Roswell Daily Record
INSIDE NEWS
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Impact Confections to leave city
Vol. 120, No. 181 50¢ Daily / $1 Sunday
EMILY RUSSO MILLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Candy company Impact Confections announced Thursday that it is shutting down its Roswell manufacturing facility to consolidate with operations in Wisconsin. About 80
July 29, 2011
FRIDAY
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employees will lose their jobs, officials say. Chief operating officer for Impact Confections Ron Klump says the company, most famous for producing the sour WARHEADS candy and 3-D lollipops, was forced to consolidate due to the economic recession,
Roswell plant manager Spencer Nakaguma said employees were given official notice on Thursday, but that it came as no surprise.
though he declined to comment on company’s profits, whether the company was
in the red, or how much money, if any, the company has lost in recent years.
Predator control levy will continue
Tailgate party
A GAME OF ‘CHICKEN’?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Psychologists and mediators compare the political wrangling over the debt limit to a dangerous game of “chicken” with both sides racing cars at each other head-on. This is not political rhetoric. It’s a real-life psychological negotiating scenario where it sometimes helps to seem crazy .... - PAGE A6
WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
INSIDE SPORTS
LET’S MAKE A DEAL
There goes Albert Haynesworth, heading from Mike Shanahan’s Redskins to Bill Belichick’s Patriots. Reggie Bush? The Saints sent him to the Dolphins. And the Kevin Kolb saga is ending the way pretty much everyone expected, with a trade from the Eagles to the Cardinals. NFL clubs made a move a minute Thursday — and that trio of big-name deals was only the beginning. - PAGE B1
Mark Wilson Photo
The Nu Blues Band performs during the Roswell Chamber of Commerce annual Open House's Tailgate Party, Thursday afternoon.
SANTA FE (AP) — The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approved a rate increase Thursday that would hit the pocketbooks of more than half a million customers of Public Service Company of New Mexico, but commissioners did not give the utility everything it wanted. The state regulatory panel voted 3-2 in favor of an alter native plan that would result in $72 million in additional revenue annually for the expansion of substations and power
lines, and upgrades at some of PNM’s power plants. Commissioner Jason Marks, who proposed the alternative, said it would amount to about a 9 percent increase in base rates for residential customers. PNM, the largest electric utility in New Mexico, had asked for an $85 million increase that would have bumped up base rates by nearly 11 percent for its
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CLASSIFIEDS..........B5 COMICS.................B3 FINANCIAL .............B4 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 NATION .................A6 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
INDEX
WASHINGTON (AP) — An intense endgame at hand, House Republican leaders put of f a vote Thursday night on legislation to avert a threatened government default and slice federal spending by nearly $1 trillion. GOP leaders announced their decision after abruptly halting debate on the legislation and plunging into an intensive round of meetings with rebellious conservatives.
See PREDATOR, Page A7
AP Photo
The sun sets behind the Washington Monument, Thursday.
Mayor: SSOT grads source of ‘pride and joy’ for city See PNM, Page A7
See DEBT, Page A7
Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell Special Services Occupational Training program graduates let off some lastminute steam before commencement ceremonies, Thursday.
More than 70 Easter n New Mexico UniversityRoswell students with disabilities graduated Thursday afternoon with their forest green graduation caps in the air and certificates of Occupational Training in hand. “We did it,” Cassandra Davis, one of three student speakers, told her classmates during the ceremony at the Performing Arts Center. “Today is not a goodbye to our friends, but hello to another chapter in our lives.”
The ceremony marked the 25th graduating class of the Special Services Occupational Training program at ENMU-R that teaches students who are disabled skills necessary in the work force and helps them be able to compete for employment. For some, like student speaker Hannah Beller, the program was a miracle. “When I was in high school, I was discouraged,” Beller started her speech, adding that she thought her disabilities would prevent her from pursuing higher education and from being employable.
But the program, which is based around three semesters of training, boosted her self-confidence and independence, she says, and gave her skills and experience by placing her in internships at both Washington Avenue Elementary School and Roswell Public Library. She graduated Thursday with a certificate of occupational training in office skills. “This school literally has made all my hopes and dreams a reality,” she said. “I am very grateful that there are people in the
WASHINGTON (AP) — Faced with a natural gas drilling boom that has sullied the air in some parts of the country, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed for the first time to control air pollution at oil and gas wells, particularly those drilled using a method called hydraulic fracturing. The proposal, issued to meet a court deadline, addresses air pollution problems reported in places such as Wyoming, Texas, Pennsylvania and Colorado, where new drilling tech-
oil and gas drilling sites on land — would reduce by a quarter the amounts of cancer -causing air pollution and methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, but also one of the most powerful contributors to global warming. The rules, according to the EPA, actually would save energy companies about $30 million a year because the companies could sell the gas they are forced to collect. EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy said the steps announced
Thursday will help ensure “responsible production” of domestic energy. The agency is also in the process of studying whether hydraulic fracturing is polluting water, research that also could lead to more regulations on the practice. In March, pollution from natural gas drilling in the Upper Green River Basin in western Wyoming triggered levels of ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, worse than those recorded in Los Angeles, one of the smoggiest cities
in the U.S. In Dish, Texas, a rural town northwest of Dallas, the state’s environmental regulators detected levels of cancer -causing benzene, sometimes at levels dangerous to human health, likely coming from industry’s 60 drilling wells, gas production pads and rigs, a treating facility and compressor station. At the same time, a state study in Pennsylvania of air quality near Marcellus
EMILY RUSSO MILLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
OBITUARIES
TODAY’S FORECAST
Chaves County Commissioners ordered a special levy to continue charging 50 cents per head on all animals to be protected from coyotes, mountain lions and bobcats under the Predator Control Program during their monthly meeting, Thursday. The move came after almost 70 percent of cattle owners and almost 90 percent of sheep and goat owners in the county voted to continue the levy in a recent election con-
PNM wants $85M GOP puts off debt limit vote rate hike; gets $72M
TODAY’S • Robert H. ‘Bob’ Tucker • Vida Woods • Margaret Montoya • Owen (Pat) Mann • Jay White • Vera Belma Kenney - PAGE A6
See IMPACT, Page A7
EMILY RUSSO MILLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
TOP 5 • 19 youth train to become Earth Rangers • Animal Services gets another alligator ... • Sunset redo nearly complete • Noon Op 9-10 takes third with loss • Noon Op 11-12 falls, 23-6
“Making the decision to close our Roswell facility has been difficult because we know how much this affects our employees and the community,” Klump said in a statement. “The harsh reality is that all of
Mark Wilson Photo
EPA targets air pollution from natural gas drilling boom niques have led to a rush to obtain natural gas that was once considered inaccessible. More than 25,000 wells are being drilled each year by “fracking,” a process by which sand, water and chemicals are injected underground to fracture rock so gas can come out. The proposed regulations are designed to eliminate most releases of smog- and soot-for ming pollutants from those wells. New controls on storage tanks, transmission pipelines and other equipment — at both
See SSOT, Page A7
See EPA, Page A3