THE CATRON WAY
by D'Lyn Ford
This article appeared in the Fall 1995 issue of New
Mexico Resources.
Photography: Tomilee Turner, J. Victor
Espinoza
Five years ago, few people had ever heard of New Mexico's largest and most sparsely populated county. That was before Catron County leaders made national headlines by demanding a say in federal land management decisions that affect the area.
More than 70 percent of land in the 7,000-square-mile county is controlled by the Forest Service, state Land Office, or Bureau of Land Management. Feeling that the county's 2,500 citizens were ignored in managing those lands, county commissioners made a maverick move. They passed a series of ordinances that require federal agencies to consult and coordinate with the county before taking any action that would affect public lands. Their goal: to preserve a "custom and culture" where timbering, grazing, and other industries based on public land use have formed the local economy's backbone for 125 years.
A procession of reporters, correspondents, and network camera crews now make pilgrimages to the cradle of the "county movement." Ordinances passed in the courthouse in tiny Reserve have become blueprints for scores of other county commissions in the West that want to copy the Catron County approach. Top-flight lawyers in Washington, D.C., now analyze and argue the merits of "Catron County-style" ordinances.
Despite the spotlight, the opening paragraph of a locally written vacation guide from 1973 still aptly describes the area: "We do not recommend Catron County for your next vacation if you demand heated pools, room service, and six-lane freeways from one night club to the next. We do recommend it without reservation if you are curious, self-reliant, and interested in history, geology, and magnificent scenery."
Portions of three national forests, the Gila, Cibola, and Apache, extend into Catron County. In 1924, the nation's first wilderness area was created here. Today, the Gila Wilderness encompasses more than 558,000 acres in Catron and Grant counties.
These panoramic views have shaped major movements led by fiercely independent voices like Apache chiefs Geronimo and Mangas Colorados, mining prospector James Cooney, wilderness advocate Aldo Leopold, controversial Earth First! leader Dave Foreman, and renowned wildlife biologist Lowell Sumner.
"The atmosphere here causes people to think, to reflect, and that creates controversy, I guess," says Howard Hutchinson, a former local newspaper editor now working with the Coalition of Arizona and New Mexico Counties. "Whenever conflicts arise, every single one has always been about resource use. Even the conflicts with the Indians were about accessing and using resources."
FROM THE COURTHOUSE
The latest chapter in the county land use battle began in 1989. That year, the Forest Service established guidelines to protect habitats for the Mexican spotted owl, a threatened species. Under the guidelines, each owl nest was ringed by a 500-acre core area where logging was prohibited and an additional 1,000 acres where it was severely curtailed.
With more than 100 such sites in the Gila National Forest, timber output dropped to half the usual 30 million board feet. Stone Container, the local sawmill, shut down for seven months and then reopened at half force before closing permanently, taking with it about 25 percent of Catron County's jobs.
Simultaneously, ranching, the county's second largest industry with more than $20 million in gross receipts annually, faced an uncertain future. With the prospect of higher grazing fees and ever-tightening restrictions for grazing on public lands, grazing permit values declined from $1,500 to $600 per animal unit month, the amount of forage needed to feed the equivalent of one animal for one month.
"There was a feeling that with the timber industry out of the way, ranchers were next," says Hugh B. McKeen, local rancher and county commission chairman.
Local leaders, however, were determined to defend their way of life. The county commission went on a fact-gathering mission to document the local "custom and culture," holding 80 countywide public meetings, sending surveys to every resident with a telephone, and conducting personal interviews.
Then officials began crafting a comprehensive land use and policy plan. The plan contains the county's land use ordinances, a declaration of its custom and culture, and an implementation section. Some ordinances adopted by the county are federal laws, including the Civil Rights Act and the Public Rangeland Improvement Act.
Because it mandates public involvement in making decisions about natural resources, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is central to the county land plan. In addition, NEPA directs federal agencies to cooperate with state and local governments and to preserve historic, cultural, and natural resources.
The land plan also cites the state constitution, the Fifth and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican American War of 1848 and ceded New Mexico Territory to the United States. The language in the preface rings with revolutionary rhetoric:
"Federal and state agents threaten the life, liberty, and happiness of the people of Catron County. They present a clear and present danger to the land and livelihood of every man, woman, and child. A state of emergency prevails that calls for devotion and sacrifice. It asks that the citizens of Catron County unite themselves and, through their elected government, assert their fundamental rights to human dignity and self-government. Most of all, it seeks from an honorable past the strength to mold an environment of freedom and opportunity for Catron County's present and future generations."
