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New state trustee outlines natural‑resource damage work and PFAS cases including Cannon and Holloman
Summary
The state’s Office of Natural Resource Trustee described damage‑assessment and restoration work tied to mines, LANL, and PFAS at military bases; ONRT reported $45 million recovered since 2000 and said recovered dollars are used exclusively for restoration projects.
Rebecca Roos, the state’s newly appointed trustee for natural resources, briefed the committee on the office’s role in damage assessment, legal recovery and restoration projects.
Roos explained that the office pursues natural-resource damage claims when a responsible party can be identified, then seeks restoration projects that match the injured resources. She described three NRDA phases: injury determination, quantification and damage determination, and noted that full assessments can take years or decades because they require rigorous technical documentation. ONRT has recovered about $45 million since 2000 and reinvests those recoveries in restoration projects — examples include river, agricultural and conservation projects that compensate for lost services when a direct restoration is impossible.
Roos listed active cases and priorities: Los Alamos natural resource damage assessments (co‑trustee work with pueblos), PFAS multidistrict litigation for contamination at Cannon, Holloman, Kirtland and White Sands (ONRT focuses on the natural‑resource component), and legacy mining cases in the Grants area. She said ONRT is in ongoing assessment work and is evaluating restoration alternatives for sites such as Holloman, where high PFAS concentrations have been documented.
Committee members asked whether ONRT had engaged base commanders before filing notices; ONRT counsel said the law requires formal notice prior to filing and the office has sought cooperative engagement where possible. Roos said the office has new resources from a 2025 appropriation that allow it to expand assessments and that hiring additional staff would enable ONRT to pursue more cases in parallel.
