The San Pedro River is in danger

Per the prior updates, the federal case that was initiated with a request for a temporary restraining order, was dismissed in a the Tucson Federal court. It sat in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, San Francisco since July 2024.

On May 27, 2025 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued their summary.

“On the merits of the motions to dismiss, construing the complaint in Plaintiffs’ favor and considering documents incorporated into the complaint or subject to judicial notice, we determine that Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that the Department violated the PA by failing to consult with Plaintiffs on a historic property treatment plan that would evaluate whether the Valley should be designated as a historic property. Further, because Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that the Valley is a historic property, we must infer that a proper consultation would have resulted in the Valley being designated as such. Thus, Plaintiffs also have plausibly alleged that the Department violated the PA by authorizing construction before properly identifying all historic properties affected by the Project and ensuring that any adverse effects would be avoided, minimized, or mitigated. We therefore reverse and remand.”

In summary, the 9th Circuit appeals court unanimously sided with the plaintiffs (TO Nation, San Carlos Apache Tribe, Center for Biological Diversity, and Archaeology Southwest) and against the US Bureau of Land Management and Patter Energy. The three judges agreed that the 2024 claim (that BLM violated the National Historic Preservation Act [NHPA] and Administrative Procedures Act) was properly and timely filed. The court then remanded the case to the District Court for Arizona to hear the merits of the case.

The decision also advises the District Court, among other things, to (1) allow plaintiffs to amend the complaint, as needed, and (2) instruct BLM to assess the San Pedro Valley as a Traditional Cultural Places (TCP). Assuming all goes well as this returns to the District Court, this case should prevent federal agencies from all of the following NHPA Section 106 “shortcuts”:

• Conflating the consultations needed to execute programmatic agreements with mandatory consultations to complete essential steps in the Section 106 process.
• Limiting pre-construction investigations of cultural resources to narrowly defined or directly affected areas of potential effect.
• Ignoring landscape-scale effects of landscape-altering projects.
• Failing to consider and investigate assertions from Tribes and other consulting parties regarding the presence of TCPs.
• Issuing construction or other land-altering notices to proceed prior to the completion of critical steps in the Section 106 process, especially TCP identification and adverse effect assessment.
• Giving willfully ignorant federal officials de facto decision-making authority, then alternately hiding behind and attempting to legalize their obviously flawed decisions.

Read the full report | Read an article in the Tucson Sentinel

Appeal planned after judge tosses suit to reroute $4B SunZia wind transmission
S&P Global
June 10, 2024

A US district court in Arizona dismissed a lawsuit from Native American, environmental and archeology groups seeking to force wind energy developer Pattern Energy Group LLC to reroute its $4 billion SunZia transmission line.

“If [the order] stands then it means that the Bureau of Land Management and any federal agency can then just continue to play shell games with tribes and not obey the law to the letter,” Robin Silver said. “It’s a classic bait and switch.”

Pattern could have taken a less damaging route but chose not to because of profit motives, Silver alleged.

Read the full article …

Judge dismisses Native American challenge to $10B SunZia energy transmission project in Arizona
Associated Press
by Susan Montoya Bryan
June 6, 2024

A U.S. district judge has dismissed claims by Native American tribes and environmentalists who sought to halt construction along part of a $10 billion energy transmission line that will carry wind-generated electricity from New Mexico to customers as far away as California.

Judge Jennifer Zipps said in her ruling issued Thursday that the plaintiffs were years too late in bringing their challenge. It followed an earlier decision in which she dismissed their requests for a preliminary injunction, saying the Bureau of Land Management had fulfilled its obligations to identify historic sites and prepare an inventory of cultural resources.

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Legal Challenges Continue for SunZia Transmission Line
Inside Climate News
by Wyatt Myskow
May 8, 2024

Southern Arizona tribes and San Pedro Valley residents continue their legal challenges to halt construction of the largest renewable energy project in U.S. history.

“As a matter of law, the Commission cannot approve a CEC when on one side of the balance is zero (no Arizona purchasers) or noneconomical power, and on the other side is environmental and ecological harm,” the lawsuit reads. “This is an independent reason to remand: the Commission must require Pattern to put on evidence of actual need in Arizona.”

Else’s lawsuit is just the latest in a series of challenges facing SunZia, the biggest renewable energy project in U.S. history, despite construction on the project having already begun. Fights over the development are playing out in state and federal courts.

