the eighteenth worst industrial pollution, according

to the [federal] EPA’s 2001 Toxic Release Inventory, which doesn’t keep tabs on the nuclear defense industry and its toxic and nuclear

dumping.”

Price provides readers with a synopsis of 20 published articles about toxic waste issues that affect regions across the state.

“The Rio Grande River received effluent from Rio Rancho and Albuquerque, as well as pollution from Sandia Labs via the Tijeras

Arroyo. And before it reaches those cities, the river has, in all likelihood, been polluted during the last sixty years by radioactive and

industrial waste from Los Alamos National Laboratories in the Jemez Mountains,” wrote the author in the chapter titled “Urban/Rural

Struggles.”

New Mexico is a huge state, the fifth largest in the country, with a very small population, ranked thirty-sixth. The state has a long

agricultural tradition, according to Price.

That heritage and way of life is threatened by environmental degradation and industrial demands for water.

The threat to clean water posed by leaking septic systems and underground fuel storage tank malfunctions seems less dire than “the

magnitude of a full-scale, on-going nuclear waste disaster [that is] undermining the health and economy of northern and central New

Mexico,” according to the author.

“New Mexico could profit from serving as a model for innovative and pragmatic solutions to the problems facing all of us in the dif-

ficult times ahead,” he urged.

The Preface section closes with, “Finishing this book has been difficult because more and more information is becoming available

every week and every day.”

V.B. Price is an award-winning Albuquerque journalist, poet, novelist, and teacher. His books include “Albuquerque: A City at the End of the

World.”

Nell Farrell is a documentary photographer and writer specializing in Latin American and the American Southwest. She is the author of “Nicaragua

Before Now.”