TOP QUOTES NOVEMBER 26 - DECEMBER 2.(Local News)

"This is 22 years in the making that I know of."

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano on the county's new sobering center, the creation of which was a dream of his mother, the late Sylvia Solano

"If we weren't protecting

the fish, we wouldn't be protecting the river."

Cynthia Abeyta, Middle Rio Grande coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, on the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow

"Pretty much it was said,

'We couldn't win. They are

going to sue us, and they are going to win.' "

Commissioner Michael Anaya on

legal advice for the county to rethink

its rejection of plans to build a

cell-phone tower in Madrid

"It's quite a cocktail

of contaminants in the

aquifer up there."

James Bearzi, chief of the hazardous waste bureau of the state Environment Department, on the nature of pollution in the Los Alamos National Laboratory area

"What made the whole foundation of this idea is that we are burying 200,000 tons in the landfill every year. We know from studies that there are about 40,000 tons of that number that could be readily recycled. It's a giant opportunity."

Justin Stockdale recycling director of the Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency, new machinery that will allow SWAMA to process plastic, aluminum, tin and other reusable goods

"The threat of planting evidence, acting against a particular group of people or other inappropriate, inflammatory and derogatory comments are unacceptable and won't be tolerated."

Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson after the resignation of Officer Joe Griego amid an investigation of disturbing Internet comments about police work that appeared on a Web site for Denver Broncos fans

"This is in no way a discovery of a problem -- this is a problem that was discovered years and years ago. And no one has taken it seriously and shown the leadership to fix it."

Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight after a report blasted Los Alamos National Laboratory for "non-existent" and "seriously flawed" security in relation to an incident where classified information apparently was taken from the nuclear weapons lab

"We have these letters from family and friends and from their perspective he is a good person. But we've got a situation here ... where you have four dead individuals. They can't speak. There's no one here to speak

for them."

U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo,

in sentencing driver Israel Munoz-Tello to eight years in prison for the deaths

of four illegal aliens during a rollover

Feb. 23 in Santa Fe

"All we need to do is

use the resources that

are already available to us.

It's called our eyes. All you need to do is use your eyes."

Doug "Raven" Hicks, Pojoaque resident and former police officer who came up with the idea for Road Watch, a group dedicated to identify drunken drivers and help police catch them