After a yearslong environmental review process and overwhelming public opposition, the National Nuclear Security Administration has given their green light to move forward with a controversial transmission power line project on the Caja del Rio plateau.
Located just outside of Santa Fe, the Caja del Rio plateau is being eyed for a brand new 115kV power line that would supplement Los Alamos National Laboratory with steady power to “maintain” and “enhance” the nation’s nuclear stockpile in the name of national security.
NNSA claims the transmission lines currently serving LANL will reach capacity in 2027. The new one would be the third such line in the area.
“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,” wrote NNSA Los Alamos Field Office Manager Ted Wyka in a press release.
The agency found the project’s construction will not have a significant environmental effect on the land and wildlife that call the Caja home.
Additionally, the finding includes amendments to the Santa Fe National Forest Management Plan to allow for a utility corridor and permanent easements.
While the area is home to swaths of wildlife, the Caja is also culturally significant to nearby pueblos and Spanish land grant communities – serving as a site for spiritual pilgrimage, hunting, and firewood collection. The oldest Euro-American trade route in North America snakes near the plateau.
That said, several agencies and the Pueblo of Tesuque signed a "memorandum of understanding” to co-steward the Caja del Rio plateau, with the aim of ensuring the protection, preservation, and access to culturally significant Pueblo sites.
However, environmentalists and tribes have long fought against the project, arguing that the NNSA has failed to adequately consider alternatives – like utilizing existing infrastructure in the area, or even renewable energy sources.
Others, such as Garrett VeneKlasen with the conservation group New Mexico Wild, have advocated for the project to be put on hold for the time-being, asking for a more thorough environmental review.
“It's a dangerous precedent,” VeneKlasen told KUNM last September. “I'm all for reasonable national security initiatives, but this is outside the box. This is above and beyond.”
Furthermore, on the tail-end of Joe Biden’s presidency, a swath of local and state elected officials, Indigenous and Hispano leaders, and conservation groups urged the area to be designated a national monument. That never happened.
The plateau, which sits on just over 100,000 acres, is jointly managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
According to the National Environmental Policy Act, that means all agencies involved must take a hard look at what the potential environmental consequences could be.
For now, the Bureau of Land Management is the only agency that hasn’t issued an environmental decision. The U.S. Forest Service put their seal of approval on the project back in September.
BLM could issue their finding later this year.