Read the full story …

On May 6, 2024 the Cascabel Conservation Association joined the Center for Biological Diversity in sending a report to both the BLM and the USFWS requesting their attention to SunZia’s violations of their Plan of Development relative to nesting birds.

The Avian Protection Plan (APP) of the Plan of Development (POD) requires nest buffers for different types of birds (Figure 5). Zone-tailed hawks and grey hawks are non-eagle raptors and require a 300m buffer if a biological monitor is not present (Figure 5). Two of the identified nests are within 300m of tower pad sites S1-108/2 and S1-108/3 (Figure 1). Construction at these tower pads sites must be halted immediately and the APP Program Coordinator must be contacted.

Additionally, helicopters are regularly traversing Paige Canyon to transport SunZia construction workers and equipment (Figure 6) and are flying directly over these nest sites. In the “Travel to work sites” section of the APP, it states that “if a nest is found, an avoidance buffer will be established appropriate to the species, in consideration of the intensity and duration of activities that may cause disturbance” (emphasis added, POD, p. B3-8). Given the extreme amount of disturbance caused by helicopters and the frequency of flights in Paige Canyon, it is necessary to determine a minimum altitude for helicopter flights above these nest sites.

Download the letter | Download the press release | Visit the CCA Advocacy page

Arizona residents continue to fight the SunZia project. Here’s why.
KJZZ
by Mark Brodie
May 16, 2024

A transmission line that’ll carry wind energy from New Mexico more than 500 miles through southern Arizona continues to generate controversy — even though work on it has already begun. The SunZia project will connect those New Mexico wind farms to the Western power grid; most of that energy will ultimately end up in California.

Wyatt Myskow covers environmental news in the Western U.S. from Phoenix as the Roy W. Howard investigative fellow, and has been following this story. He joined The Show to talk more about the project and why some Arizona residents continue to try to challenge it.

Read or Listen to the full story …

Native American tribes want US appeals court to weigh in on $10B SunZia energy transmission project
Associate Press
by Susan Montoya Bryan
April 25, 2024

Native American tribes and environmentalists want a U.S. appeals court to weigh in on their request to halt construction along part of a $10 billion transmission line that will carry wind-generated electricity from New Mexico to customers as far away as California.

The tribes and others argue that the U.S. Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management failed to recognize the cultural significance of the area before approving the route of the massive project in 2015.

Read the full article …

Federal judge denies a request by two Arizona tribes to block work on SunZia power line
Arizona Republic
by Hayleigh Evans
April 17, 2024

A federal judge has denied two Arizona tribes’ request for an injunction to halt construction on the SunZia power transmission line through the San Pedro River Valley.

The Tohono O’odham Nation and San Carlos Apache Tribe, with Archaeology Southwest and the Center for Biological Diversity, filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management over the agency’s approval of Pattern Energy’s route through the valley.

The court in Tucson ruled that the tribes waited too long to file an injunction and concluded that the BLM had complied with the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires identification of historic properties and efforts to mitigate impacts to those sites.

“Our goal is not only to protect our ancestral cultural history and the San Pedro River Valley’s pristine environment, but to also ensure the federal government is held accountable for its actions in violation of laws designed specifically to protect sacred lands,” Jose said in a written statement. “This is far too important of an issue to be deterred by this ruling,” he added. “The United States’ renewable energy policy that includes destroying sacred and undeveloped landscapes is fundamentally wrong and must stop.”

Read the full article …

US court rejects a request by tribes to block $10B SunZia energy transmission project in Arizona

Associated Press
by Susan Montoya Bryan
April 16, 2024

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a request by Native American tribes and environmentalists to stop work on a $10 billion transmission line being built through a remote southeastern Arizona valley that will carry wind-generated electricity from New Mexico to customers as far away as California.

The project — approved in 2015 following a lengthy review — has been touted as the biggest U.S. electricity infrastructure undertaking since the Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s.

Two tribes joined with archaeologists and environmentalists in filing a lawsuit in January, accusing the U.S. Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management of refusing for nearly 15 years to recognize “overwhelming evidence of the cultural significance” of the remote San Pedro Valley to Native American tribes including the Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Zuni, and San Carlos Apache Tribe.

The suit was filed after Pattern Energy received approval to transmit electricity generated by its SunZia wind farm in central New Mexico through the San Pedro Valley, east of Tucson. The lawsuit called the valley “one of the most intact, prehistoric and historical … landscapes in southern Arizona,” and asked the court to issue restraining orders or permanent injunctions to halt construction.

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