Such strong language, coupled with reported threats to land managers and environmentalists, earned the county notoriety as a "hotbed of the property rights movement." Though they concede there are fringe elements, local leaders insist that the county movement is based on the ballot box, not the cartridge box. They cite high voter turnout and large crowds for public meetings.
Supporters say their county officials, unlike federal land managers, are democratically elected. "I didn't ever get to vote for anyone in the Fish and Wildlife Service," says Jim Catron, county attorney and descendant of county namesake Thomas B. Catron.
County movement proponents also insist that decision makers should be locally accountable. They believe it's unfair for federal land managers to make long-range decisions when they won't have to live with the consequences.
For county movement supporters, it rankles that a letter from a New York environmentalist could carry as much clout as the voice of a local person whose livelihood depends upon the land. "The most radical people are the ones with the least to lose," Catron says. "The more commitments and obligations you have--raising children, owning property--the more conservative you get. If you have nothing to lose, it's pretty easy to be radical."
ENVIRONMENTAL WATCHDOG
Bulldozers have always made Susan Schock of Silver City see red. In her native Tucson, she says it was the bulldozing of historic neighborhoods that motivated her to get involved in community organizing.
When she came to western New Mexico, Schock was incensed by talk of allowing bulldozers into the wilderness to build earthen water tanks for livestock. As a result, she founded Gila Watch and quickly became an outspoken critic of Forest Service management and a dogged opponent of the county movement.
She has focused on watersheds located on public lands. "I'm opposed to privatization of public lands," Schock says. "Our national forests and wilderness areas are a precious resource that belong not just to us, but to our children and future generations. They should not be used for private economic gain at the expense of the resource."
In particular, Schock is concerned with conditions on the Gila's East Fork. That, too, is a product of her background, she says. Back in Arizona, she experienced the water shortages as Tucson's population skyrocketed from 50,000 to 850,000.
Today, the former greenhouse manager seems to thrive on confrontation. Her controversial quotes regularly make the newspapers. To ranchers and proponents of the county movement, Schock's very name is an epithet. On a recent CNN television special, cameras captured a hostile faceoff between Schock and the daughter of county movement leader Dick Manning. Separated by a chain-link fence as they argued, the women also were on opposite sides of the fence philosophically.
"They're bawling in Catron County about their 'custom and culture,'" Schock says. "They've been around four generations at most. That's not very long in the scheme of things." The movement's leaders, she says, are like "stubborn little kids who don't want change."
She has few kind words for the Forest Service, either. "I think they've given ranchers carte blanche and are not managing in many cases."
Schock says Gila Watch will appeal the Forest Service's management plan for the Diamond Bar Ranch, the epicenter of battles between ranchers and environmentalists. Recently, she says a group of ranchwomen circled her, angrily telling her to leave. One woman, Schock says, got in her face and challenged her to a fight. Schock doesn't believe most threats that come her way would ever be carried out, "but all it takes is one person, fueled by that atmosphere."
Schock is neither involved with nor supportive of the Negrito Ecosystem Project, a federally funded effort to protect a watershed that involves ranchers, environmentalists, the Forest Service, and other state and federal agencies. Schock believes accepting nearly $100,000 in federal money contributes to government dependence among area residents. She says her group uses volunteers working weekends to restore watersheds, which is empowering and more cost-efficient.
In Schock's opinion, Catron County must change in order to survive. While other small communities bordering wilderness areas are economically healthy, those in western New Mexico are faltering, she says. "I think Catron County shoots itself in the foot. Instead of discussing economic diversification and tourism, people are clinging to a resource-extractive lifestyle."
She believes local entrepreneurship is sorely needed. Many city slickers, she says, are moving to rural areas and thriving. "The people in Catron County are resourceful. They could be on the leading edge, doing well. They seem to have forgotten about free enterprise."
BACK AT THE RANCH
Although he would prefer being back on the ranch, Hugh B. McKeen, county commission chairman, spends increasing amounts of time attending meetings, forums, and land use conferences. He comes home to the computer and fax machine on the kitchen bar and a dining area table overrun by newspapers, magazines, and faxes about the county movement.
