Commitment to Local Communities and Environmental Stewardship
Community Engagement and Giving Pattern’s involvement in the community started early and will continue throughout the life of the projects. Community engagement has been quintessential for SunZia, and Pattern has sought and incorporated feedback from local, regional, and national organizations ranging from local groups like the Save our Bosque Task Force, to regional groups like Western Resource Advocates and national organizations such as Audubon National. This feedback led to better, more environmentally compatible projects. When the community speaks, we listen. That’s why we’ve invested millions to support dark sky initiatives, minimizing FAA lighting on transmission towers and installing radar systems to keep our wind farm FAA lights off until planes fly through. Being a good neighbor benefits the communities where we develop and the long-term success of our facilities. Pattern’s Community Benefits Programs support local economies and ensure regional benefits and lasting impact. We aim to be partners, from providing sustaining donations to community-based organizations to sponsoring valued local events like the Junior Livestock Pavilion at the New Mexico State Fair. Our contributions are also funding conservation organizations working in the Middle Rio Grande Valley to build staff capacity for the first 10 years of operations where the SunZia Transmission Project crosses the Rio Grande. Local Job Creation Pattern Energy strives to find ways to expand benefits for the communities where we operate. We are committed to using qualified local and regional vendors and contractors when possible. These efforts will create more jobs and help the community derive additional economic benefits from the project.
Environmental Stewardship The SunZia Wind and Transmission Projects have been developed with a deep commitment to environmental stewardship, following through on an extended engagement with local, regional, and national conservation stakeholders. SunZia Transmission is setting a precedent with a gold standard in environmental mitigation projects developed hand-in-hand with the environmental community. SunZia Wind has established robust best practices to reduce project impacts and study effective habitat restoration strategies in partnership with local and state experts. This work is varied in scale and subject and includes: — Working with the conservation community to purchase a 1,000-acre property along the Rio Grande with significant water rights that is expected to be donated to the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge; — Partnering with the Arizona Department of Game and Fish on several thousand acres of habitat restoration , expected to include earthen tank rehabilitation, invasive species removal, revegetation with native species, wildcat road restoration, and erosion control; — Installing, testing, and studying an innovative technology illuminating the transmission line with UV light to increase the visibility for large-bodied waterfowl, which began in 2021 in funding to ongoing research in the Audubon Rowe Sanctuary; — Ongoing research into sandhill crane flight behavior in partnership with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), which resulted in the publication of peer- reviewed science that can inform future transmission line design; and
— Funding scientific research to USFWS and New Mexico State University to understand upland bird population declines in the desert southwest.
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