Democrats Bingaman, Udall and Teague work toward permanent protection of land in Doña Ana County
A bill U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman sponsored on Sunday that would set aside land in nine states as wilderness doesn’t include the Organ Mountains or other land in Doña Ana County, but the senator’s office says he plans to introduce legislation to extend wilderness protection to land in the county in the coming months.
In the meantime, the bill the New Mexico Democrat sponsored over the weekend does include one proposal sought by many in the Las Cruces area: the creation of a 5,367-acre national monument in the Robledo Mountains to protect fossilized prehistoric animal tracks there.
That proposed monument is important to conservation groups in the area, but it’s only a part of the larger battle over how to protect land in Doña Ana County — and how much land should be protected — that has raged for years as a coalition led by the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance has sparred with a group led by some ranchers and four-wheeling enthusiasts. The wilderness coalition wants to designate about 300,000 acres in the county as wilderness and another 96,000 as a national conservation area. The ranchers’ group wants no wilderness at all and proposes new, less-restrictive designations for the land, in addition to requiring the sale of 65,000 acres of the land owned by the Bureau of Land Management.
Consensus built early on behind the wilderness group’s plan, but the coalition has fractured to some extent as the opposing group has become more vocal and organized. While there are more than 200,000 acres in the county protected by the temporary wilderness study area designation, no land has received the permanent wilderness designation from Congress.
Many wilderness supporters are hopeful, now that every member of the state’s congressional delegation is a Democrat, that at least some of the land will receive the wilderness designation, the highest level of protection allowed by the federal government.
Former Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici first proposed a plan in 2005 to give the wilderness designation to more than 200,000 acres in the county and sell off another 65,000, but then the wilderness group began pushing its own plan. After consensus behind the wilderness group’s plan fractured, both Domenici and Bingaman backed off, saying they would not intervene until local consensus was reached.
Meanwhile, former Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce sponsored as legislation the plan put forward by the ranchers’ group that would have created no wilderness in the county. It went nowhere.
Domenici has been replaced by Democrat Tom Udall, who has sponsored and successfully pushed wilderness legislation in his northern New Mexico House district in the past. And Pearce has been replaced by Democrat Harry Teague. Bingaman spokeswoman Jude McCartin said, now that the new delegation is in place, the senator “intends to work with them to develop a bill in the coming months.”
While Udall and Teague are pledging to work with various community groups and Bingaman to try to build consensus, they aren’t committing to any plan at this point.
“Sen. Udall will meet with the stakeholders involved and work to build consensus on this matter,” spokeswoman Marissa Padilla said. “He looks forward to collaborating with them and Sen. Bingaman and Congressman Teague as the process to introduce legislation moves forward.”
Teague spokeswoman Sara Schreiber said Teague has already met with community groups on this topic since being elected. She said the congressman is working with Bingaman, but she wouldn’t say whether Teague will support Bingaman’s forthcoming proposal.
“We’re waiting to actually see a bill before we say whether we’re going to support it or not,” Schreiber said.
In a follow-up e-mail, Schreiber wrote that Teague “is in favor of extending wilderness protection areas in Doña Ana County — but as you might expect we can’t say whether or not he’s supportive of legislation that is still in the works.”