Credit: K. Wescott/Argonne National Laboratory
In 2016, Argonne conducted a cultural assessment stemming from a Solar Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Solar PEIS) covering six Southwestern states that Argonne’s Environmental Sciences Division. One of the first studies to portray how Spanish and Mexican settlers of the area related to the land before the U.S. government assumed jurisdiction. Argonne’s charge was to determine which public lands within those states would be technically and environmentally suitable for solar energy development.