While he's away, younger brother Bob minds the day-to-day operation of the ranch, which has been run by the family since the turn of the century. Bob moved back to Catron County seven years ago, largely because he wanted his children to grow up in a rural atmosphere. He leads visitors to the San Francisco River, which runs behind the house and barns. During a flood about 10 years ago, riverbanks eroded, trees toppled, and pastures were damaged. To stabilize riverbanks and stem future floods, the McKeens planted cottonwoods and willows, which grow masses of roots. The willows, especially, seem to thrive.
"It's the right thing for the ecosystem," Bob says. But planting the trees was risky for the ranch. Willow stands along riverbanks are a preferred habitat for the southwestern willow flycatcher, a species some see as the spotted owl of grazing. The vast majority of flycatcher habitat, according to the Forest Service, is on private land.
If the flycatcher turns up during Forest Service monitoring, land use could be sharply restricted to protect habitat. It's not just a concern for larger ranches like the McKeens'. Around Aragon on the Tularosa River, smaller operators draw much of their income from the 10 to 15 head of cattle they raise on irrigated pastures.
The area, says rancher Don Cullum, is prime flycatcher habitat. "The Endangered Species Act has been a curse on our communities," he says bluntly. "It shouldn't be that way. We're not against saving species. We would just like a say in how it's done. We would like someone to understand what it's doing to our communities."
The spotted owl, he says, has meant that more young people go off to college and never move home because of the lack of jobs.
Seventeen years ago, Cullum gave up a successful career designing oilfield equipment in California and moved to a ranch 35 miles from Reserve, where he runs 400 to 500 head of cattle on two allotments in a year-round cow-calf operation.
"I never fooled much with the government back then," he says. "I mean, I paid my taxes. But now, with the U.S. government as a neighbor, I deal with it every day."
Cullum takes his role as a neighbor seriously. He's committed to the Negrito Ecosystem Project, a venture involving ranchers, environmentalists with Friends of the Gila, Catron County, NMSU's Cooperative Extension Service, the state Game and Fish Department, the Forest Service, and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.
The group manages a 130,000-acre streambank site along Negrito Creek, a watershed for Eagle Peak and the San Francisco River. So far, the group has put up fences and planted willows to protect riparian areas. Project members have been awaiting results from a Forest Service data collection project before proceeding.
"We've got the same goal," says Doug Baird, Catron County Extension agent. "We want the best for the resources."
Though he is often critical of the Forest Service, Cullum has high praise for district ranger Mike Gardner, whom he describes as supportive and innovative. In fact, the project's real success may lie in creating contacts.
"There are no extremists in this group," Cullum says. "We decided from the outset that if any one person in the group tried to take over, we would leave them in camp and move on without them. One of our ground rules was that we would show respect for everyone's thoughts and feelings."
Next on the agenda is hiring a person to work on the project who will be employed by the Forest Service and take input from the community, Cullum says. Though the project has had its ups and downs, he considers it a success. "It shows we can seriously sit down with all these groups and come to a consensus on some things," he says. "We can work things out."
FROM THE GREEN PICKUPS
After less than a year in Silver City as the new supervisor of the Gila National Forest, Abel Camarena was well-known in Catron County. Camarena's name recognition shot even higher in June, when he announced a plan that would slash grazing on the Diamond Bar Ranch, a battleground for ranching and environmental groups.
Camarena's stand puts him in direct opposition to county officials, who have supported Kit and Sherry Laney, the Diamond Bar's owners. The Forest Service plan also incensed environmentalists, who objected to constructing livestock tanks in wilderness areas. Both sides are contesting the decision.
After defending the Diamond Bar decision, Camarena seems philosophical when talking about the county movement. He describes those involved as "honest, hardworking people who are trying to wrest some control over their own destiny."
"To me, the whole thing is a reaction to changes that are going on that affect life in Catron County. And the reaction is to try to gain control over those changes."
Camarena has supported negotiating memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with the county, saying it creates a spirit of cooperation. The agreements spell out the agency's responsibilities and reaffirm the need for local input on land management decisions.
