11.3.2.010 Findings

(a) The Pueblo de San Ildefonso is the only tribe to share a boundary with a Department of Energy facility, specifically the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

(b) The Indian Claims Commission determined that the Pueblo de San Ildefonso's ancestral area includes the property currently operated by the DOE at its Los Alamos site.

(c) The Pueblo is a natural resources trustee as defined in federal law, i.e. CERCLA, the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).

(d) The Pueblo in cooperation with the State of New Mexico and federal agencies initiated the Natural Resource Trustee Council ("Trustee Council") effort for DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) site.

(e) The Pueblo entered into a Memorandum of Agreement ("initial MOA") in 2007 to establish the LANL Natural Resource Trustee Council ("Trustee Council").

(f) Only tribal, state, and federal governments are authorized to be natural resources trustees for their respective jurisdictions.

(g) The Trustee Council members from tribal, state, and federal governments are trustees for natural resources that may have suffered injuries resulting from releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances (including radionuclides) and discharges or threatened discharges of oil, in and from the area of LANL.

(h) The purpose of the LANL natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) and restoration (NRDAR) is to identify and restore the service losses caused by LANL which affect the environment in the jurisdictions of each Trustee.

(i) The initial MOA expired in 2012, and a second MOA (attached to this Resolution) has been negotiated to continue the Trustee Council work on natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) for another five years with an ability to withdraw by written notice to the co-trustees.

(j) The Second MOA provides for a five year term, and allows any party to terminate its participation in the MOA by giving thirty (30) days prior written notice to the other co-trustees.

(k) Trustee Council members currently include the Pueblos de San Ildefonso, Jemez and Santa Clara, State through its Office of Natural Resources Trustee, and federal departments of Energy and Agriculture.

(l) The Trustee Council has overseen a technical team to perform a pre-assessment screen which confirmed LANL damaged natural resources, and are no completing work on an assessment plan.

(m) The natural resource damage assessment and restoration ("NRDAR") process will take several years for technical studies to implement the NRDA plan and determine what injury to natural resources occurred, quantify the injuries and lost "services", determine the "pathways' for each hazardous substance, and quantify damages.

(n) The Pueblo's location in relation to LANL means numerous pathways for hazardous material from LANL may affect the Pueblo people and resources.

(o) The DOE provides financial support for the NRDAR process, including studies required by the Trustee Council's NRDA plan.

(p) NRDAR work is separate from DOE's clean up responsibilities; DOE Policy encourages cooperation between the two activities.

(q) The Trustee Council has completed work on a natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) plan.

(r) The Trustee Council has prioritized studies of "Pueblo narratives" and "Resource characterization for assessment and restoration of Pueblo services" which require input form the Pueblo and other Pueblo trustees concerning natural resource damage and loss of cultural services suffered by Pueblo members.

(s) The NRDA process will provide a basis for estimating the monetary value of damages needed to restore, replace or acquire resources equivalent to the injured natural resources, plus the loss of use and enjoyment of the injured resources.

(t) The NRDAR process will also seek to identify projects that will restore cultural services to Pueblo members which have been lost as a result of natural resources damages caused by DOE's LANL facility.

(u) After the assessment work, the Trustee Council will develop a plan for restoration, replacement, or acquisition of equivalent resources using money actually available.

(v) The Pueblo expects DOE and the Trustee Council to respect the Pueblo's decisions regarding appropriate steps to restore damage and service losses determined in the NRDA studies to be specific to the Pueblo's land and people.

(w) The NRDA process does not require giving up any possible claims and Pueblo retains the right to make natural resources damage claims independent of the Trustee Council.

(x) Participation in the natural resource damage assessment process as a natural resources trustee, on terms specified in the attached Second Memorandum of Agreement, is in the best interests of the Pueblo.