WildEarth Guardians

Thursday, December 29, 2005
Rethinking Plan Is a Good Idea

Forest Service Tajique Watershed Restoration Plan Needs Review
Contact: Mountain View Telegraph

The Forest Service has made a wise choice in deciding to take a deep breath and another look at the Tajique Watershed Restoration Project.

The needed pause will allow full review of the Forest Service's plan as well as recommendations by area residents who have objected to the proposal.

Plenty of verbal and written objections have been received on the project, which calls for thinning, logging and burning nearly 14,000 acres over 10 years in the Manzano Mountains above the villages of Tajique and Torreon.

Most residents and landowners from the area signed a nearly 100-page objection to the Forest Service plan, saying the action was largely unnecessary and impacts would be severe. New Mexico's WildEarth Guardians are also behind the residents' concerns and helped write the formal objection.

Those opposed to the plan claim Forest Service officials have turned to misrepresentation, intimidation and the manipulation of public anxieties about fire and water resources to generate support. The decision to review the plan again should help ease those concerns, too.

Now that the Forest Service is "taking another look" at its proposal, residents who would be most impacted by the project should be allowed to work with officials to find alternatives, according to Paul Davis and Bud Latven, two area residents seeking another solution.

The forest in the Manzanos has been overgrown for years, and taking time to fully explore the options for fixing that problem isn't likely to increase the danger.

Copyright 2005 Albuquerque Journal - Reprinted with permission