DIAMOND BAR/CATRON COUNTY LETTER

February 25, 2004

Marcia R. Andre, Forest Supervisor
Gila National Forest
3005 E. Camino del Bosque
Silver City, NM 88061

RE: Road Closure of Forest Road 150 in Catron County, NM

Dear Ms. Andre:

I appreciate your call late yesterday evening, and your offer that the Forest Service is willing to work with the County in regard to the Diamond Bar allotment dispute and your proposed closures of the public County road known as the Beaverhead Road, and the area within the allotment.

I would assume that that cooperation also means that the Forest Service will provide the County Commission with evidence to support the idea that the Forest Service would have any authority over a County Road in the first place. The County Commission would also need to see any factual verifiable and independent documentation, which you have to justify the implication of the existence of a public safety issue in regard to the Beaverhead Road. Of course, all of this documentation would need to be supplied to the Catron County Commission prior to any attempted closure of this County Road.

However, you should also know that the County's position in regard to the closure of a County Road by the Forest Service has not changed. Catron County and the Catron County Commission are firmly opposed to any closure of this public County road, also known as the Beaverhead or North Star Mesa Road, by the Forest Service or any other personnel representing any agency other than Catron County itself.

First, there is a very important legal point, which the Forest Service should consider prior to taking any action to close the Beaverhead Road or even the off-road area within the allotment. The County Attorney has thoroughly reviewed the Federal Court Orders, which were issued regarding the collection of cattle from the Diamond Bar Allotment. Your attorney in this matter furnished these Court Orders to him.


It is the Catron County Attorney's legal opinion that he can find no language or any indication within any of those Orders, which would provide the Forest Service with any legal authority to close any public County road, including the Beaverhead Road, or even to close the off-road area. In his legal opinion, these closures--whether of the area or the road--are separate issues from the rounding up, impounding, transporting or selling the cattle, which are addressed in the Orders.

Therefore, you do not seem to have any legal authority to close either the road, or even the off-road area. If you can factually justify that the County should close its own road due to a real, verifiable and documented public safety concern, we would certainly consider that.

Second, the closure of the Beaverhead Road by the Forest Service seems to be outside of the Forest Service's authority in the first place. This road was originally a public use road providing public access to various points and small towns in Western New Mexico. It was built by the State, and not by the Forest Service. In fact, this road pre-dates the Forest itself, and was in use by the public even prior to the surrounding land being set aside for Forest Service management. The County feels that this Road is a County road, not a Forest Service road.

The County is the agency that maintains the Beaverhead Road--not the Forest Service. In fact, the County feels that this Road is a County road, and not a Forest Service road.

The Forest Service has implied that there is a "public safety issue" to be considered in the closing of the Beaverhead Road. Until and unless the Forest Service can provide substantial, documented and independent evidence of a public safety issue the Road should not be closed. In fact, if there is indeed a public safety issue in regard to the Beaverhead Road, supported by substantial documented and independent evidence, the County should be informed in detail regarding that public safety issue.

Without that documentation, the County absolutely will not agree to the road closure, and will take whatever legal steps are necessary to prevent that improper closure of a County road by the Forest Service, including seeking a Court Order or Injunction to prevent that closure.

The Catron County Commission does not believe that there actually is a public safety issue involving public use of the Beaverhead Road. But even if there was a "need" to restrict access to the off-road area of the allotment while cattle were actually being collected or loaded by wranglers--again, supported by verifiable and independent proof of a "public safety concern"--there is not any justifiable or supportable reason to close through-traffic on a public road.

At the very most, all the Forest Service would be justified to do, if it can prove that the off-road area would need to be temporarily closed, would be to post signs instructing people to stay on the road during those specific times that cattle were being moved through the area. This would be a similar situation to any privately owned area, which has a public road going through it. There would certainly not be justification to close the road to through-traffic, simply because access to off-road areas was restricted.

The County believes that control of the County's own roads is a matter that needs to be decided by the County, and not an outside agency. The County especially believes that an outside agency does not have the right to close a road, which is maintained by the County for an indefinite period of time based upon some vague suggestion of "public safety" issues, or for any other unsubstantiated reason.

In the event that the road is closed after a thorough review of verifiable, independent documentation and only if and after such documentation substantially satisfies a real public safety danger, then any such closure should not be for an indefinite period of time—it should only be for a definite period of time that possibly could be extended only after a new review of all circumstances and only if the new review clearly demonstrated a continuing or a new real public safety danger.

Obviously, the inappropriate closure of the Beaverhead Road is a very serious issue, and should be considered to be a separate issue from any dispute involving land use by ranchers such as Kit Laney. However, Catron County citizens and the Commission also want to be clear that they oppose current Forest Service policies regarding livestock allotments and reductions of numbers of cattle on those allotments without evidence and documentation to support such a drastic resource management action. The County Commission also objects to the heavy-handed action of rounding up, shipping and then selling cattle belonging to a private Catron County citizen.

Of course, the County Commission, County officials and all citizens will comply with a lawful Court Order regarding removal of the cattle on the Diamond Bar allotment, at least until such point as those Orders may be over-turned legally. The Laney’s have also issued a public statement that they will not physically interfere with any actions taken to round up, load or transport the cattle covered in the Court Order.

At the same time, Catron County and the County Commission cannot agree to any closure of the Beaverhead Road by the Forest Service or any agency other than Catron County itself, and only in the event that a real public safety issue can be proven. This road is a public County road, maintained by the County, and the County holds the sole authority of that road.

This is certainly not any type of "battle" between the County and the Forest Service in spite of opinions on both sides, and I hope that we can cooperate with each other to resolve this.

Sincerely,



Ed Wehrheim, Chairman
Catron County Commission


cc: Harv Forsgren, Regional Forester, Region 3
cc: Annette Chavez, District Ranger, Wilderness Ranger District