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An investigation earlier this year that centered on alleged child sexual abuse in Los Alamos and Albuquerque led to multiple felony charges against a Los Alamos man at the center of that investigation. It also led to the arrest of 37-year-old Shawn M. Cavasos, who pleaded guilty in March to felony counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child and contributing to the delinquency of a minor as part of a plea agreement. Cavasos is now due in court later this month to be sentenced for violating the terms of that agreement.

Cavasos’ March conviction and plea agreement followed charges that he raped a 15-year-old girl and provided her drugs and alcohol, but under the terms of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped a felony child abuse charge. He also received the promise of a conditional discharge for the charges of rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but only if he served a three-year probation and complied with the terms of the agreement and the conditions of release imposed by the court. Those conditions included the completion of alcohol and substance abuse counseling, and it ordered that he cannot consume alcohol while on probation.

Prosecutors, however, alleged in a motion filed in Los Alamos District Court in May that Cavasos missed a required May 12 office visit with a probation officer and that he was intoxicated when he called to reschedule the meeting. Cavasos reported in person to a probation officer the next day, and admitted to drinking alcohol, according to the motion.

Following the probation meeting, prosecutors on May 27 filed a petition to revoke probation in Los Alamos District Court; a sentencing hearing in the case is scheduled for July 30.

The initial charges against Cavasos came following an investigation into 63-year-old Timothy Pacheco, the father of the 15-year-old girl who Cavasos was convicted of raping. Police alleged in separate affidavits that Pacheco allowed Cavasos and 21-year-old Kyrina Deschamp to have sex with the girl. Prosecutors in May dropped the charges against Deschamp after placing her in a preprosecution diversion program, though the charges could be refiled if she fails to complete the program.

A trial in the case against Pacheco is pending, with jury selection in Los Alamos District Court slated to begin on December 7.

A Los Alamos man in his mid-30’s suffered a rattlesnake bite to his left ankle while hiking on Quemazon Trail above Western Area this morning.

Fire Department personnel from responded to the Quemazon trailhead in Western Area around 10:15 am and reached the victim about 20 minutes later using a 4x4 ATV. The victim was brought back to the trailhead and transported by ambulance to LAMC in stable condition.

Multiple species of rattlesnakes live in and around Los Alamos, and they are particularly active at this time of year. Do not approach or try to kill a snake. The best way to avoid being bitten is to be aware of your surroundings and give all snakes a wide berth. If you’re out on the trails, wear sturdy shoes or boots that protect your feet and ankles.

If you are bitten:

• Keep calm and reduce your exertion level.

• Immediately call 911 and/or seek emergency medical care. Snakebite symptoms may not become immediately apparent, but antivenom is more effective if it’s administered as soon after the bite as possible.

• Do not attempt to suck the venom out of the bite, slice open the bite area, or apply a tourniquet.

If you find a snake on a residental property or at a public area (e.g. parks or ballfields), keep an eye on it from a safe distance and contact Los Alamos Animal Control, 505-662-8222, to have it relocated.

Photographs by Minesh Bacrania

This year, the local bears have been testing the patience of Los Alamos residents. As of June 30, there have been seventy-two calls to Los Alamos County to report nuisance bears. Additionally, statistics from animal control show the number of bear encounters reported to the county has been increasing, particularly for residents in White Rock.

To a bear, our community has all the trappings of a family resort: all-you-can-eat dumpster dive bars, choose-your-own chickens, and (in most years) tree-ripened fruit for dessert.

Bears are creatures of habit and will repeatedly return to a known food source. Mama bears teach their young that dumpster raids and carport freezers are a perfectly acceptable way to get a high-calorie meal.

As humans get more comfortable with bears wandering the neighborhoods, bears too get more comfortable with humans. Bears are cute, but they’re still wild animals, and a startled or threatened bear can quickly become unpredictable and dangerous.

Bear attacks are rare, but they do happen. Since 2016, there have been two bear attacks on humans in the Los Alamos area. One bear was protecting her cubs after being surprised by a runner in the Valles Caldera. The other bear was apparently protecting its dumpster haul in the Pajarito Ski area. Both human victims sustained serious injuries from the attacks. Both bears, on the other hand, ended up dead.

Stash your trash

Video above: A bear attempting a mid-afternoon raid of a properly latched bear-resistant roll cart in downtown Los Alamos.

One of the biggest bear attractants in our community continues to be human trash. While you may not mind occasionally picking up the mess of an overturned trash bin, your neighbors will probably not appreciate the outcome if their dog or child happens to accidentally startle a mama bear and its cubs.

