The San Pedro River is in danger

The U.S. Urgently Needs a Bigger Grid. Here’s a Fast Solution.
By Brad Plumer
April 9, 2024

One of the biggest obstacles to expanding clean energy in the United States is a lack of power lines. Building new transmission lines can take a decade or more because of permitting delays and local opposition. But there may be a faster, cheaper solution, according to two reports released Tuesday.

Replacing existing power lines with cables made from state-of-the-art materials could roughly double the capacity of the electric grid in many parts of the country, making room for much more wind and solar power.

Read the full article …

After hearing from Arizona residents, we are deeply concerned concerned about the negative implications of this project on Arizona … In November of 2022, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) approved amendments to Pattern Energy’s Arizona permit. In doing so, they acquiesced to Pattern’s plan to make Arizona a Pass-through state.”

Twelve Arizona State Congressmen and Representatives have sent a powerful letter to the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) ask they “review the previous actions granted to SunZia and ensure the concerns of Arizona ratepayers are adequately addressed.”

Read the full letter, as delivered and registered …

Archaeology Southwest joined this lawsuit because of USBLM’s many failures to use its discretion to spare the San Pedro Valley—a place of exceptional beauty and historical, cultural, spiritual, and ecological importance—from industrial fragmentation. As a Tucson-based nonprofit with deep ties to the valley community, Archaeology Southwest has long urged USBLM to route the transmission line alongside existing infrastructure.

Read the entire article …

From power lines to copper mines, tribal leaders are raising concerns about projects essential to President Biden’s climate goals
By Maxine Joselow
March 4, 2024

TUCSON, Ariz. — Verlon Jose recalls climbing a hill here to see the majestic peaks of the Santa Rita Mountains in one direction and the cactus-studded San Pedro Valley, where his ancestors lived hundreds of years ago, in the other.

But looking out from that same vista in February, Jose saw only unwelcome development. To the south, bulldozers were carving roads and clearing land for a massive copper mine on the western slope of the Santa Ritas. To the east, construction was underway on a 550-mile power line that would cut through a 50-mile portion of the valley.

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PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 6, 2024

TRIBES CALL ON ARIZONA CORPORATION COMMISSION TO HALT CONSTRUCTION OF THE SUNZIA TRANSMISSION LINE IN ARIZONA

Toronto-based Pattern Energy in Violation of Commission Guidelines, Plans to Desecrate Sacred lands in the San Pedro River Valley without Required Cultural Resource Studies

TUCSON, Ariz. — The Tohono O’odham Nation and the San Carlos Apache Tribe filed a formal complaint with the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) on Monday, Feb. 5, 2024 demanding the Commission halt construction of the SunZia high voltage transmission line in Arizona for violating Commission orders. The Center for Biological Diversity and Archeology Southwest joined the Tribes in the complaint.

Toronto-based Pattern Energy is constructing a 550-mile transmission corridor connecting central New Mexico and south-central Arizona with two 500kV transmission lines. Construction of a 50-mile portion of the transmission line will carve up the environmentally sensitive San Pedro River Valley, causing irreparable damage to sacred and cultural sites of the Tohono O’odham Nation, San Carlos Apache Tribe, and other tribes.

“Pattern Energy jumped the gun when it began construction of the SunZia power line through the San Pedro River Valley by failing to prepare and submit required cultural studies to the Arizona Corporation Commission,” said Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon Jose. “This is the latest example of this Canadian company ignoring legal requirements designed to protect critical cultural sites. The Commission should immediately order Pattern Energy to cease construction until Pattern complies with all Commission orders.”

San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler said, “Tribes are staunch supporters of renewable energy and encourage responsible energy development. However, Pattern Energy has shown a flagrant disregard for protecting the cultural resources that are vital to our Tribe and other tribes. There are alternative locations to place this powerline rather than through the heart of one the most pristine environmental and cultural landscapes in the Southwest.”

The complaint documents how Pattern Energy has violated two separate provisions of its Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC), which is required by the Commission for the SunZia transmission line. The complaint states that Pattern Energy failed to submit a cultural landscape study and only submitted a partial historic properties treatment plan prior to beginning construction in 2023. Privately-held Pattern Energy acquired SunZia Transmission LLC in July 2022.

