President Bush's so-called 'Healthy Forest' policy has been dealt another major setback in New Mexico President Bush’s so-called "Healthy Forest" policy has been dealt another major setback in New Mexico, this time by the very people it would purportedly benefit. The Deputy Regional Forester in Albuquerque sent the environmental documentation for the Tajique Watershed Restoration Project back to Cibola forest managers to fix defects. In November, residents of the Manzano Mountains southeast of Albuquerque filed an official "objection" to a government proposal to log and burn nearly 17,000 acres of public forests supposedly for watershed health. Joined by WildEarth Guardians, the residents contend the logging would only cause increased fire hazard and water quality problems. Furthermore, the likelihood of catastrophic fire burning down homes is statistically very low.
The Tajique project calls for logging 8,983 acres as well as 4,177 acres of thinning, 470 acres of clearcut, 1,100 acres of fuelbreaks, and 1,270 acres of prescribed burning on National Forest lands. The stated purpose of the fuels treatments is to "reduce fuel loads and restore structure and composition across the landscape." The net taxpayer cost of the preferred alternative is $365 an acre or an estimated total cost of $5 million. Residents, along with WildEarth Guardians, have presented the Forest Service a compromise, a Citizen’s Alternative, but this alternative has been largely ignored by the government. The Citizen’s Alternative called for greatly reduced thinning, 25 miles fewer fuel breaks (75% less), no new road construction, andlocal labor contracting only. Instead, the Forest Service presented a biased and irrational proposal for the Tajique planning area. The group points out in its November 15th objection that the proposal violates the new Healthy Forest Restoration Act in several ways--most notably the extremely low population numbers in the planning area cannot possibly justify the designation of Wildland-Urban Interface as required. Further, the environmental analysis assumes that not doing anything (no action) is equivalent to a catastrophic fire burning the entire forest and all the homes down at one time. The residents’ objection statistically demonstrated how this scenario is extremely unlikely and spending close to $10 million of tax payer dollars to address this unlikely event is irrational at best.
The Tajique Project is only the third time the Forest Service has used the new Healthy Forest Restoration Act in New Mexico, and residents contend it is being driven more by economics than ecological conditions. The Tajique Watershed Citizen’s Alternative includes the following:
WildEarth Guardians is a non-profit corporation with approximately 1400 members throughout the United States, including New Mexico. WildEarth Guardians’ mission is to protect and restore the natural biological diversity of America’s southwest, including forests in the Cibola National Forest. Members of WildEarth Guardians engage in outdoor recreation, wildlife viewing and other activities in the Cibola National Forest. Additional Contacts: Paul Davis, Project Area Resident, (505) 286-9096 Bud Latven, Project Area Resident, (505) 384-2208 |
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