Unlike some communities in bear country, Los Alamos County does not require residents to have bear-resistant roll carts for residential trash collection. Bear-resistant roll carts are heavier and less convenient to use than the standard cans, but this inconvenience to humans is small compared to the consequences that bear might suffer.

As of July 1, there’s been a high demand for these, and County Environmental Services is experiencing a backlog of requests. “A new order of bear-resistant roll carts has been placed with an estimated delivery time of 1 to 2 months,” according to Los Alamos County. To join the waiting list for a bear-resistant roll cart, residents must sign up using the online registration form here. Requests submitted by email or telephone will not be accepted.

Bear-resistant roll carts have had a somewhat tarnished history in Los Alamos. The first generation, with a top-mounted, one-finger latch, required a fair amount of manual fiddling. The second generation, with a front-mounted squeeze latch, are easier to use and automatically unlatch during trash collection. However, the exposed inner latching mechanism tends to malfunction when it gets clogged with debris from unbagged trash. (If yours is acting up, a couple of drops of dish detergent and a blast from a garden hose can help.) The newest version of bear-resistant roll carts, with a hidden front latch, use a sealed locking mechanism that has, so far, proven extremely reliable.

The county has also been working to install bear-resistant roll carts in parks and other community spaces and has also replaced all its commercial dumpsters with bear-resistant versions. Like the residential cans, these are more difficult to open, especially by people of smaller stature. Eco-station staff have come up with a retrofitted step that now allows easier access, which can be added to an existing dumpster on request.

Check your chickens

Backyard chickens are also a popular menu item for local bears, and some chicken owners even acknowledge that losing a few chickens is just a part of backyard farming in Los Alamos.

But a bear returning to a coop night after night sets the stage for human-wildlife conflict. Perhaps the most effective deterrent for bears is electric fencing for chicken coops and livestock enclosures, but it must be energetic enough to provide a zap that the bear will remember.

Video above: A properly-sized electric fence is an effective deterrent for bears.

One way or another, a nuisance bear is likely a dead bear

Once a bear has made itself comfortable in an area, it will keep coming back. The Los Alamos County Police Department and Animal Control try to use a variety of less-than-lethal methods to try to discourage problem bears: pepper balls, bear spray, lights and sirens, and rubber buckshot. Some bears take the hint, but the more stubborn ones aren’t deterred.

LAPD has also received multiple reports this year of local residents trying to deter bears with firearms. While it’s legal to defend your life and property (including pets and livestock), it’s also important to keep in mind the risks that come with stray bullets flying around residential areas. An annoyed or injured bear might run away, but is also might become an unpredictable danger to the entire community.

Trapping and relocating bears is often touted as a safe and positive solution, but the reality is grim. The stress and territorial conflict often prove fatal to bears, particularly cubs. Relocation also often results in bear family separations, leaving the cubs unprotected and at risk for predators.

The best thing we can do for the bears is to make our community as uninviting for them as we can. A bear without a fear of humans is likely to have its life cut short.

“We have the public safety concern, but we also have the animal [welfare] concern,” Los Alamos Animal Control supervisor Theresa Phelan said. “With community effort, we can work together to keep both bears and the community safe and find the middle ground of coexisting.”

What can you do?

• If a bear is calmly wandering through your neighborhood, let it be and give it plenty of room

• If the bear is causing a disturbance, call Los Alamos County dispatch at 505-662-8222

• More information about bear interactions and safety can be found at Bearwise.

And about those bear-resistant roll carts.

Each residential solid waste customer in Los Alamos County is entitled to one bear can at no additional cost. As of early July, the county is awaiting delivery of a new order of cans, which should arrive in early- to mid-August. Sign up for yours here.

General questions about roll cart maintenance, commercial dumpster step retrofits, and other waste-related issues can be emailed the Eco Transfer Station at solidwaste@losalamosnm.gov.

New Mexico Gas Company has shut down the main gas pipeline that supplies Los Alamos and many of the communities between Albuquerque to Taos for maintenance and inspection, which under federal law is mandated to take place every twenty years. This shutdown, however, has unfortunately resulted in an explosion in the number of “gas leak” calls to the county’s utilities department.

In order to supply customers during the outage, contractors for NMGC have routed natural gas to the county via a “virtual pipeline”, where liquified natural gas (LNG) is delivered by truck to a temporary pumping station at NM 502 and Camino Entrada. The LNG is then vaporized back into a gaseous state and pumped into the county’s gas distribution network.

Natural gas consists primarily of odorless methane, and since a major gas explosion in 1937, federal law has required that an odorant — typically a noxious sulfur-based compound in the “thiol” or “mercaptan” family — be added to alert customers to the presence of natural gas well below the level required to sustain an explosion. (Thiols are also the active ingredient behind natural odors such as skunk spray, rotting food, and morning breath, and the human olfactory system has evolved to detect them at vanishingly low concentrations.)