The complaint requests the Commission order Pattern Energy to cease construction of the transmission line in Arizona. If Pattern Energy fails to do so, the complaint requests the Commission to suspend the company’s CEC until it complies with Commission orders for the cultural landscape study and completion of the historic properties’ treatment plan.

The ACC complaint comes just less than three weeks after the same parties filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for failure to comply with federal laws and executive orders that would protect cultural sites from the SunZia transmission line. The lawsuit seeks an emergency injunction pending BLM’s compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court, District of Arizona, Case 4:24-cv-00034-JGZ.

Matt Probst
SIMG, Inc.
520-321-1111 office
520-409-4660 cell

On February 5, 2024, attorneys for the Tohono O’odham Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Center for Biological Diversity, Archaeology Southwest, and citizen-intervenor Peter Else filed a formal complaint before the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) regarding SunZia’s violation of conditions in their state permit that require SunZia to complete a cultural landscape study and a historic properties treatment plan prior to commencing construction. SunZia has admitted that these two documents have not been completed. However, SunZia has already initiated construction in Arizona.

SunZia, the holder of Certificate of Environmental Compatibility No. 171 (“CEC”), has unlawfully begun construction of its transmission lines. The CEC obliges SunZia to submit two substantive documents to the Commission prior to commencement of construction: a cultural landscape study and a historic properties treatment plan. SunZia has submitted an incomplete historic properties treatment plan and has not conducted a cultural landscape study. The Commission is requested to (1) enforce the CEC by ordering SunZia to cease construction until the conditions of the CEC are complied with, and (2) advise SunZia that failing to do so will result in suspension of the CEC until SunZia complies with the CEC’s conditions.

The parties represented in this Complaint are asking the ACC to (1) enforce the state permit by ordering SunZia to cease construction until these cultural resource requirements in the state permit are complied with, and (2) advise SunZia that failing to do so will result in suspension of the state permit until SunZia complies with these cultural resource requirements.

Read the full filing …

Arizona Daily Star

Thoughts on the SunZia project
by Elaine Cummings
February 2, 2024

The reaction of tribes located here in Arizona (my home of over 50 years) is no surprise. In fact, their request probably should have been anticipated because this project’s outline mirrors many other projects of similar ilk.

Too many times, in projects such as SunZia where tribal lands have been involved, the tribal members and their councils either were not included at all, or were left out of early planning, or were brought in and heard late in a process, and then were ignored (ex., KXL, DAPL, Line 3, and other oil pipeline projects). In these examples, many either were “already under construction” or had been “completed without an EIA or permit” represented encroachment on tribal lands and endangered a sole source of fresh water supply … and, as well, threatened the mutual supply of water for non-native citizens. One now is underway in Michigan waters.

Today, with SunZia, another unfortunate fact should be noted — that tribes now must go against U.S. Dept. of Interior Sec. Deb Haaland, herself a Native American (Laguna Pueblo, NM). This is totally unfair to Sec. Haaland because no part of this problem began on “her watch.”

That it even has “come to this” in Arizona with SunZia is beyond astonishing, given the fact that, once more, “our” various government entities either have NOT begun or done or have failed to complete studies that either were requested or were required by all cooperating parties, well before the first project construction foremen ever fired up the first bulldozer! For instance, look no further than the AZ southern border, where a proposed mine finally may have been stopped, but where drastic environmental destruction already has been done, which will take many years for nature and the passage of time to undo and to repair.

I am only one of many citizens who have monitored several of the aforementioned projects for over 10 years. I have remained in contact with advocate organizations, Native American publications, and individuals. As well, I have personal friends within these tribes and others from back East, where I lived before I came to AZ in 1971 … who also are Native Americans. This latest affront is hard to swallow … again … for all of us.

Has no one in our country, or in our Congress, or in our state government, or in assorted NGOs, learned anything from the broken treaties of our historic past, let alone from the continuing malpractice of our more recent times? Is our word, that of “We, The People” not to be trusted … again?

Sadly, it would seem not.

Elaine Cummings, retired since 1997, is a former journalist (Albany Times-Union), publications designer/ editor for other magazines and agencies. She has lived in Tucson since 1971.