About CEHMM
PURPOSE
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The purpose of the CEHMM projects is to work toward practical solutions to issues that affect both human health and the environment. The projects serve the community, the region, and the state through educational outreach, job creation, and research leading to the resolution of important technical and environmental challenges.
Organizations are born from ideas, and people make these ideas a reality. Community leaders of Carlsbad, New Mexico, had the idea for CEHMM. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a community success story that offers a solution for transuranic waste disposal. CEHMM built on this legacy of significant hazardous materials management expertise and expanded scientific research into new areas that would benefit the public and environment.
CEHMM was incorporated May 7, 2004, as a State of New Mexico non-profit corporation. Established as a not-for-profit scientific research organization and applied for and received a United States Internal Revenue Service 501(c)(3) tax exemption as a public charity.
Since its inception, CEHMM has identified and pursued applied research projects that have a nation-wide impact and are innovative, meaningful, and practical. CEHMM has created a wide range of cutting-edge programs, including developing technology for using algae as a feedstock for biofuels and co-products, biomonitoring for avian influenza, and West Nile viruses’ cooperative conservation of species listed as warranted but precluded on the federal endangered species list.
PROGRAMS
Since 2013 CEHMM has provided environmental consulting services to the industry for expediting permit authorizations regarding work on state and federal lands and trench monitoring and surveillance in support of BLM mandates. CEHMM performs services that include:
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Writing supporting documentation, such as EAs, for APD submittals and sundry surface work to include rights of way on state and federal lands.
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Technical expertise in the areas of archeology, wildlife, petroleum engineering, and land use.
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Providing compliance field services to include assistance in the siting of wells in LPC, DSL, Hornshell, and covered species habitat.
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Reclamation/Restoration consultation with technical expertise in contemporary reclamation standards, plant species selection, and integration into natural landscapes.
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Rangeland Health Assessments.
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Assist state and federal agencies to reduce or eliminate bottlenecks in the environmental permitting process.
CONSERVATION PROJECTS
The candidate conservation project has developed and implemented the solutions for issues related to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and its potential effect on land's environmental uses. Stakeholders from commercial, regulatory, and special interest organizations have met to develop a southeast New Mexico regional conservation plan concerning listed wildlife, namely the lesser prairie chicken, the dunes sagebrush lizard, and the Texas Hornshell Mussels.
CEHMM has been identified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the permit holder for Candidate Conservation Agreements and Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances. These agreements have fostered cooperative partnerships that meet or exceed the land stewardship goals of private landowners in cooperation and collaboration with state and federal agencies aspiring to set a universal standard for the goal of conserving diminishing species and habitats.