Commissioners from Santa Fe County, N.M., objected Tuesday to a project by Los Alamos National Laboratory that would build a power line through the Caja del Rio Plateau.
In a letter from Santa Fe County commissioners to Ted Wyka, manager at Los Alamos Field Office, and Michiko Martin, regional forester at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the commissioners said that a high-voltage power line approved by the U.S. Forest Service would run 14 miles through the Caja del Rio Plateau.
Officials from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. Forest Service said in a finding of no significant impact report for the power line that the new line is needed to provide greater power supply to the lab. The current electrical supply is forecast by Los Alamos to reach capacity before 2027.
Commissioners wrote in their letter that the lab, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and the Forest Service did not consult “appropriate stakeholders” when finding a route for the power line.
Stakeholders include state and tribal historic preservation officers, federally recognized Indian tribes, local governments, the National Park Service, and any group with a vested interest in a historic property, according to the commission’s letter.
“Neither NNSA nor the Forest Service has discussed or consulted with the Santa Fe County Board of County Commissioners regarding this Project,” Hank Hughes, chair of the board of county commissioners for Santa Fe County, wrote in the letter.
The letter also said that the Pueblo tribe and its tribal governments, which have a growing interest in “the protection, conservation and the growing movement to designate the Caja del Rio as a National Monument in order to protect and preserve it,” have objected to the construction of the power line.
“My first comment is nobody likes a bully, right?” Justin Greene, commissioner for district 1 of Santa Fe County, told the Santa Fe New Mexican. “LANL has the strength to push this through. The NNSA has the strength to push this through without very much consultation and can bully the [National Environmental Policy Act] process and really avoid all these requirements. But they shouldn’t.”
Greene added that he hopes the community can work together with NNSA and Los Alamos to “find an alternative.”
“The importance of the Caja del Rio to Santa Fe County and the Pueblos cannot be overstated,” the commission’s letter said. “We have called upon the President of the United States and U.S. Congress to protect the Caja del Rio, and now call upon NNSA and the Forest Service to do the same.”