Wednesday, October 28, 2026
No question in Questa right now carries more weight than what happens on the old Chevron mine land at the edge of the village. Kit Carson Electric Cooperative (KCEC) is pursuing a green hydrogen facility there, on property associated with the former Questa molybdenum mine, which Chevron closed permanently in 2014. The broader KCEC initiative has drawn a 231 million dollar USDA investment for 104 megawatts of hydrogen and solar generation with battery storage — enough, the project's congressional backers say, to power nearly 25,000 homes a year, with up to 350 construction jobs.
Supporters describe hydrogen as long-duration storage: solar power splits water into hydrogen, which is stored and turned back into electricity at night or during outages. KCEC says it already gets about 87 percent of its power from renewable sources and sees hydrogen storage helping it reach 100 percent renewable operations by 2028, according to an October community update reported by KKOB. The cooperative says the project would use non-potable groundwater from the former mine site, not municipal drinking water, and estimates about 47 acre-feet of operational use a year from the well known as POD 18, against a permitted capacity of up to 250 acre-feet a year. KCEC has also estimated the project could generate about 20 million dollars in net revenue for the Village of Questa over 20 years.
Two local ditch associations — the Cabresto Lake Irrigation Community Ditch Association and the Acequia Madre del Cerro de Guadalupe — have sued the USDA Rural Utilities Service, arguing its environmental review was inadequate: it did not fully examine effects on groundwater, did not treat the proposed solar array as one connected project, and relied on assessments completed after the agency issued its Finding of No Significant Impact. On September 3, U.S. District Judge David H. Urias heard roughly four hours of argument and took the request for an injunction under advisement; he had earlier denied an emergency request to halt the project immediately, and no ruling on the underlying claims has been announced. The hearing also aired a practical problem: KCEC's current Chevron lease, signed in May 2026, runs three years, through May 2029, while federal attorneys said the loan requires a 30-year lease or ownership as collateral.
October brought a new twist, reported in The Taos News and the Santa Fe New Mexican: opponents say a recorded 2009 conservation easement between Chevron and the Village of Questa restricts utility infrastructure, land disturbance, vegetation removal and groundwater withdrawal on protected property, and attorney Guy Dicharry has identified the hydrogen, solar and substation sites, along with POD 18, as falling inside its boundaries. Enforcement requests have been submitted, and state agency counsel says the matter is under review. Plainly: no court has determined that any violation occurred, so the easement's effect on the project is, at this point, a claim under review — not a ruling. The Village Council has also voted 3 to 1 to remove the proposed Village solar array from its capital improvement plan, according to Questa Hydrogen Watch, a community site tracking the project.
For now, Questa waits on three tracks at once: a federal judge's decision, the state review of the easement question, and a cooperative that says it will keep making its case in public. However it ends, the outcome will shape this valley — its water, its power and its post-mine economy — for decades. Wednesday itself is a bright one: mostly sunny skies over Questa, a high near 59 degrees after a clear, cold morning in the mid-30s.