Gallup thinks green
Statewide summit focuses on renewable energy resources

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Local officials may not be attending Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez's four-day Green Practices Summit this week. But with all the renewable energy and water projects in the works around Gallup, the area appears to be going green on its own.

The city recently sealed a deal with a Malaysian company to host a first-of-its kind emissions-free rubber recycling plant. A group of local women is busy trying to figure out how to convince someone to build a 40 megawatt solar energy plant here. Even the Navajo Nation has been giving wind energy some serious thought.

But for all that, said Gallup Solar's Be Sargent, they probably all could have learned something from the summit to help them build on the gains and advantages they have.

"Gallup needs to admit that it wants to be green," Sargent said.

Officials from the city, county and tribe all said they'd made no plans to attend or send representatives. Some didn't even know the summit was coming.

To be fair, this is the first year of the summit, which kicks off Wednesday. Chavez, honored in Los Angeles last month by the U.S. Conference of Mayors for his efforts to turn Albuquerque green, envisioned the event as a chance for cities and counties across the state to get in on the game.

"This summit is a great opportunity for communities from around New Mexico to start talking green and learn from each other how to actually put sustainable policies into place," the mayor said.

In between a Wednesday afternoon invocation and tours of some energy efficient buildings Saturday, the summit will feature a list of break-out sessions on everything from water conservation to alternative fuels. The goal, Chavez said, is to show participants what they can do to go green and how they can pay for it.

"It's a very practical, how-to set of meetings," he said.

While green energy alternatives can require a larger up-front investment, Chavez said, they tend to pay for themselves in the long run.

"If you budget properly," he said, "you'll see the savings."

Gallup officials certainly hope so. They're investing $500,000 of the city's money into the construction of a building for Green Rubber Global, the company bringing its patented rubber recycling technology here. The city will lease the building back to the company over the next 10 years. It's also expecting the plant to bring more than 130 well-paying jobs to the area.

By converting vulcanized rubber its carbon chains connected by sulfur bonds that have proven hard to break back to the "green" rubber it came from, the plant promises to save millions of tires from rotting away in landfills while putting out a product it can resell. Gallup Mayor Harry Mendoza hopes the plant will attract companies who can put that recycled rubber to use to Gallup, bringing even more jobs with them.

Plans are even in the works for a reverse osmosis system that would recycle the city's waste water and turn in potable. The city is paying DePauli Engineering $300,000 to draw up the designs. After that, the council will decide whether to build it.

In the meantime, Sargent and Gallup Solar are laying plans to recycle sunlight. The group had just gotten the notion of bringing a 40 megawatt solar plant to Gallup when New Mexico's Public Services Company announced plans to start looking for site where it might build a plant that could put out as much as 500 megawatts.

Now Gallup Solar is trying to convince PNM to build its plant here. Sargent said the group has already made contact with company officials and is trying to arrange a time and place for a PNM representative to tell locals exactly what it's looking for in a host. Gallup Solar has even started approaching city councilors for support.