WildEarth Guardians

Thursday, December 29, 2005
Feds to Review Manzano Mountains Thinning Proposal

Residents of the affected area - the Tajique watershed - objected strenuously to the plan and the USFS has decided to take another hard look
Contact: John Brennan Mountain View Telegraph

The U.S. Forest Service has decided to "take another hard look" at a proposal to thin thousands of acres of forest in the Manzano Mountains after residents of the affected area objected strenuously to the plan.

The Tajique Watershed Restoration Project proposes to thin about 13,700 acres of both Forest Service and private land in the Manzanos to reduce the threat of wildfire, particularly to the land grant villages of Tajique, Torreon, Manzano, Abo and Punta de Agua, according to the Forest Service.

The plan was originally conceived to treat about 17,000 acres and build miles of logging roads in the process, but it was scaled back last year in the face of objections from residents.

A Final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposal was released by the Forest Service in October, which spelled out the details of the plan. The agency's "preferred alternative" reduced the number of acres to be thinned and eliminated new road building.

A group of area residents, together with the environmental group WildEarth Guardians, filed a formal objection to the plan in November.

On Friday, USFS Deputy Regional Forester Abel Camarena announced that the Forest Service would review the plan again in response to the eight objections filed.

"The Tajique Watershed Restoration Project will get more planning done before on-the-ground work starts," Camarena said in a news release.

Camarena said he decided the Cibola National Forest supervisor should review further the environmental effects of fuel treatment on fire behavior and effects of planned road improvements needed to do the work.

"In January 2006, we'll start to take another hard look at the Tajique watershed and make planning improvements before a final decision," Cibola forest planner Cindy Correll said. "Interested individuals and organizations will have another time period to express their concerns about the proposed project."

Area residents and WildEarth Guardians hailed the most recent decision as validation of their objections.

"It is reassuring that the Forest Service has acknowledged serious flaws in their analysis and that they will correct the mistakes raised in our objection," said Paul Davis, a 30-year resident of the affected area. "Now we hope the government will work with us this time around on developing a project that meets the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and addresses our concerns in a meaningful manner."

The residents also claimed the danger of a devastating fire in the watershed had been exaggerated by the Forest Service.

Correll, though, noted that New Mexico's state forester had listed the Tajique watershed area in the "Top 20 Communities At Risk" because of the high danger of catastrophic fire.

"The Tajique watershed is in critical need of restoration work," she said.

Correll said Tuesday that the interdisciplinary team that developed the EIS would meet again in January and review its analysis of the project.

"Honestly, I think there's going to be very little change, it will mostly be supplementing some of the information," she said. "One thing the objections showed is that some things were maybe not explained very well in the EIS, so we'll be going back and trying to supplement those things."

Copyright 2005 Albuquerque Journal - Reprinted with permission