TRUTH IN POLITICS

Deceptions Of Wilderness Alliance & Bingaman
Many people have listened to the deception and lies expounded for more than six months about how great it would be for us to have the Organ Mountains and Potrillos brought under the protection of the Protection of the Wilderness Act. This sounds so wonderful that anyone not looking behind the rhetoric would think it would create a utopia for all generations to come. We would have a virtual Garden of Eden in the middle of the desert that is fit only to support limited life. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Not only does the Potrillos and the Organ Mountains not conform to the guidelines set down by the Wilderness Act of 1964, it would create a catastrophe that we would regret for the rest of our lives. Not only have the two areas been inhabited by man for the last 500 or more years, not inclusive of the native migratory Indians of this region, but have been trekked by man in the form of the Onate settlements since 1598, the Potrillos have had man in them in the form of small and large ranches for the last 150 years and when Van Patten came to Mesilla in 1861 at the behest of his Uncle John Butterfield.

Van Patten’s Mountain Camp was built in them in the 1870s by John Patten after he returned from serving in the Civil War battle at Glorieta Pass near Santa Fe. What he built was a large 16-room resort, at what is now known as Dripping Springs, which had a huge dining room and concert hall. This would preclude the Organs as a Wilderness area, since Dripping Springs has been there since then. Walking trails have been built into the Organ Mountains from the point of Dripping Springs and maintained for the last 50 or more years.

As to the Potrillos, it has been settled by ranchers as far back as 150 years. These ranchers have  built roads, driven stock over the land, upgraded the land, facilitating the growth of native grasses, improved the land at every place they could, built water facilities, windmills and other improvements on the leased BLM lands, to supplement their ranches and animals. These are the same lands that are now being proposed to become Wilderness Area land. If this happens it will put many of the ranchers in the area out of business since they will not be able to use any motor driven vehicles or mechanical devices to maintain the BLM lands, leaving them with small deeded acres on which to raise their cattle, which by the way, is one source of meat for the nation.

What this would mean to the people, aside from opening a Pandora’s Box for the drug trade and Illegals from Mexico, many of which are not only Mexican Nationals, but also people of Middle East extraction, but will also help to drive the price of beef higher for the consumer. It will make more drugs available for our children as well as tying the hands of ICE as far as pursuit of criminal types into the area. With the many roads that are in place, it will allow the bypassing of the border check on I-10.

With the many roads in place that cannot be properly maintained by the county, only four wheel vehicles will be able to pass through the area, which the drug smugglers have no shortage of. With ICE not being able to follow, because of the no motorized devices allowed in Wilderness Areas, it will be an open conduit for them to get their drugs to our children.

Muffled Border Patrol and ICE Agents
To make it easier the Border Patrol and ICE agents are not allowed to voice an opinion for fear of losing their jobs, which would open the mouths of people who know the catastrophe such a bill would create. Only retired Border Patrol and ICE agents can speak out and they are few and far between in this part of the country, most of them having retired to other states.

It is almost as though Bingaman and his backers want to open the land to illegals and drugs, to create an environment that would not only drive the ranchers under, but create insurmountable problems for law enforcement, ICE, Federal Bureau of Land Management and State Land Conservation as well. One question we might ask is if Bingaman, Steinborn, the Wilderness Alliance and the rest of the people who behind this bill and supporting it, are in the pockets of the Mexican Drug Cartels. They have some awfully deep pockets from which to shell out money.

The land under the conservatorship is better now than it ever was before the ranchers came. Before it was just creosote, cactus, chaparral, mesquite and scrub grass that depended on the weather and the elements for growth. It was subject to flooding, and still is to a great extent, and will continue to be unless there are dams built to contain the waters before they reach the Rio Grande, water that could be conserved in holding ponds for use instead of flooding out the usable land.

Every retired Border Patrol, ICE agent and Deputy Sherriff who has had to make calls and patrol this land will tell you that it is not land to be turned into Wilderness Area. How can the Sherriff’s Department control the crime in an area they cannot work? How can the Border Patrol and ICE do their jobs without access to the area? It will become a no man’s land for illegals, and criminals, rampant with murders that cannot be easily solved, because of the restrictions on areas so close to the Mexican Border. Being in this kind of danger, the ranchers would finally have to leave for their own protection.

As it is they are afraid to leave their women and children alone at home while they go about their daily work. What would happen if it is turned into Wilderness and they have no protection except themselves? Would you want to go for a drive around the area where you would still be allowed with this kind of threat? How would you find out if a son, daughter, husband or wife were missing and their body carried into such an area? Maybe they would be able to find a body and maybe they would find only a shallow grave and again maybe they would find nothing.

I don’t wish to be an alarmist, but these are the realities than Bingaman and his group wants you to blind yourself to. They don’t wan anyone to look past their rhetoric and lies and see the truth of what they are doing, until it is too late. If you are not concerned now, you may not have reason to voice a protest after the fact. It is paramount that everyone study the problems and find a safe and real solution, but this is not it.