Pueblo Bonito, constructed by Ancestral Pueblo People a millennia ago, as seen from the air on Sept. 14, 2025. The site is the most significant site at Chaco Canyon National Historical Park, which Pueblos and advocates say remains under threat from continued oil and gas development, and worry protections could be scaled back by the new administration. (Danielle Prokop/Source NM)

“Forever chemicals” seeping into drinking water, a federal shift in public lands and the historic inclusion of New Mexican downwinders in a federal restitution program all led the news cycle this year.

Issues of climate and public health shaped the state’s political landscape in 2025. All year, Source NM covered the intersection of the climate and public health. The stories documented profound impacts at the local, state and national levels.

“What we do to the climate, to the atmosphere, to the land or water, we do to ourselves,” Melissa Troutman, climate and health advocate for WildEarth Guardians, wrote in an email to Source NM. “Fines are rarely, if ever, issued to companies polluting New Mexico’s air, land, and water while risking public health and climate.”

These issues are felt acutely in New Mexico, where state leaders have sought to earn the state a reputation as “a national leader in clean energy.” Here are the year’s top environmental and health stories, as reported by Source NM.

Regulating ‘forever chemicals’

Like many states across the nation, New Mexico has worked to mitigate the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has said that exposure to the chemicals may cause cancer. The EPA last year set a 2029 deadline for public water systems to comply with new drinking water requirements.

New Mexico officials in August sought to end a dispute over monitoring PFAS levels in the water aquifer under Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis. Testing found the “forever chemicals” in the blood of nearly 600 people in the area.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham this year signed legislation that tasked state environment officials with creating laws to phase out consumer products with intentionally added “forever chemicals.” 

The New Mexico Environment Department in October proposed PFAS rules to the state Environmental Improvement Board. At the time, department officials said public hearings could be scheduled as early as February.

100 measles cases in 6 months

New Mexico logged its first measles case of the year — the third such case since 2021 — in February. But it didn’t stop there. 

By May, state health officials warned of possible exposures in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The state’s congressional delegation promptly called on Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. to address the crisis.

After logging more than 100 cases over six months, state officials declared an end to the outbreak in September.

A federal shift in land policies

During a turbulent year for the federal government, federal agencies unveiled plans that marked a shift in land policy for the Western U.S. and New Mexico, in particular.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture in August solicited public feedback on its plans to repeal a ban on constructing roads on U.S. Forest Service land, which had ramifications for 1.6 million acres in New Mexico.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) opposed the plans, saying at the time: “The bottom line is that when we build new roads in protected areas, we risk more fires, not fewer.”

The “roadless rule” was not the federal government’s only target this year. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in September said the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule — which seeks to give conservation of public lands due consideration along other uses such as timber, grazing and recreation — stood in the way of oil and gas development.

New Mexico’s congressional delegation called on Burgum to reverse course on plans to remove federal protections around Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Compensation for downwinders

For the first time, the federal government included New Mexican downwinders in its Radiation and Exposure Compensation Act. The law, passed in 1990, sought to give restitution to people who fell ill following exposure to radiation and uranium. Until this year, though, it excluded New Mexican downwinders and post-1971 uranium miners.

U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) had advocated for their inclusion every year since first winning federal office in 2008. The RECA fund briefly expired in 2025, but bipartisan efforts to restore and expand the restitution finally succeeded when U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri included it in President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending bill.

The deadline to apply for RECA compensation is Dec. 31, 2027, according to Heinrich’s office. The U.S. Department of Justice anticipates its online filing portal will be operational by the end of this year.

Data center’s effects on water and air

Some residents say the scope of the project still wasn’t clear when Doña Ana County commissioners in September approved $165 billion in bonds for a development with a number of generically named LLCs — including Red Chiles LLC and Green Chile Ventures LLC — on the project application.

County officials approved the bonds for what is now known as Project Jupiter, a massive campus of data centers planned to support tech companies like OpenAI and Oracle.

Since then, documents have revealed how developers plan to build natural gas generating stations to power the project, prompting concern over whether it will comply with the state’s clean energy law.

Developers have asked state officials to approve permits that would let it emit as many greenhouse gases annually as New Mexico’s two largest cities combined, Source NM was the first to report in December. The state environment department subsequently ruled that the permits were “incomplete” and gave them until Jan. 19 to provide more information.

The applications for air quality permits must go to a public hearing if a member of the community requests one, a spokesperson for the state environment department said. Such a hearing has yet to be scheduled. 

Toxic metals found in groundwater

Two New Mexico state agencies in November told Mora County residents to test their private wells after discovering high levels of toxic metals in the area’s groundwater.

The metals — antimony, arsenic and uranium, all of which threaten the kidneys, skin and cardiovascular and nervous systems — were the same ones found in firefighting foams that crews used to combat the massive Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire.

Residents and New Mexico leaders, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, quickly pointed to the blaze as a likely source of the contamination and called on the federal government to respond. 

Officials overseeing the approximately remaining $2 billion in federal compensation for people affected by the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire responded by saying they’d consider addressing the water contamination if victims could prove “injuries and causation.” Leger Fernández, in response, said FEMA “should create a protocol to quickly address these claims.”

“If [the metals] are a consequence of the fire, it is my belief that they should be covered by the Hermits Peak money that I secured for these claims,” Leger Fernández told Source NM at the time. “And we need to make sure that FEMA reads the report to understand that this is not naturally occurring contamination and that they are heavy metals that come from the fire suppression efforts.”