Tribal Leaders Concerned Over Feds’ Proposed $300M Project That Would Cross Sacred Lands – By Zoe Strozewski (Newsweek) / December 29, 2021
Indigenous leaders in New Mexico are concerned over a proposed transmission line, expected to cost up to $300 million, that they say would cross through an important sacred area in the state.
The line would reach for over 12 miles, including through an area called the Caja del Rio that contains a high concentration of petroglyphs, ancestral homes, ceremonial kivas, roads, irrigation structures and other cultural materials, according to the All Pueblo Council of Governors.
The council, which represents 20 pueblos across New Mexico and Texas, recently passed a resolution backing the protection of the Caja del Rio.
The federal government’s planned transmission line project is aimed at funneling more electricity to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a U.S. Energy Department facility initially created during World War II for the design of nuclear weapons.
