A Biased Observer of the Dona Ana County Wilderness Debate

By Rebecca Powell, 6-17-08

	Caption: Map of Dona Ana County

Background: In 1986, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) designated portions of the Sierra de Las Uvas Mountains (11,067 acres), Robledos Mountains (12,811 acres), West Potrillo Mountains and Mount Riley (157,185 acres), Aden Lava Flow (25,287 acres), and the Organ Mountains (7,283 acres) as Wilderness Study Areas under the authority of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.  As Wilderness Study Areas, the lands’ wilderness characteristics would be studied and inventoried by the BLM. Within fifteen years the BLM was to recommend to the Office of the President which lands were suitable for wilderness designation.  During the inventory and study, the lands were to be managed “in a manner so as not to impair the suitability of such areas for preservation as wilderness.” Grazing, recreation, and hunting were allowed under the so-called “non impairment standard.”

In December of 2005, Senator Pete Domenici’s (NM-R) office floated a plan regarding federal lands in Doňa Ana County in December.  Simultaneously, the New Mexico Wilderness Association began presenting a proposal involving the same lands.  The NMWA proposal called for 422,138 acres of wilderness and 108,000 acres designated as a National Conservation Area. In early 2006, NMWA drafted the support of several local entities.  Doňa Ana County, the City of Las Cruces, the Village of Hatch, Sunland Park, and Mesilla signed resolutions of support.  Senator Domenici then asked the City of Las Cruces to gather all interested stakeholders to build consensus.  After five work group meetings, no consensus was reached.  Two competing proposals now exist.  Both proposals advocate forms of protection for the lands.

It seems simple. The Mesilla Valley has these picturesque mountains, rare desert ecosystems, and a growing population.  The urge to protect, to ensure developers don’t creep up the side of the Organs, the Robledos, the Potrillos is natural. No one wants to see a road snaking up the Organ Needle, a house peaking out above Bar Canyon. You cannot take growth back. Buildings somehow attract more buildings and traffic lights, until you aren’t looking at mountains—you are looking at structures on mountains.

Wilderness is the first thought. Designate these lands as wilderness area. Fifteen years ago, they were placed as WSAs (Wilderness Study Areas), so the process has already begun.  Senator Pete Domenici’s office presented the first proposal. After the annexation of the East Mesa, which effectively doubled the size of Las Cruces, a sense of urgency was born. Doňa Ana County was growing, fast. The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance offered a proposal that after compromises with local outdoorsmen and the home builders association became the Citizen’s Proposal.

The Citizen’s Proposal asks that over 300,000 acres in Doňa Ana County be awarded wilderness designation. The proposal includes 197,617 acres in the Potrillos; 75,966 acres encompassing the Robledo Mountains and Broad Canyon; 11,068 acres in the Sierra De Las Uvas; and, 20,800 acres in the Organ Mountains. The proposal also calls for a National Conservation Area of 96,469 acres in the Organs Mountains.

At the request of Senator Pete Domenici, the City of Las Cruces tried to create a consensus proposal. It got complicated. The Elephant Butte Irrigation District worried about flood control.  Off-road vehicle users objected to restrictions. Ranchers worried about losing their livelihood.

Another proposal was presented, the People’s Proposal, created by People for the Preservation of our Western Heritage: a group of ranchers, businesses, range specialists, former government officials, hunters and recreationists.

The People’s Proposal asks for protection for the same areas in a unique way. It asks that congress designate these lands as Rangeland Preservation Areas (RPA) and Special Preservation Areas (SPA). Like wilderness designation, RPAs and SPAs would withdraw the lands from disposal, development, mining, and mineral leasing. Unlike wilderness designation, motorized vehicles would be allowed on roads designated by the BLM’s land use plan.  Off highway use would be allowed for range improvements, flood control projects, and law enforcement activities.

Presently, neither proposal has been submitted to Congress by any of the New Mexican delegation. There are elections to be fought, lost, and won. Over the next few days, weeks, and months, I will present the opinions, thoughts, views and stories I have gathered from supporters of both proposals.

I am a rancher’s daughter. I have bucked hay and worked cattle. I know what to do when a cow prolapses, and I have made more bottles for bummer calves than I have for any human child. I do not come to this debate without bias.

Until I was married, I had never camped, never slept outside. Living in the middle of a 6000 acre cattle ranch, with open land stretching as far as I could see, I never felt the need to spend a night outside, to get away. My commute to high school was thirty miles one way. My training runs for basketball took me across the paths of wild turkeys, white tail deer, and armadillos. I felt as removed and isolated from town life as I have ever felt in the Gila or Glacier.

I grew up, married a boy from Kalispell, Montana and found myself living in town for the first time. Camping became necessary. I needed to see a night sky without the glare of street lamps. We camped, hiked, rafted. Though I lived in an apartment, for a few weeks every year I could wake to the rushing sound of a river and spend days tramping up the side of mountains all because of public lands.

After a week of working, living in town, I need it. I need the silence, the perspective that being on the trail brings. I need the open space I’ve found in state and national parks, BLM land, Forest Service land. It’s become necessary to how I think of myself, of how I think of where I live. I do not come to this debate without bias.

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