Still, there is tension. As a supervisor, Camarena is concerned for his people's safety. So far, the only threats have been verbal. As a precaution, rangers work in teams.
The Forest Service's ultimate responsibility, Camarena says, is to the resource--the public lands. "All the Americans in the country own them and have some say in how they are managed."
In that job, Camarena accepts that he will win no popularity contests, particularly in Catron County. "Some slams have been taken at me," he acknowledges. "I'm not a native New Mexican, not raised in this country, so the perception is I can't possibly understand people here and their needs."
It is, however, Camarena's seventh national forest and third region with the Forest Service. That, too, is probably part of the problem, he says. Moving up in the Forest Service ranks almost always means moving. Local residents are angered by the high turnover rate. They long for days past, when rangers stayed at a post longer and rode more on horseback than in their mint green pickups.
"I've had people tell me they get mad when they see those green rigs running down the road," Camarena says. "But that person driving is not the enemy. We're a target without a face, because federal government tends to be depersonalized. Still, we have children, we buy groceries here, we go to the same churches. We are not faceless, nameless bureaucrats."
FROM WASHINGTON
Thousands of miles and a world apart from Catron County, Peter D. Coppelman tracks the county movement from his Washington, D.C. office. As a deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's environment and natural resources division, it's part of Coppelman's job, as well as an issue he is passionate about.
Whether he's arguing his case in a carefully worded legal document or person-to-person, Coppelman's message is the same. "Legally, I believe these county movement or county supremacy ordinances border on being bogus," he says. "But politically they are very powerful."
In June, Coppelman delivered that opinion to a host of county officials attending a National Association of Counties regional meeting in St. George, Utah. "What I wanted was the opportunity to talk to them, and tell them what our view was, and urge them not to pass these types of ordinances."
Still, by Coppelman's count, at least 35 counties already have adopted such ordinances; at least another 35 are studying them. "Counties are frustrated because they feel they don't have a meaningful place at the table where decisions about public lands are made," he says.
Coppelman sees the resulting movement as a sequel to the Sagebrush Rebellion of the late 1970s. Then, as now, Western land users organized in the face of increased restrictions on public land use. The state of Nevada even went so far as to pass a law designed to take back the state from the federal government. The movement collapsed when James Watt, a supporter of unfettered public land use, was appointed Interior Secretary.
Currently, New Mexico has proponents of both basic legal approaches to the county movement--"Catron County-style" or "custom and culture" ordinances and Nye County, Nevada-style arguments, being pursued zealously in Otero County, NM.
Coppelman is well-acquainted with both types. He filed a friend-of-the-court brief spelling out his views of Catron County's legal approach, as well as an interpleader motion in connection with Otero County. He's also working on cases involving Nevada and Utah.
In general, Catron-style ordinances require that federal agencies consult with the county before taking any action that affects public lands. All federal land management statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, direct agencies to consult with local counties and citizens to take their views into account, Coppelman notes.
But by requiring preservation of local custom and culture, he says Catron-style ordinances go a step too far, effectively preventing any changes in resource use, whether they involve timber sales, livestock grazing, mining, wildlife management, or road building. "The problem with these ordinances is that in addressing an issue, they attempt to dictate the outcome, and no parties should have the ability to do that."
Related ordinances may oppose designation of additional wilderness within the county, or require that if the federal government acquires land, it disposes of an equal amount of federal land.
Most alarming to Coppelman, though, are county ordinances that prescribe criminal penalties for federal employees who refuse to comply with the ordinances. "That encourages citizens--whether they be ranchers, miners, loggers, whatever--to disobey lawful decisions and creates an untenable situation for federal land managers. Trying to enforce the law against an angry person sets up the possibility of confrontation."
To date, these ordinances have rarely been enforced. In their place, Coppelman supports MOUs between federal agencies and counties. These agreements spell out each party's legal rights and responsibilities. In addition, they can specify opportunities for local input and make the county a cooperating or joint lead agency in preparing environmental studies. Finally, they can establish a conflict resolution process to deal with disagreements." We haven't sued Catron County, because the MOUs appear to be working as far as we know," he notes.
