DONA ANA WILDERNESS

Domenici in no hurry on wilderness U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici said Wednesday he won't pursue creating federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County unless local officials and other groups reach more consensus about how it should be done. Domenici, R-N.M., during a visit to the Sun-News Wednesday said he initially considered introducing legislation that would create wilderness after a group of local officials approached him in 2005 with a plan. The officials put forth a unified front, he said, but conservationist groups entered the picture soon after, opposing a component that would have released federal land for sale. "It was gone all of the sudden — from a position of frontal positiveness to disappearing from the scene," he said. "When (conservation groups) had a meeting and said they were going to organize to be against it, that was enough. It was over with." He said ranchers then stepped forward with their own objections, and "the unity of people fell apart some more." Domenici said he has backed the creation of other wilderness in the state, but said there must be local support for him to decide to do so in Doña Ana County. "To the extent I'm supposed to be a catalyst here to get everything sweetly put together, I'm not," he said. "I'm not scared of a fight, but you can't fight ... a two- or three-way battle to everyone's satisfaction." Domenici said stakeholders and local officials will have to reach more consensus, possibly by breaking up the wilderness proposal into smaller pieces....
Doña Ana Wilderness Plan Has Grown Out of Control As ranchers in Doña Ana County, we find ourselves on the opposite page from the wilderness proponents. Our reaction to the creation of 425,000 acres of wilderness and NCAs in our county is one of great concern. We know that where wilderness, land management agencies, environmental advocacy groups and ranchers collide, ranchers lose. It is a simple matter of fact. In the conditions that we ranch, it is imperative that we have full access to our water systems, our protein dispensers and our cattle distributions. Our business, like all businesses, continues to evolve. In the West, labor has continued to be spread ever further. The need is to cover large areas as quickly as possible. Cattle are being worked more intensively for the purposes of identification for food safety as well as genetic selection for the purposes of fitting our herds to the conditions of our ranges. These are moves to be ever more sensitive to the lands we occupy and to contribute to the best food safety system in the world. Cattle are hauled more and handled less by horseback. Roads become more important for general monitoring. Being shut out of areas or being restricted from access because of wilderness administrative protocol can be catastrophic to our herds and our ability to deal with the conditions of the arid Southwest....
Wilderness designation too restrictive As the battle heated, the prowilderness effort remained unwavering in the demand to lock these lands up in wilderness status regardless of the arguments. They reassured the public that covenants within the act would protect ranchers and their concern of not being able to continue operating and that a MOU would allow the Border Patrol to access the wilderness areas. What covenants and what MOU? The covenants became the pass words to reassure the public that the ranchers didn't have an argument, that their operations would be taken care of by "cherry stemming" roads and they could apply for entry to work on their improvements. The MOU shed light on a huge issue of most of these lands and that was national security and law enforcement. It was learned that current federal employees don't talk, but retired ones do. Where wilderness is established illegal traffic escalates. Where wilderness is established land management agencies have extremely difficult responsibilities of managing stakeholder interests. Where wilderness is established the wilderness groups tend to start suing. They demonstrate the propensity to sue for the return of the wilderness management to original intent of the act. They sue federal agencies for overflight of aircraft. They exert pressure and threaten suit on the Border Patrol to remove sensor repeaters from such places as Big Hatchet Mountain and they fail to mention that the MOU is an intra agency agreement between the Departments of Homeland Security, Interior and Agriculture. Local law enforcement including the Sheriff's Department, the State Police, the New Mexico Livestock Board, and the New Mexico Department of Fish and Game have no parallel rights to negotiate entry or pursuit....hat tip to PFPOWH