Business owners say sale of public lands could close their doors

TAOS — Birds trilled and whistled, flies buzzed, and from near the ground was the low hum of a bee investigating the grass. Nearby, Nick Streit and Whitney Potter Schwartz waded into the cool waters of the Rio Grande just south of Taos on Wednesday. Clad in waterproof overalls and armed with a long fishing rod, the pair were ready for a lesson in fly-fishing.

Streit’s profession as fishing guide and fishing shop owner is dependent on the waters of New Mexico, but public land is also key to his work for accessing different bodies of water, like the Bureau of Land Management’s Rio Bravo Campground, where Streit and Potter Schwartz had parked and found a path to the river.

“We serve a lot of local folks with our retail side of things, and our classes would be where a lot of New Mexicans interact with us. When it comes to the guide business, that’s mostly out-of-staters: Texas, Oklahoma, California,” Streit said.

Outdoor recreation generated $1.2 trillion nationally in 2023, accounting for 2.3% of the country’s gross domestic product. In New Mexico, it generated $3.2 billion, accounting for 29,000 jobs, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

“Public lands and water are the foundation of the $1.2 trillion outdoor recreation economy. … If we invest in them and take care of our public lands and water, there can be this appreciating asset for the country,” said Potter Schwartz, senior vice president for Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, after catching and releasing a pair of rainbow trout under the midmorning sun.

Outdoor recreation plays an important role in Taos County, both driving tourism and contributing to local culture and quality of life, and that outdoor economy is dependent on public land, according to Jessica Stern, Taos County Economic Development director. For some locals, gathering fuel wood or hunting on public land are also how they heat their home and feed their family, according to Stern.

A debate over public lands in Congress has raised the hackles of hunting and fishing groups across the nation.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah tried to include a plan in the mega-budget bill marching through Congress that would mandate the sale of 2 million to 3 million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land in 11 western states — including New Mexico, where 32% of land is owned by the federal government.

Lee’s plan was struck from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” on procedural grounds Monday. So, he proposed a slimmed-down sell-off included in the bill text released Friday night: require the sale of up to 1.2 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land within 5 miles of a population center, with a new requirement that the sold land had to be used for housing or infrastructure and amenities to support local housing needs. Lee, and other supporters of the bill, lament that the federal government controls too much of Western lands and, particularly for many states facing affordable housing crises, this land could be put to better use. The measure did not, though, have the backing of many Republicans, including President Donald Trump, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

As Republicans tried to gather enough votes to open debate on the budget bill Saturday night, Lee announced he would withdraw the provision, saying he was unable to secure “clear, enforceable safeguards to guarantee that these lands would be sold only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests,” in a statement on social media.

“President Trump promised to put underutilized federal land to work for American families, and I look forward to helping him achieve that in a way that respects the legacy of our public lands,” he said.

A similar plan in the House was stripped from the budget bill shortly before passage.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., hosted a roundtable with fellow Democratic senators opposing public land sales Wednesday morning and hailed the withdrawal as a “major victory for our public lands.”

“And to those already plotting to go after our public lands another way: Don’t. Unless you like losing,” Heinrich said in a statement.

‘Not ever coming back’

In El Prado, Rafael Guevara and his staff were hard at work repairing bikes at Rift Cycles, a bike shop he bought in 2022.

“We would not be able to maintain a viable business without the public lands around us,” Guevara said. “Mountain biking as a recreation is the thing that brings us in the most money, and there’s not many places where they allow you to do that on private land.”

Guevara is skeptical of the proposal to build affordable housing on public lands. In the Taos area, much of that public land is steep or difficult to access, and homes built in the forested areas nearby are already difficult to insure because of fire danger.

Around 20 miles away, white-water rafters had already set out on a half day trip down the Rio Grande with Far Flung Adventures.

Will Blackstock owns the rafting company based in Pilar that his father and a business partner started before Blackstock was born. The business employs 20 to 40 people in Taos, operates raft trips on the Rio Grande and Rio Chama, takes 5,000 to 6,000 people a year down the Rio Grande and has a new office in Texas. It’s one of seven raft guide businesses in the Taos area.

The sale of BLM land could close Blackstock’s business altogether.

“Without having access to all these waterways, all these designated wilderness areas, all of the public camping areas and stuff like that, it just wouldn’t be realistic to have a river business,” Blackstock said.

Blackstock can see the need for more affordable housing, pointing to some valleys in Colorado where communities are hemmed in by public land, but is skeptical of such a broad approach to selling public lands.

“It’s a, you can only chop down the tree once, kind of thing,” Blackstock said. “And once this stuff is gone from the public domain, it’s not ever coming back.”

Cathy Cook covers the federal government for the Albuquerque Journal. Reach her via email at ccook@abqjournal.com.