Ranchers, U.S. square off over fencing at national preserve

Miles of fencing separating a national preserve from forested grazing pastures in northern New Mexico have been compromised over the years by wildfire, falling trees and herds of elk. Cattle have found their way through the porous border of Valles Caldera National Preserve, their numbers escalating over the dry summer months to what park managers described as “critical mass” despite attempts by some owners to herd the livestock out on horseback. Park rangers initiated a roundup last week after getting complaints from visitors and anglers, prompting a showdown with ranchers who say cattle were held with little food or water and it’s up to the federal government to mend the fences. Chris Lovato said he spent much of the summer gathering cattle that had wandered out of his grazing allotment on the adjacent Santa Fe National Forest in search of grass and water in an area hit hard by drought. “It became a revolving door because 80 percent of the fence is down,” the 70-year-old rancher said. Each time, he called park rangers and forest managers to let them know he would be riding in on horseback. He also asked whether the fence would be fixed. The answer, he said, was no. In New Mexico, state law puts the burden on landowners to erect fences if they want to keep out trespassing animals. Before Valles Caldera was turned over to the Park Service, the trust that managed the expansive property handled the maintenance, and forest officials say it’s generally a shared effort among neighboring property owners. But officials at Valles Caldera say federal courts have upheld the principal that state fence-out laws are generally pre-empted by U.S. regulations requiring livestock owners to keep their animals off certain federal lands...MORE 

Now look at who is managing the preserve:  

ADVERTISEMENT

“While we will continue to do our part to maintain our boundary fences, there’s no obligation for the Park Service to fence out potential trespass livestock under state laws,” preserve Superintendent Jorge Silva-Banuelos said. “The adjacent livestock owners do have a role to play in the maintenance of their allotment fences that border the preserve.”

                                              

 And who is Jorge Silva-Banuelos?  For eight years he worked for Senator Jeff Bingaman and was the primary architect for Bingaman's legislation to create Wilderness areas in northern and southern NM, which eventualy became the Rio Grande del Norte and the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monuments. It was also Bingaman who introduced the original bill to dismantle the trust and transfer the property to the NPS. Silva-Banuelos was first hired as the ED by the Trust, and then as Supt. of the Preserve after Heinrich finally got the bill passed, not as a stand-alone bill, but as a part of the annual NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act). 

I sat in the same room with ranchers in southern NM as they explained to Silva-Banuelos why a Wilderness designation would be so harmful to them and their families. All to no avail.  A small boundary change here, and a "cherry stem" there, but the ranches remained in the proposed Wilderness Areas. Let's also remember the anti-grazing language in the Bingaman bill to create the monuments. This same language was incorporated by Obama in his proclamations that created the two monuments.  

So pity the ranchers who have to deal with him on this or other grazing issues. 

UPDATE  

Jerry Schickedanz said...

I also was in that meeting that Frank reported on. What stands out in my memory after a rancher explained how making the area wilderness, he would have to travel 90 miles by dirt roads to check water at a particular windmill, and the response was "We are not concerned with rancher inconvenience, period." This too will fall on deaf ears.