Some change good for economy

As I write this column, I have just finished assembling the Quay County Sun’s “year in review” stories.

The two major, long-term stories were about protests. Both were underdog stories.

One started as one man against a city, the other was about a rural community taking a stand against two corporations and a major department of the federal government.

In the first case, the underdog seems to have lost. He was not alone in his fight against the city, however, since he got enough signatures on petitions to launch a recall election against three of the four Tucumcari city commissioners.

Keith Hayes started his petition drive because he thought the city should focus on other things besides appearances. He had been fined for keeping lots full of weeds and mesquite, and for keeping long-unused trucks on a lot located on Railroad Avenue.

I publicly disagreed with him, and I still do, because I still believe appearances matter in economic development, but I respect him for hanging in there and fighting what he thought to be the good fight.

He was gracious in defeat when his recall effort failed on all three counts, and as his challenge to fines continues in district court, he is willing to comply with the outcome.

The other story, the larger one, involved citizens of Nara Visa in Quay County’s northeast corner.

They united and persuaded even south-county dwellers to join them in their opposition to testing whether narrow, deep boreholes through deep rock would be a suitable place to store highly radioactive wastes.

The companies who wanted to drill the borehole for the U.S. Department of Energy insisted the sole purpose was to test the concept. There would be no waste buried there, they said.

A few of the locals didn’t believe them. If that borehole was there, they reasoned, it was probably going to contain nuclear waste eventually, or at least other nearby locations would.

I publicly disagreed with them, too, but this time they won.

The opposition group worked hard. They organized meetings, knocked on doors and found knowledgeable people to help them make their case, and their numbers grew.

They packed meetings and persuaded the Quay County Commission to oppose the borehole. Then, they kept going, convincing village councils and the Tucumcari City Commission to oppose the borehole, too.

There were three other sites nationwide where companies were competing to dig the borehole, and the DOE let the companies fight local opposition. That made me lose respect for the DOE.

In the end, DOE canceled the project, blaming the Trump administration’s push to renew a nuclear waste solution that politics had scuttled — burying the stuff at Yucca Mountain in the remote, dry Death Valley-like Nevada desert next to Death Valley, itself.

Both of these underdog stories ended up preserving a status quo.

I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Quay County will not regain economic health without making some changes.

On the other hand, Quay County’s quaint charm and traditions are worth preserving at considerable cost.

Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at: [email protected]