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Committee to consider wilderness bill Wednesday
The Organ Mountains (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
A committee chaired by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., is set to consider a Bingaman-sponsored bill that would designate hundreds of thousands of acres in Doña Ana County as wilderness.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will consider the Organ Mountains – Desert Peaks Wilderness Act on Wednesday, the Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting. The meeting starts at 7:30 a.m. Mountain Standard Time and should be webcast. You can watch by clicking here.
The legislation, from Bingaman and Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., would designate almost 250,000 acres as wilderness and 100,000 acres as national conservation areas. In addition to the Organ Mountains, land on and around the Potrillo, Robledo and Doña Ana mountains would be protected.
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Our Border Patrol agents are outstanding and should be respected for what they are doing. However we have civilians that know absolutely nothing about border security pontificating on what is needed to secure our borders. It gets so tiresome. Border Patrol has been consulted with regards Wilderness, and they approve. Check out the Border Patrol strategy.
http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/border_security/border_patrol/border_patrol_ohs/national_bp_strategy.ctt/national_bp_strategy.pdf
However I am sure we have civilians who think they know more than the actual Border Patrol about strategy. Maybe these same civilians have a military strategy for Afghanistan too.
Conservation is one thing, but imprisonment of land and restriction of law enforcement is not. It is reminiscent of the Oklahoma strip of the 1800, where outlaws hid from U S Marshal’s. To lock up the land in this manner is not conservation, it is idiocy.
Temporary wilderness does not is not permanent and if you look at what is in the organs today, and what was there twenty years ago, you can see the land has not fared too well. Conservation yes, but not Wilderness.
Hemingway speaks as if he represents the entire citizenry. He does not. It is my hope that the members of the committee recognize that cross border illegal activity (drugs, terrorists, human trafficking) is real and dangerous as evidenced by the destruction of Wilderness areas and daily violence near the Arizona border in protected federal lands.
How can any American rationally endorse placing conditions on access to federall protected lands by US Border Patrol, US Military or any legitimate local and federal law enforcement agency for the purpose of conducting any type of routine surveilance? SB has conditions for such protective measures. The proponents will reference the existence of an MOU. The fact remains, as testified to by Janet Naplitano, that the MOU is a failed document and process.
The fact is that our community is split on this issue. There does not exist a concensus. So why force down such a large Wilderness land grab upon the citizens of Dona Ana County?
More than most local organizations, The Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, the largest representative of local small, medium and larg businesses, has spent years on evaluating this important issue and it’s impact to Dona Ana County.
The following is a link ot the most current press release by the Chamber:
As reference is the press release, this link will take you to the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce’s Original Position Paper on this legislation:
I encourage all interested parties to read the full position paper from the Chamber so as to have a full understanding of the Chamber’s position.
This is important to our community. Anyone who takes a five minute walk into the majestic Organ Mountains knows solitude abounds. In fact the Organ Mountains were originally named La Sierra de Soledad (the Mountains of Solitude) by the Spaniards. It is a great gift that we have the Organ Mountains wilderness outside our community’s door—we can go, recharge, experience nature and take our families into these mountains while spending little to no money, drawing economic opportunity into our region, and maintaining a high quality of life! It will increase tourism and attract more residents to Dona Ana County. Thereby it will increase housing starts and aid our construction business. Everyone wins!
There have been temporary wildernesses in the Organ Mountains for over two decades. With the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act, Senators Bingaman and Udall took the common sense step to protect these mountains for all of us to enjoy—but none of us to destroy. If the legislation passes, no longer will we have to worry about development overtaking our beautiful mountains. The values the Organ Mountains possess—solitude, naturalness, the opportunity for primitive recreation amongst many others—clearly qualify them for wilderness protection. Also, Wilderness has been a sad story in New Mexico. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, our neighbor Arizona has 4,528,913 acres of designated wilderness areas while New Mexico has only 1,623,843 acres.
It is clear that Wilderness designation for the Organ Mountains including Sierra de Las Uvas, Broad Canyon, Robledos and Greater Potrillo Mountain Areas will be a great benefit not only to the community but to the Border Patrol. Wilderness designation for these wilderness areas will actually increase border security by preserving its rugged landscape as a barrier against illegal cross-border activity despite some naysayers and uninformed critics.
It was a rancher, President Teddy Roosevelt, who stated succinctly: “There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country”. This is the great issue in Dona Ana County. Hopefully the Committee will approve the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act – an excellent piece of legislation.