Altura Addition Nonprofit Takes on Nuclear Waste, Local Rugby Team Dons Drag for a Good Cause, NHN Publisher Talks with Local Podcast About Neighborhood Journalism, and More

Noticed on Silver. (Photo of the Day: Mystic10520)

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From Albuquerque to the World, Southwest Research and Information Center Takes on Environmental Issues

by Maggie Grimason

The contemporary-style Summit Building on the 4000 block of Indian School NE in the Altura Addition neighborhood is an unassuming headquarters for the Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC). SRIC is a nonprofit with roots firmly in Albuquerque, whose environmental and social justice work nevertheless extends well beyond city limits. On the first floor of the flat-roofed, stone-clad office building and down a narrow, carpeted hallway is SRIC headquarters. There, on a Friday morning, director of the Nuclear Waste Program Don Hancock and archivist, webmaster and office manager Annette Aguayo were quietly at work.

“The main office has always been in Albuquerque,” Hancock explained from his large wood desk where sun from adjacent, south-facing windows illuminated stacks of historical documents and recent research, geology texts, a broad desktop screen and a calculator. “But we’ve never felt that we’re exclusively—or even primarily—related to Albuquerque.” For most of its existence, SRIC was located on Stanford SE, just a few blocks from UNM, which is a frequent collaborator on research projects. In May of 2025, however, the organization relocated to the Summit Building. “One of the reasons we moved was because we had more space than we needed. Half of our staff don’t work or live in Albuquerque. We have people living in Laguna Pueblo, the Navajo Nation and Gallup, and in Arizona in the Blue Gap/Tachee area,” he explained.

The exterior of the Summit Building, home to the Southwest Research and Information Center since May 2025. (Photo: Maggie Grimason)

Despite being centered in the NHN coverage area for more than 50 years, “I always joke that we work southwest of anywhere,” Hancock—a longtime resident of the University Heights neighborhood—said, detailing SRIC’s work in San Juan County in the Four Corners area, southern New Mexico and the Navajo Nation, as well as far more distant locales like Mongolia and Russia, “because uranium is an international thing. And the work we do has broader implications and applications.”