As for those taking the Nye County approach, Otero County included, they've been getting "bum legal advice," Coppelman asserts. These counties base their cases on an interpretation of the equal footing doctrine. They argue that it is unconstitutional for the United States to retain ownership of public land in the West, where 50 to 87 percent of land is federally controlled, while virtually no public land exists in the original 13 colonies. This disparity in public lands, they say, puts the West on an unequal footing with eastern states. Coppelman adamantly disagrees. "The Supreme Court previously made it clear that the equal footing doctrine doesn't have anything to do with the percentage of public land in a state. It gives states equal political rights and sovereignty, such as Senate representation, for example."
By association, Coppelman also disputes references to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in New Mexico. "What proponents fail to acknowledge is that as a condition of entry into the Union, every single state first had to pass ordinances in which the state gives up claim to unappropriated lands within its borders. I don't think the ordinances have a chance."
The Nevada statute passed in 1979 during the Sagebrush Rebellion to reclaim lands from the federal government is the basis for Nye's ordinances. The Nevada law was never tested in the courts.
Coppelman believes both the Otero and Catron approaches will be found unconstitutional. He is not the only government attorney with qualms about their constitutionality. Attorneys general of New Mexico, Montana, and Nevada have refused to defend the ordinances in court, he points out.
Whatever the legal outcomes, Coppelman urges counties to work with federal agencies, channeling their energies into negotiation and cooperation rather than legislation and litigation.
RIDING THE RANGE
From his vantage point on horseback, Chris Allison has seen the grazing allotments at the heart of public land battles in New Mexico, including those on the well-known Diamond Bar Ranch in Catron County.
Allison, a member of NMSU's Range Improvement Task Force, is hardly along for the ride. He is brought in for the tough cases known as "Section Eights," referring to a portion of the Public Rangeland Improvement Act (PRIA). The federal law requires agencies to coordinate with permittees when making decisions. When permittees disagree with agency management plans, they can contact Allison for an outside opinion.
When Allison manages to sit down on the job, it's often to mediate a hostile disagreement between a permittee and state or federal land manager over how an allotment should be managed. At those times, his calm, unflappable, matter-of-fact manner helps keep the conflict from escalating.
As an Extension range management specialist, Allison offers expertise in figuring how much of the forage has been grazed and how to manage rotations so that the range and watersheds are in good condition.
In the Diamond Bar case, Kirk McDaniel, an RITF colleague, and Allison participated in a survey of a grazing allotment in the Upper Black Canyon. They clipped grass samples along 400-foot transects and figured the percentage of plants grazed. Using the dried forage samples, they calculated pounds per acre of standing vegetation and the percentage of forage removed.
"Our role is to be as scientific and unbiased as we can be, maybe offer another alternative that hasn't been thought of," Allison says. For example, Allison outlined a plan to move cattle from the Diamond Bar to the vacant XSX allotment, which would have served as a sort of "safety valve." He proposed a grazing rotation plan, as well as continued monitoring, and the possibility of hiring someone to keep cattle out of the Gila's East Fork.
Although the Forest Service announced a different plan for the Diamond Bar in June, the issue is likely to be settled in court, given the ranch's status as a national environmental test case. By summer's end, producer and environmental groups had filed five separate appeals of the Environmental Impact Statement issued for the Diamond Bar.
In the meantime, Allison will stay busy. In the past few years, RITF has helped resolve 23 conflicts on individual grazing allotments.
LOOKING AHEAD
Catron County officials are conscious of their role as leaders in a national movement. Their next bold plan is for a pilot project in which the county would manage federal lands itself. Services would be awarded by contract, and decisions would be made through a system of committees representing competing interests, such as grazing, water use, recreation, and others. Leaders believe it would be more efficient, less expensive, and more responsive to the needs of both the land and the people who live and depend on it.
"If the resource is in healthy condition, all areas will benefit," says Hutchinson, one of the plan's designers. "The key to it is if the environment is in poor shape, the economy is in poor shape, and vice versa." Currently, leaders are looking for a Congressional sponsor. They shared the ideas with their western counterparts recently at a federal lands conference in Albuquerque. "If a number of counties do this, solutions will emerge," Hutchinson believes. "As long as people are participating in their government, no one group will win out."
Although the courts may make the final call in many land battles in Catron County, the county movement already is making an impact locally. "Things have changed a lot," says Doug Baird, Catron County Extension agent. "Before the county started the land plan, federal and state agencies didn't ask the county for input. Now most of the time, they do."