Local gas customers were not supposed to notice any changes in service; however, the virtual pipeline has had some very real hiccups.

On June 29 around 11 am, the entire Pajarito Cliffs Site at Camino Entrada, along with several surrounding businesses and LANL offices, were evacuated because of the “strong smell of gas” throughout the complex.

The Los Alamos Fire Department and the Los Alamos County Department of Public Utilities eventually determined that there was no actual gas hazard, and that the smell permeating the neighborhood was due to the unexpected atmospheric release of concentrated odorant from the pumping station across the street.

County first responders have also been dealing with a dramatic rise in the number of customers reporting a “smell of gas” at local residences and businesses.

It’s not uncommon for gas distribution systems to have tiny leaks below the limit of human detection. These can result from loose appliance connections, faulty meters, pressure relief valves, or even corroded underground pipes. But humans’ extreme aversion to thiol compounds means that a tiny fluctuation in the on-site odorant mixing process can result in an undetectable leak smelling larger than it actually is.

The county expects that the NMGC pipeline shutdown will last through the summer. Until then, customers will likely be at the mercy of fluctuations in the “virtual pipeline” process, at least until all the leaks have been sniffed out.

If you smell gas:

If it’s a faint and occasional whiff of gas, call the Los Alamos County Utilities customer service line at 505-662-8333, during normal business hours to arrange for county utilities to perform an on-site survey.

However, if the smell of gas is strong and unwavering, and/or there are other indications like the hiss of escaping gas or dead vegetation around a gas meter or underground pipe, then immediately evacuate the area and call 911.

More information about natural gas in Los Alamos can be found on the county’s website.

The July Fourth weekend is almost here, and nearly everyone knows That One Neighbor who believes their Ph.D. in detonation theory is a license to host their own driveway fireworks show. As spectacular as these neighborhood shows can be, Los Alamos County and the surrounding lands are currently under Stage II fire restrictions.

Along with banning campfires and outdoor work with open flames, the order states: “The ignition and use of fireworks and other pyrotechnic devices is prohibited.”

LAPD Deputy Police Chief James Rodriguez told Boomtown that residents can report “observe illegal or unsafe fireworks activity” to the non-emergency dispatch number 505-662-8222.

Callers can remain anonymous, and Rodriguez said that police “will respond to complaints as staffing and call volume allow.”

Of course, to report an actual fire or other immediate threat to life or property, call 911.

(And legal or not, keeping the home-blown explosions to a minimum is often a neighborly thing to do.

Local festivities

Along with the Friday night concert at Ashley Pond on July 3, Los Alamos County will host its annual “4th of July Spectacular” at Overlook Park on Saturday. The Kiwanis fireworks show, which in years past has led to the occasional bonfire in White Rock Canyon, has been cancelled, but it will be replaced by an extended drone light show starting at 9 pm.

Atomic City Transit will provide free shuttle bus service to Overlook from various places around the county. Parking at the park will be limited to handicapped access only.

Beginning next week, Los Alamos residents and commuters can expect to see orange construction barrels along Trinity Drive as traffic is reduced to one lane on each side to allow for construction work. There will be three projects impacting access to Trinity Drive:

• Electrical work from the Department of Public Utilities along the north sidewalk of Trinity Drive between Oppenheimer Drive and Diamond Drive

• The extension of Finch Street from the end of 35th Street out onto Trinity Drive

• The Trinity Drive Safety and ADA Improvements Project from Oppenheimer Drive to Knecht Street

The electrical work began on June 15 and does not yet have an expected end date, according to the county.

Construction for the Finch Street project will likely begin within the month and is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.

The Trinity Drive Safety and ADA Improvements Project — the most intensive of the three — will begin construction on July 6 and go through December 2026. However, Jennifer Morrow, the project engineer who spoke at the county’s public pre-construction meeting on June 16, acknowledged that none of these dates can be guaranteed.

“There are construction delays that are out of all of our control,” she said. These can be caused by weather, delayed delivery of materials, or unexpected items being dug up.

How to stay updated

The county has contracted with Patti Watson, president of CWA Strategic Communications, to be the first point of contact for anyone with questions or concerns about the Trinity Drive Safety and ADA Improvements Project. Watson’s contact information can be found on the county’s project page.

Residents, commuters, and business owners can also sign up for regular email updates on the project and send questions or concerns using this form provided by the county. Information on schedules and impacts of each phase of the project will be sent out through the form as they become available.

The county will hold additional public meetings in August and October to update residents on the project’s progress and receive public feedback. Morrow added that utility shutoffs required for construction can be scheduled to minimize impacts on businesses along the construction corridor, which is part of why public feedback is important.

