Luna County residents debate national monuments

DEMING — The campaign for a proposed Mimbres Peaks National Monument faltered last year after local governments rejected it, but contention and mistrust over the prospect still simmer in Luna County.

The county’s three elected commissioners held a public work session Thursday to discuss a non-binding proclamation, supported by two of them, calling for limits on presidential powers to proclaim federal lands as national monuments.

Similar to local resolutions recently approved in other states, the proclamation would decry alleged “misuse” of the Preservation of American Antiquities Act, the 1906 federal law allowing presidents to designate national monuments on federal land.

“We want to represent our community,” Commission Chairwoman Colette Chandler said. “That’s why we had this meeting: so that we could hear what it was the people that live here want done.”

The draft resolution provoked two hours of debate among county residents and a few representatives of conservation groups. Hundreds of people attended, applauding, jeering and shouting questions at the commissioners, while two dozen people offered comments from the podium.

Most comments debated the merits of national monuments, framed by some as a federal intrusion and a threat to ranchers’ livelihoods, while others defended monuments as a tool for economic development that brings resources into rural communities while allowing for continued grazing, hunting and private development.

Many expressed a mistrust of federal agencies aligning with President Donald Trump’s rhetoric as his administration makes sweeping cuts across agencies. In January, Trump ordered a nationwide review of monuments and other limits on mineral extraction.

“I cannot believe, especially with the waste, fraud and abuse that’s being exposed in D.C., that anyone thinks the federal government can foster land better than the people who live on or near that land,” said Carol Ness, head of American Magnesium, which is developing a dolomite-magnesium quarry in the Florida Mountains south of Deming.

An earlier draft of the proclamation explicitly opposed any new designations on Luna County’s federal lands, which encompass 40% of the southwestern New Mexico county’s acreage. State land accounts for another 39%.

The draft included language supporting a repeal of the Preservation of American Antiquities Act, but Commissioner Christie Ann Harvey, a Republican, rejected that version. Eliminating monuments was not her intent, she argued, but they should be designated by Congress, not presidents.

Two states, Alaska and Wyoming, are protected by federal law from new monuments unless they are enacted by Congress. Congressional Republicans from Utah and Nevada introduced legislation this year extending that protection to all states. Chandler, a Republican and a rancher in the area, endorsed that legislation.

Commissioner Ray Trejo, the lone Democrat of the trio and a leading proponent of the Mimbres Peaks proposal, suggested the proclamation represented a push from interests outside the county. “We talk about local, but this is not a local movement,” he said.

Defenders of monuments said the designations and management plans involve years of review and local input, not executive fiat.

“The Antiquities Act requires public support. You saw that in action in this county,” Wesley Light, a county resident and leader of the Friends of the Floridas Association, told the commissioners. “This commission passed a resolution opposing Mimbres Peaks National Monument. The people locally here who are concerned about that issue have already had their wishes known and have been successful. … The people I talk to in this community think that the Antiquities Act could benefit our economy and that it would not be a detriment to continuing traditional uses.”

The debate promises to continue, as Harvey and Chandler pledged a new draft would be prepared for more public input.