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Federal agency finding clears path for construction to begin on divisive LANL power transmission line Aug 12, 2025 By Alaina Mencinger amencinger@sfnewmexican.com The National Nuclear Security Administration has issued a finding of “no significant impact” for a proposed 14-mile, 115-kilovolt transmission line to service Los Alamos National Laboratory and Los Alamos County, clearing the way for the project to start construction. The transmission line — intended to resolve a looming power shortage that lab officials say could materialize in a couple of years — would cut through Bureau of Land Management and Santa Fe National Forest lands, including the Caja del Rio, a more than 100,000-acre area west of Santa Fe prized for its cultural and ecological significance that some hoped would one day become a national monument. The finding document, signed by NNSA Los Alamos Field Office Manager Ted Wyka, stated due to an insufficient regional power supply and “extensive maintenance problems” with existing power lines, outages could become more frequent if the project doesn’t move forward. The proposal has been controversial, generating significant public outcry over potential impacts to the Caja del Rio. But Wyka found the project would not cause a “significant effect to the quality of the human environment.” “Our Los Alamos Field Office worked very closely with SFNF and BLM to assess the impacts of this project,” Wyka said in a news release. “Over the five years since we started looking at this project, we engaged often with our Tribal neighbors for input and made changes as a result. I cannot understate the importance of this project to our national security mission, which increasingly relies on sufficient and reliable energy sources and energy transmission infrastructure.” Although the power line would be owned by NNSA, Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Thom Mason has written in favor of the project, arguing that to support supercomputing necessary for national security and research purposes, additional power is required. The two existing power lines in the area are aging. "Currently, the lab and Los Alamos County depend on only two power lines, which are approximately 53 and 60 years old, for all their power needs,” Mason wrote in an op-ed last year. “Other major electricity users in Northern New Mexico are served by three or more power lines to ensure they have a contingency supply of electrical power. This project would provide additional energy resilience for both the lab and Los Alamos County.” NNSA Los Alamos Field Office spokesperson Toni Chiri wrote in an email to The New Mexican the federal agency will move forward with infrastructure improvements at Los Alamos National Laboratory this fall to support the project. Construction is expected to begin next year on Bureau of Land Management and Santa Fe National Forest lands. The Department of Energy requested $88 million for fiscal year 2026 for the project, although the total cost range is between $215 million and $349 million, according to federal budget documents. The project is expected to be completed between 2028 and 2030. The finding emerges in a different regulatory environment than when the project was first considered. Executive orders signed by President Donald Trump in January overturned a 1994 executive order directing federal agencies to address environmental justice issues in low-income and minority communities, disbanded the Interagency Working Group on the social cost of greenhouse gases, and prompted the Council on Environmental Quality, which has directed federal agencies on the National Environmental Policy Act for almost 50 years, to remove its implementing regulations. Although there are references to regulations in place prior to the January executive orders, the finding document states, they were not used to inform the decision. The finding document states throughout the comment periods on the project, points of conflict emerged, including concerns about tribal consultation, impacts to historic properties and possible damages to cultural resources. In response, the document says, agencies involved in the decision developed a memorandum of agreement in order to limit the impacts to historic properties, although the agencies weren’t able to find a route that avoids “all visual, atmospheric, and auditory impacts” to cultural resources in the area. The Northern Río Grande National Heritage Area, which includes Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Taos counties and is “dedicated to conserving and sustaining the varied cultural, historical, archaeological and natural resources of Northern New Mexico,” is one of the signatories on the memorandum of agreement. The heritage area received assurances for community outreach and communication, a landscape study, site restoration and road maintenance. But Northern Río Grande National Heritage Area Board secretary and former Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen said although the board signed the memorandum of agreement, it didn’t necessarily agree with the project. "'Satisfied’ is not exactly the term I would use,” Hansen said. “... It is a necessary document that needed to be done.” She added, “If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu." Other provisions of the agreement, which expires in five years, include NNSA’s commitment to perform an ethnographic study for both the Pueblo of Jemez and the Pueblo of Tesuque, as well as temporary funding for several Tribal Historic Preservation Office positions in several pueblos, and education and scholarship opportunities. Last year, the All Pueblo Council of Governors signed a resolution requesting a tribally led ethnographic study of the area before the project went forward. Not everyone was mollified by the concessions. The Pueblo of Cochiti’s Tribal Council, in an April 30 resolution, wrote the governing body had seen the offer from the National Nuclear Security Administration to provide funding for the Pueblo’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and support student tuitions but considered the proposed mitigation “inadequate” and “inconsequential.” “The Tribal council believes the damage [of the power line] cannot be quantified,” councilmembers wrote, adding that the Pueblo of Cochiti planned to decline NNSA’s offered concessions. The NNSA acknowledged Cochiti’s opposition in the memorandum of agreement. Members of the Caja del Rio Coalition and groups including New Mexico Wild, the Los Alamos Study Group and Conservation Lands Foundation were quick to express their disappointment with the Tuesday finding. “ ‘Significant’ must mean something different to different folks, considering that this would bisect important cultural and wildlife values,” said Michael Fiebig, director of the Southwest River Protection Program at American Rivers, a member of the coalition. Some advocates worry that building roads, even unpaved, to construct the power line could increase vandalism, trash dumping, illegal shooting and off-highway vehicle use in the area. The Santa Fe National Forest put a camping closure into effect at Headquarters Well, located in the Caja del Rio, until December due to increased vandalism, long-term camping and littering. The Bureau of Land Management is planning to develop a shooting range in the area in an attempt to deter dispersed shooting around Santa Fe. Others said they felt a sense of whiplash after the Caja del Rio was recognized just three years ago for its cultural and ecological value in a 2022 Santa Fe National Forest land management plan. Garrett VeneKlasen, northern conservation director for New Mexico Wild, described the project as a “poisonous artery into that magical place.” “It was decided that that place was special and to be protected,” VeneKlasen said. “And then for them to reverse it ... it’s a finger in the eye to the to the Pueblo and Hispano community." Published comments by Greg Mello: All of us who have been involved with this issue need to take a good hard look at options available to limit federal administration of New Mexico for "national security" purposes, in this specific case and others. The loyalty many feel for "our" labs is little more than than Stockholm Syndrome, where captives identify with their captors. That, and greed. So, what to do about it? Fake, performative resistance is the norm and it's hard to break out of that. We can all fall into it. Will there be real resistance, resistance that is successful? It will take sacrifice, as the Coyote Angel said to Amarante in the "Milagro Beanfield War." |
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