Interior secretary plans to visit New Mexico this week
Interior secretary to take helicopter tour, go horseback riding in wilderness area
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will visit Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in Southern New Mexico this week as part of a review of protected public lands and is also expected to make a trip to a wilderness area in San Miguel County.
Zinke’s office, at the direction of President Donald Trump, is reconsidering the status of two monuments in New Mexico and about two dozen others around the country.
The review has fueled debate over public lands, with conservatives criticizing what they say is government overreach while conservationists counter that the new Republican administration threatens to undo decades of community advocacy to preserve some of New Mexico’s most scenic places.
The secretary’s visit is to include a helicopter tour over the nearly 500,000-acre monument that includes the jagged peaks that rise above Las Cruces and a swath of desert to the west.
Zinke also is scheduled to hold a news conference and meetings with “elected officials, ranchers, academics, border security experts and others.” All events, except for the news conference, will be closed to the media.
Missing from his agenda is a public meeting that mayors and county leaders invited Zinke to attend Thursday night to discuss the monuments with members of the public.
“We would like for him to hear from the elected officials and the locals how people support our national monuments,” said Mesilla Mayor Diana Trujillo.
Trujillo said she had not heard whether the secretary would attend.
The secretary will, however, spend Friday hiking the Southern New Mexico monument with military veterans and meeting with tribal leaders as well as Friends of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks.
A schedule released by the U.S. Interior Department said he also will go horseback riding Saturday with New
Mexico’s two Democratic senators, Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall.
An aide to Udall said the event is planned for the Sabinoso Wilderness in San Miguel County, where both senators have advocated for better access. Heinrich even invited Zinke during a committee hearing on Capitol Hill to visit the area.
But the department did not release additional details about that part of that trip.
President Barack Obama established the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument near Las Cruces and the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument near Taos.
Obama’s use of a 111-year-old law known as the Antiquities Act to create new national monuments around the country drew criticism from some conservatives who said he was abusing his power to grant special status to public lands.
In April, President Donald Trump directed Zinke to review about two dozen national monuments established by previous presidents in the past 20 years, including the two major monuments Obama established in New Mexico.
Conservationists have criticized the review, saying national monument status helps safeguard treasured New Mexico spaces and has given an economic boost to a state that touts growing numbers of tourists.
But several New Mexico leaders have suggested cutting the size of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument.
U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican who represents Southern New Mexico, has called for a much smaller monument — about 60,000 acres instead of 500,000 acres. And in a letter to Zinke earlier this month, Republican Gov. Susana Martinez intimated that the monument includes areas that are not necessarily worthy of protection.
Zinke’s agenda does not include a visit to the Rio Grande del Norte near Taos, though it is also part of the secretary’s review. The Northern New Mexico monument, which spans from the Rio Grande Gorge across a scenic high-desert landscape defined by prominent volcanic peaks, has received widespread support from sportsmen and Taos Pueblo.
The secretary has until midAugust to issue recommendations regarding the status of the monuments under review. Zinke already has called for shrinking the size of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which Obama established late last year with the support of several tribes. But he also has recommended the president not make any changes to monuments including Canyons of the Ancients in Colorado and Craters of the Moon in Idaho.