I don’t know if this means the next Admin is required to carry through with the public involvement process or the segregation period? Seems like it might have been better to start sooner.
Secretary Haaland Initiates Two-Year Protection of Pecos River Watershed from Mining Claims
BLM, USFS initiate process to engage public on proposed 20-year mineral withdrawal for important New Mexico watershed while segregation is in place
SANTA FE, N.M. — Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland today initiated a two-year segregation period to temporarily withdraw approximately 165,000 acres of public lands in the Upper Pecos watershed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from new mining claims and the issuance of new federal mineral leases, subject to valid existing rights.
The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service will now initiate a process to propose that the Secretary of the Interior implement a 20-year withdrawal to help secure the region’s water and air quality, cultural resources, critical fish and wildlife habitat, and recreational values. The withdrawal, for lands in San Miguel and Santa Fe counties, would encompass multiple Pecos River tributaries, including Dalton Canyon, Macho Canyon, Wild Horse Creek, Indian Creek, and Doctor Creek. The proposed withdrawal area includes approximately 163,483 acres of National Forest System lands and 1,327 acres of Bureau of Land Management-managed public lands.
The Upper Pecos watershed provides intact, pristine habitat—including habitat for Rio Grande cutthroat, brown, and rainbow trout—and helps deliver clean water to downstream agricultural users and local communities. Since 2022, the Pecos River tributaries and nearby wetlands have been recognized as crucial Outstanding National Resource Waters by the State of New Mexico. The lands also offer outstanding opportunities for recreation, including hiking, backpacking, fishing and hunting.
Lands in the Upper Pecos are of cultural importance to Indigenous Peoples, including the Pueblos of Jemez and Tesuque, who have relied on the abundant natural resources in the watershed since time immemorial and continue to utilize the area for ceremonial practices. The greater Pecos River Valley is also home to traditional communities and acequia agriculture, which relies on a healthy watershed.
For several years, members of the New Mexico delegation have introduced legislation for a permanent withdrawal of the Pecos watershed; only Congress can effectuate a permanent withdrawal.
In order to inform the Secretary’s decision, the BLM will publish an announcement in the Federal Register in the coming days, initiating a 90-day public comment period to gather input on the proposal. During the comment period, the two agencies will host at least one hybrid public meeting. The agencies will provide date, time, virtual access and location information for the meeting at least 15 days in advance.
When the US Constitution was written the Federalists argued for a strong central government with co-equal branches but today neo-Federalists advocate for a weaker central government with a strong unitary executive — well, if that executive is a Republican anyway.
The Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming are hardly the only public lands plundered by foreign companies under cover of the General Mining Law of 1872 that was enacted to settle Civil War debt and rob Indigenous peoples of their homes and human rights.
Until it closed in 1939 the Tererro Mine in the headwaters of the Pecos River took gold, lead and other metals then left piles of toxic waste rock in their place. After major flooding in 1991 when sulfuric acid, aluminum and zinc swept into the river miner Freeport-McMoRan was held responsible for the deaths of some 100,000 Rio Grande cutthroat trout and for the subsequent decades of acid mine drainage.
Today, thanks to the Trump Organization the United States is in debt to the tune of $31 TRILLION so the US encourages mining companies from outside the country to drill more holes in the Earth looking for gold and silver. Repeal or even reform of the 1872 statute has been thwarted repeatedly and the US Forest Service is often powerless to stop the extractive industry from permanently altering sensitive watersheds because of the 1872 law.
The archaic legislation enables Australian miners like Jervois Global to gouge ore containing cobalt from the homelands of the Nimíipuu or Nez Perce at a Superfund site near the Frank Church Wilderness in Idaho. At Harshaw, Arizona, South32 Ltd. is ripping into Sobaipuri O’odham and Hohokam ancestral lands at the old Hermosa Mine for manganese and nickel. A Canadian miner paid a settlement to mitigate and remediate portions of Colorado’s San Juan County where the 2015 Gold King Mine spill polluted the motherlands of the Ute people.
In southeastern Arizona operations owned by Freeport-McMoRan Inc, Morenci and Miami are ravaging water supplies and reducing entire mountain ranges to piles of waste rock in Tonto Apache lands. Apsáalooke and Lakota ground near Silver City in my home state of South Dakota is under assault from Canadian miners, too.
Much to the frustration of locals, the US Environmental Protection Agency moved most of the contaminated soil from the home of the Blackfeet above Rimini, Montana to a mine in upper Basin Creek where it was encapsulated so EPA has allocated more resources to clean up sites in that state.
In 2019, despite opposition from Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Senator Martin Heinrich, an American subsidiary of Australian company New World Cobalt, was granted twenty federal permits to drill test holes into the Sangre de Cristo mountain range on the Santa Fe National Forest in the Jones Hill area north of Pecos, New Mexico.
Two days before Donald Trump’s attempted takeover of the United States in 2021 John Eastman was summoned to the Oval Office to share some exotic extralegal scenarios then in 2022 as he left a Santa Fe restaurant he was frisked by federal agents who seized his iPhone Pro 12 presumed to contain incriminating evidence of Trump’s attempted autogolpe. An unindicted co-conspirator, Eastman knew Jeffrey Epstein through impeachment lawyer Bruce Castor and through Alan Dershowitz, also believed to be a pedophile.
But, in 2023 with direction from Eastman and others the Trump-packed Supreme Court of the United States reversed environmental protection for a majority of American citizens and enabled the corporatocracy to pollute at will. Today, Republicans and their toadies cry government overreach while waters of the United States or WOTUS architects regroup for another round in Congress as Eastman and other christofascists work to enshrine a Republican unitary executive at any cost and kill the legal doctrine called the “Chevron deference.”
Today, the BLM and US Forest Service have bonded to protect part of the Pactola watershed but Republican Governor Kristi Noem is hesitant to preserve those acres because she’s getting campaign dollars from the foreign miners that want to exploit the occupied Black Hills for private gain.
Coincidentally (?), the Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to not list the Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout (and I was going to give kudos to the Forest Service): https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-12/service-finds-endangered-species-act-protections-not-warranted-rio-grande
“The Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout Conservation Team consists of state agencies in New Mexico and Colorado, as well as Federal agencies, Tribes, and nongovernmental organizations. The Conservation Team has reduced or eliminated threats caused by nonnative species, habitat loss, disease and overharvest.”
Apparently there is no connection between the Pecos River withdrawal proposal (which would provide greater protection to the species) and the listing decision.