Nov 14, 2023, 7:26 AM | Updated: 7:27 am
Dignitaries, along with U. S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (center), break the floor at the assignment of the SunZia transmission line in Corona, New Mexico, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. Native American tribes say the U. S. government has ignored considerations about how the allocation might only have an effect on Arizona’s sacred sites. (Jon Austria/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)
(Jon Austria/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Work on a $10 billion allocation to funnel renewable energy through the West has stalled in southwestern Arizona, and Native American tribes say the federal government has ignored considerations about the effects the SunZia transmission line would have on cultural and cultural sites.
Federal land managers last week halted work on the SunZia transmission assignment along an 80-kilometer stretch after the Tohono O’odham Nation called for immediate intervention, saying bulldozers were clearing part of the San Pedro Valley and that it or several historic sites had been demolished. .
The tribe joined his defense through the San Carlos Apache tribe and archaeologists. The Zuni people of neighboring New Mexico and other tribes in the southwestern United States have also expressed concern, saying the domain also has cultural and ancient significance to them.
The letter includes a photograph of a domain where desert brush has been cleared in preparation for the construction of platforms for transmission line towers, as well as many miles of access roads through a valley that tribal officials and environmentalists say , is intact.
Renewables advocates have said SunZia’s allocation will be a key artery of the Biden administration’s plan to boost renewables and the reliability of the nation’s power grids. It will stretch about 885 kilometers from central New Mexico and transport electric power from huge wind farms to more populated areas as far away as California.
Pattern Energy, the developer, presented the SunZia task as an electrical infrastructure task larger than the Hoover Dam. Leaders and the federal government met in New Mexico in September to publish the task.
Verlon Jose, chair of Tohono O’odham Nation, suggested in an Oct. 31 letter to the Bureau of Land Management that the agency was prioritizing SunZia’s interests rather than fulfilling its trust responsibilities to tribes.
He pointed to an order issued through U. S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland that calls on federal land managers under her direction to “pay attention and deference to the proposals, recommendations and tribal wisdom that control decisions on those lands. ” “. from Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.
“We hope you will agree that bulldozers are poor tools for consultations or for treating places having exceptional significance in O’odham, Apache, and Zuni religion, culture, and history,” Jose wrote.
Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a letter to Jose last week that Haaland had asked her to address the concerns and advised holding an assembly in the coming days.
The firm did not respond to an email from The Associated Press asking about the tribes’ concerns. It is also unclear how long the paintings will be suspended.
Pattern Energy said Monday it considers the pause in work “a religious move” as part of the Bureau of Land Management’s consultation process.
Natalie McCue, Pattern Energy’s assistant vice president of environmental and permitting activities, said the company has worked to address tribal concerns over the years and that the transmission line will run parallel to existing infrastructure in the valley to minimize impacts.
In the works for more than a decade, SunZia’s line would be able to transport more than 3,500 megawatts of new wind power to another 3 million people in the West. In New Mexico, the direction changed after the U. S. Department of Defense raised concerns about the effects of high-voltage lines on the military’s radar systems and educational operations.
Environmentalists also participated in the effects on the habitat and flight behavior of migratory birds in the Rio Grande Valley.
Similar ecological considerations exist in the San Pedro Valley. The transmission line is at the center of an ongoing legal challenge before the Arizona Court of Appeals over whether state regulators approve the benefits and consequences of the project.
Pattern Energy officials said the company would plant about 10,000 agaves and 7,000 saguaro cacti as part of recovery efforts and would fund a plant recovery and work to identify new agave species along the San Pedro River.