Los Alamos County · issues
Civic issues
Topics getting the most attention in Los Alamos County public meetings, ranked by how frequently they come up.
Fix Our Forests Act support
With red flag warnings, PNM has disabled automatic reclosers on transmission lines, raising outage risk. Staff also explained the May 8 townwide outage stemmed from unprogrammed relay settings, with a fix expected within two weeks.
Hexavalent Chromium Groundwater Cleanup
County staff and San Ildefonso Pueblo leaders jointly urged congressional delegation support for continued chromium plume cleanup, DOE infrastructure funding for energy communities, and new well substitution; DOE's EM office signaled support for a replacement well — a first.
Environmental Sustainability Board vacancy
Two applicants interviewed for the open seat left by Anna Buckthorpe, and a recommendation goes to council on October 27 — meaning the seat should be filled by the November meeting.
Natural gas phase-out and electric future
The county has a goal to phase out natural gas (10% reduction by 2030) but usage hasn't budged in 25 years. Councilor Havemann urged nudging the development code toward all-electric new construction; Foxdale Flats power comes online next spring and the carbon-neutral-by-2040 goal has seen little progress.
Bear-resistant cart shortage and wildlife conflict
A resident reported bears destroying trash can lids and asked for more funding for bear-proof carts; the manager said more carts arrive October 14.
Construction dust and tree protection on private development
Councilor Cull raised complaints about dust from the North Mesa construction site during a drought. Staff said code requires dust mitigation on larger projects but doesn't specify methods like barrier fencing, and the tree mitigation policy currently applies only to county projects — a countywide version may come next year.