“We know construction is going to be painful,” Morrow said. “We’re not here to tell you it’s going to be easy. But we can work together to try and minimize the impacts as much as we can.”

In the meantime, residents and commuters should plan for delays. Alternate routes through town are Canyon Road and Central Avenue. People traveling into and out of town from off the hill can also take East Jemez Road (the truck route) to avoid construction areas. At the meeting on June 16, Morrow said the county would consider putting an electric signboard at the bottom of the hill to notify commuters of this alternate route.

What’s changing?

The Trinity Drive Safety and ADA Improvements Project is the second phase of a longer project to improve road safety and accessibility along Trinity Drive.

The project began to address concerns raised after a road safety audit conducted by the New Mexico Department of Transportation in 2016. Phase one implemented a typical road diet — where two lanes of traffic on a four lane road are repurposed to create a two-way center turn-lane and extra space for bike lanes — between Oppenheimer and 39th Street to reduce collision points and improve traffic flow. This phase was completed in 2019.

The second phase, beginning this summer, will implement a “hybrid” road diet — repurposing one westbound lane to allow for wider sidewalks and bike lanes — between Oppenheimer Drive and Knecht Street. For an in-depth discussion of what road diets entail and how they improve road safety, see Boomtown’s previous story on the history of the project.

The “hybrid” road diet was chosen to preserve the two eastbound lanes on this segment of Trinity Drive. The two eastbound lanes allow for better access to the businesses on the south side of the road and ensure that traffic leaving town has two lanes to travel by during an evacuation, Morrow explained at the pre-construction meeting.

Phase two of the project will also include:

• The addition of several medians between Oppenheimer Drive and Knecht Street to improve safety by marking turn lanes

• The addition of a bus pullout near the Justice Center parking area

• The installation of a Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon at the intersection of Trinity Drive and 20th Street to provide a safe site for pedestrian crossing

• The widening of the sidewalk along the south side of Ashley Pond Park

• A new water line from Oppenheimer Drive to 20th Street

• Gas line replacements from 20th Street to Knecht Street

• Electric line replacements between Oppenheimer Drive and Knecht Street

The water, gas, and electric line replacements are separate from the electrical work under the Department of Public Utilities that has already started between Oppenheimer Drive and Diamond Drive.

To ensure that access to the Friday night summer concert series at Ashley Pond is not disrupted, the sidewalk work along the south side of the pond will not begin until September or later, Morrow said. This sidewalk work is also separate from the electrical work that is impacting the sidewalk between Oppenheimer Drive and Diamond Drive.

If you missed any of it, now’s the perfect time to catch up.

LAMC ending labor and delivery services

Los Alamos Medical Center’s labor and delivery services ceased on June 27. Our reporter Jennifer Armstrong dug in and found out what LAMC's closure means for our community. This is a developing story and we will provide updates as we learn more.

📰 Read the full story here.

Community helps build mosaic designed by Austin-based artist

Boomtown’s Maya Price sat down with artist J. Muzacz to chat about the new mosaic he designed for Los Alamos and the ethos of community care at its core.

📰 Learn more by clicking here.

Driver charged in crash that killed Easton

The Los Alamos Police Department filed traffic charges against the driver who struck and killed 68-year-old Brian Easton as he crossed a street as a pedestrian.

📰 Read the full story by clicking here.

‘An easier way to live’: the people behind Los Alamos Pride

“What does Pride mean to you?” Our amazing interns posed that question at this year’s Los Alamos Pride and got answers that were thoughtful, funny, heartfelt, and deeply personal.

Alongside this feature on the people who helped create Los Alamos Pride, we’ve shared some of the voices that make the event matter year after year.

Watch the Facebook Reel and read the story to learn how a festival that once had an uncertain future became a tradition for many in our community.

📰 Read the story by clicking here.

📱Watch the Facebook Reel by clicking here.

Meet Boomtown’s new interns

This summer, Boomtown is continuing its tradition of hiring and training the next generation of young journalists. Meet Maya Price and Eliana Padilla.

📰 Read more about them by clicking here.

Help us bring more stories like these to the community we love!

Boomtown’s staff members work each day to bring you in-depth stories like these. We don’t regurgitate press releases, or random news from another part of the state, or rambling letters to the editors. For each story we publish, you can trust that our team of humans has verified the facts, confirmed the details, and stands behind every word we print.

But all of this takes time and effort, to the tune of about $4,000 dollars a month for our team of five (plus the occasional paid intern). If we’re going to remain independent and ad-free in 2026, we need you, our readers, to help us by becoming a member today. And if you’re already a member, please consider gifting a membership to someone else!

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