Alicia Gallegos: A Northern New Mexico environmental advocate

After spending much of her youth on her grandparents’ cattle ranch in Tierra Amarilla, about 70 miles north of Española, Alicia Gallegos’ path followed a clearly charted course.

Her adolescence entailed riding horseback, tending livestock, fixing fences and hearing stories about her dad’s upbringing — when the family raised sheep and were “too poor to afford saddles, so they rode bareback,” Alicia says.

“Those are the memories that stick in your mind,” Alicia adds, “and I loved those parts of my youth.”

After graduating from New Mexico State University with dual degrees in range science and wildlife science, Alicia went to work for the U.S. Forest Service, where she spent 18 years. Initially she worked with livestock producers, making sure their grazing practices on public lands were ecologically sustainable.

“It’s just about being responsible with our actions, which means not impacting sensitive riparian areas or plant species — and protecting threatened and endangered species,” Alicia says. “It’s important that we not only provide for the livestock, but for the wildlife that’s out there so they can thrive. I tend to think there’s room and space for everything and everyone, even though some species have the same needs for water, forage, cover and so on.”

Now with Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2022, Alicia works to ensure its crucial national security mission and responsible environmental management happen hand in hand. It makes operations run more efficiently when things are done right with environmental stewardship the first time around, Alicia says. Then, ideally, there won’t be a required cleanup of contaminants or other measures to reverse damage in the future.

Assessing environmental impacts, being transparent with the public

As part of the Environmental Compliance and Protection division, Alicia compares prior years’ environmental impact projections with actual impacts at the end of each calendar year. She looks at volumes of waste generated and shipped off site, air emissions, permitted wastewater discharges into surface waters, and groundwater and traffic impacts — just to name a few. The project is called the Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) Yearbook, and a version is published and shared with the public each year. In some cases, the yearbook includes explanations as to why projections were different from actual operations.

“We live and work in these communities, so it’s about serving them with integrity and honesty and transparency to the greatest extent possible,” Alicia says. “Clearly there’s stuff we can’t talk about. But where we can, we provide them with information about what’s being done in their backyards and how we’re doing that in an environmentally responsible manner.”

Alicia also assesses proposed infrastructure activities across the Laboratory — like road maintenance, the installation of fiber optic lines and the construction of new buildings — as well as other new projects slated to happen inside Laboratory facilities, such as the installation of new gloveboxes or other equipment. She helps evaluate what environmental impacts they may have and what steps must be followed next, such as disclosure to the public.

“Alicia is such an amazing professional and has contributed so much to our team,” says David Holtkamp, a program lead in Environmental Stewardship. “Dedication like hers is essential to making sure we meet our mission priorities and demonstrate environmental excellence for future generations.”

An eye toward the future

Outside of work, Alicia raises her 14-year-old son to have the same values that were instilled in her. They live on a 6-acre parcel in Chili, just north of Española, with horses and a small garden.

“Both my husband and I are from Northern New Mexico, and it’s important to us that we stay rooted here,” Alicia says. “We have such deep ties to our families and to the land that we’ve had for generations.”

Alicia’s dad Armando, who turns 80 this year, feels the same way. He points out the houses around his ranch where distant relatives once lived, and he recalls with fondness riding horses with teenaged Alicia into the mountains toward Ojo Caliente to corral their cattle. Now he’s teaching Alicia’s son the ropes around the ranch.

“We all want and we all deserve to have things like clean air and clean water, clean soil for ourselves and our future,” Alicia says. “It’s just protecting and conserving what we’ve inherited and being appreciative of that. That’s the lifestyle we want and love for ourselves.”

In addition to being her dad’s “right-hand woman” at the ranch, Alicia and her family love to golf, camp, fish, downhill ski and bow hunt for big game.

And when not enjoying the outdoors — or “Ubering our son to some sporting event,” Alicia says — she’s active in her parish doing music ministry and marriage enrichment retreats.

“Alicia’s dedication to excellence is evident in everything she does,” says Jesse Berryhill, Alicia’s team lead. “At work, she exemplifies a true natural resources professional that helps project personnel minimize impacts to the resources she is passionate about conserving, which is a tremendous asset.”

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