Our Southern NM Group is leading the Rio Grande Chapter's efforts to reform trapping. See our trapping pages in the chapter's Campaigns & Issues section.

By Steve Fischmann

From Rio Grande Sierran, July/Aug. 2007

Here is the essence of the controversy over development plans for 6,000 acres at Vistas at Presidio and another 6,000 acres of State Trust Land on Las Cruces’ East Mesa in the shadow of the Organ Mountains.

How it should have been done:

• The State Land Office and the City determine it is time to sell East Mesa land for development. They announce to the public that a planning process is underway.
• The State and City contract an experienced urban planning firm to create master plans for the entire 12,000 acres, including set-asides for schools, required open spaces, and needed improvements on adjacent roads and infrastructure that already exist. Estimated cost: $3-$6 million.
• The contractor solicits community participation to determine key design elements at the beginning of the planning process. After the first draft is completed, final public comments are gathered and incorporated as appropriate before the plan is adopted.
• The State Land Office auctions off parcels to the highest bidders according to phasing specified in the plan.

How it is being done:

• The State Land Office quietly signs a series of no-bid business planning leases with local developers to design master plans. Estimated planning cost: $50-$100 million. Lost land-sale revenue is difficult to calculate.
• Developers work through the city planning apparatus under the same rules as any private development. Citizens complain they have been kept in the dark.
• Community concerns with the plans are dismissed as infringements on developer property rights. Taxpayers will bear the cost of acquiring open space, school land, and any other amenities that are not included in the plans.
• A series of disjointed plans for pieces of the East Mesa are adopted; leapfrog development ensues. Opportunities for well-planned development in harmony with open-space infrastructure are lost.

Given recent revelations about campaign contributions by Philip Phillipou to State Land Commissioner Patrick Lyons, you may get the sense that New Mexico State Trust Land is being managed for the benefit of a few major campaign contributors rather than the general public.

But for the conservation community, the impacts go even deeper. About 2 square miles of the land giveaway being engineered by the State Land Office is territory that the Las Cruces City Council and the Dona Aña Board of County Commissioners have endorsed for preservation as either a National Conservation Area, or a BLM Area of Critical Environmental Concern. That would include all the State Trust Land east of Weisner Road.

The Las Cruces City Council’s enthusiastic endorsement of rapid development plans for East Mesa State Trust Lands appears to directly contradict their resolution to protect lands east of Weisner Road. Either the council is ignorant of the State Land Office plans to sell the land east of Weisner, or has had a change of heart. This would be a double disappointment for the many Las Crucens who were led to believe they would have a say in development plans for Las Cruces East Mesa through the vision 2040 comprehensive planning process, and were then blindsided by the Vistas at Presidio and State Land Office sale plans.

While it may be too late to change the Vistas at Presidio Master Plan, no final disposition has been made on the State Trust Lands east of Weisner Road. The Las Cruces City Council and the Dona Ana County Commission should adhere to their resolutions to protect the Organ Foothills east of Weisner Road. They should work with the State Land Office and also the BLM to engineer any land trades that may be necessary to insure this protection. It’s our heritage and their promise. We’d like to see the Las Cruces City Council and the Doña Ana Board of County Commissioners preserve both.

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From Rio Grande Sierran, Sept./Oct. 2006

Picture a place where over 250 species of birds have been recorded; where a riparian habitat supports wildlife (from mountain lion through the threatened loach minnow), and where no large dams impede the natural flow of waters.

Sound like Shangri La? It is, and it’s Southwest New Mexico’s Gila River. This river is one of the last wild, free-flowing rivers in the American Southwest, and we all benefit from it staying that way.

Join Gila Conservation Coalition chairman, Dutch Salmon, for a picturesque tour of the natural and cultural history of the Gila River, the latest threat to divert 14,000 acre-feet of water each year from the river, and ways in which you can help protect the Gila for our children.

Dutch Salmon founded the Gila Conservation Coalition (GCC) in 1984. He is a member of the New Mexico State Game Commission and Board Member of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. Dutch is the author of seven outdoor books including Gila Descending, Country Sports, and the novel Home is the River.

He has canoed, hiked, and fished the river from its source at Bead Spring to Safford, Arizona, and his experience makes him one of the few authorities on the Gila River in New Mexico. For more information on the Gila Conservation Coalition and the latest threat to the Gila River, visit www.gilaconservation.org.

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By Jo-an Smith

From Rio Grande Sierran, Sept./Oct. 2006

Support for the Robledo Mountain Paleozoic Trackways is growing rapidly. These ancient pre-dinosaur tracks near Las Cruces are considered by the world scientific community to be the best and most extensive of their kind in the world.

Exciting news! On June 29, Senator Bingaman, joined by Senator Domenici, presented Bill #S3599 to the U.S. Senate. This bill would establish the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument in the State of New Mexico. Not only will the bill preserve the trackways but it will allow for continuing scientific investigation of this remarkable “mega-track-site of 280,000-year-old fossils and trackways.”

The text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record. Now it will proceed through the usual congressional processes and it is hoped that it will be enacted during this session of Congress. Meanwhile, the Paleozoic Trackways Foundation (PTF) grows as well. PTF is a grassroots organization and a New Mexico non-profit corporation dedicated to preserving, protecting, and promoting the trackways.

PTF is currently applying for 501c(3) status. The organization is planning several educational events in the near future. It has received Resolutions of Support from the Dona Aña County Commission and the Mesilla Trustees, as well as many letters of support. A petition of support has been signed by over 600 concerned area citizens. The mayor of Las Cruces has volunteered to do a Proclamation of Support for the trackways in August, and Governor Richardson is very supportive of the efforts to protect the trackways.

For those who wish to know more, Jerry MacDonald’s book, Earth’s First Steps, is available at Las Cruces area stores such as The Mesilla Book Center, The Shalam Colony Museum, Coas Book Store, and Southwest Environmental Center. For additional information, please write to Paleozoic Trackways Foundation, Box 786, Dona Aña, NM 88032.

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By Bob Gray

On Monday, May 9, 2005, Margot Wilson and I attended the "Public Lands at Risk" presentation by Clayton Daughenbaugh, Sierra Club National Conservation Organizer, at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, New Mexico.

A number of Sierra Club members from the Silver City area were in attendance, viewing the slide show and listening to Mr. Daughenbaugh's inspiring call for citizen involvement in determining the future of our public lands.

Mr. Daughenbaugh reminded us that the Declaration of Independence asserts that our Creator endowed us with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that these rights are secured by a government instituted by us, deriving its powers from us.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 requires scientific consideration of, and citizen input concerning, changes to our public lands and waters, in accordance with the great principles laid down by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration. It is our patriotic right and duty to speak up for OUR public lands.

Representative Richard Pombo, (R), CA, has created a "Special NEPA Taskforce" aimed at undermining these principles by "improving" NEPA. This taskforce is holding hearings with little publicity in selected areas with limited citizen participation. Thomas Jefferson would be appalled, as we should all be, by this brazen attempt to subvert citizens' rights to have an active voice in their government.

Under the present administration, our public lands and waters are under attack. Neither the spirit nor the letter of NEPA and other environmental laws are being observed by this administration. In short, your American rights are under attack! Mr. Daughenbaugh encourages patriotic American citizens to let the President, our Congressional representatives and public land agencies know how they feel by direct communication, letters to the editor, petitions and active participation in conservation organizations like the Sierra Club.

Founding father Samuel Adams put it best over 200 years ago: " If ever a time should come when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in our government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."

Remember, YOUR rights as a citizen and YOUR public lands are at risk, as never before!

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