The fight for a canyon.

In the July/August 1988 issue of this magazine, Kay Mathews' FOCUS article, "Hammering Out the Cibola Plan," gave a bargaining-table account of six months of head-butting that resulted in the signing of a settlement agreement to a citizens' appeal of the Cibola National Forest Management Plan. In this update, Mathews, who lives in the town of Placitas at the northern end of Las Huertas Canyon, details an event that, she says, "has caused many of us to regret that settlement. "

There is a canyon called Las Huertas (the gardens) on the east side of the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Through this canyon a narrow dirt road winds eight miles down from the alpine forests near the crest of the mountains to the pinyon-juniper valley where I live. For four miles alongside this dirt road run the pristine waters of Las Huertas Creek, one of only two perennial streams in the Sandias.

For almost 20 years, local debate has raged over the fate of Las Huertas Canyon. In its 1975 Sandia Mountains Land Management Plan, the Cibola National Forest delineated the problems found in the canyon: sedimentation of the creek, traffic congestion and hazards to public safety, noise and dust pollution, littering and vandalism, destruction of the wildlife habitat and stream-side vegetation. Added to that, the Sandia Mountain Wilderness, designated in 1978, borders the road to within 100 feet, and vehicle intrusion into the wilderness is common.

Those of us who live in the mountain community of Placitas at the north end of the canyon have long used and enjoyed Las Huertas. Because it is literally our backyard, we have a special interest in protecting and preserving the natural resources there. In the larger scheme of things, however, the entire Sandia Mountains are backyard to Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city, situated on the west side of the mountains. The Sandias provide a multitude of recreational opportunities for Albuquerque: skiing; hiking; picnicking; an aerial tramway ride to the crest, where two restaurants await; and scenic driving. The destination of many of these drivers is Las Huertas Canyon, used to complete a loop drive around the mountains.

Therein lie the problems. Jimmy Hibbets, Forest Service project manager for a Las Huertas Canyon study, has stated these drivers are "loving the canyon to death." On weekends and holidays, increased traffic in the canyon creates bottlenecks, causes clouds of dust, and makes it unsafe side the road. The residents for people to hike or fish alongside the road. The residents of Placitas must contend with speeding traffic, and the volunteer fire brigade must respond to a high incidence of accidents.

Since the release of the 1975 management plan, the Forest Service has at various times proposed three basic management alternatives to alleviate the problems in the canyon: 1) paving and reconstruction of the road to a 35-mph, two-lane thoroughfare; 2) rerouting the road out of the canyon (it currently has a state highway designation, but that agency is considering dropping the road from the system); and 3) closing all or portions of the road to vehicular traffic.

The 1975 management plan was scrapped with the inception of the National Forest Management Act of 1976, which requires comprehensive management plans for all national forests. The Cibola Management Plan was released in 1985, and again these three alternatives were proposed. The plan was appealed by a coalition of citizen groups on a broad range of issues, and was amended in a negotiated settlement (see earlier AMERICAN FORESTS article).

One of the amendments to the plan stipulated that a citizen work group representing affected interests help write an environmental analysis of Las Huertas Canyon. I served on the committee as a representive of the Placitas community, along with representatives of the San Antonio de Las Huertas Land Grant, Sandia Pueblo, Albuquerque, the State Highway Department, and several environmental groups. We listed eight possible management alternatives, which included no action, several kinds of road improvement, and several kinds of road closures. The group majority then made a formal recommendation to the Forest Service that the lower portion of the road next to the creek be closed, with the remaining portion open as access to a private inholding and a Forest Service picnic ground.

When the Draft Environmental Impact Statement was released to the public in July of 1988, the Forest Service chose to ignore our recommendation and proposed paving the entire length of the road. It also rewrote much of the group's writing of the eight alternatives, substantially changing the spirit and intent of the proposals. Though we always knew that our group could function only in an advisory capacity, and that the ultimate decision lay with the Forest Service, we were deeply disappointed and angered by the DEIS. As a carefully chosen group who represented a cross section of interests and whose primary concern was to insure the protection of the canyon, we felt the Forest Service had subverted a unique opportunity to make a progressive decision there.

As a rationale for choosing road development, the Forest Service stated in the DEIS that paving provides for the "highest level of additional motorized opportunities" and the "highest level of additional recreation capacity." The agency contends that though paving may exacerbate some of the existing problems in the canyon, it is an environmentally sound proposal-despite the fact that in the DEIS the Forest Service chose one of the road-closure alternatives as its "environmentally preferred" alternative.

The Forest Service often claims other multiple-use benefits to rationalize roadbuilding and commodity production. A major road to a timber sale is presented as a potential cross-country ski trail. Increased grazing allotments are defended because ranchers are required to build more water tanks that benefit wildlife. Clearcuts become wildlife feeding grounds. Though certain aspects of this reasoning may be true, the fact remains that roadbuilding and clearcutting and overgrazing are still destroying natural resources at an alarming rate.

Paving Las Huertas Canyon road is essentially encouraging increased vehicular use, and though there may be less siltation into the creek, there will obviously be more streamside degradation, wilderness intrusion, pollution, vandalism, traffic congestion, and the likelihood of commercial development an alpine ski area and other commercial ventures have been proposed by the private landowners in the canyon. The only Forest Service answer to these problems is the promise of more personnel in the canyon to enforce parking restrictions and prevent off-road intrusions. There is no guarantee the budget will provide for such services.

At the public hearings on the DEIS, opposition to road improvement and paving was overwhelming. Of the more than 300 people who attended three public meetings, only three gave statements supporting paving (two of the three were landowners). In the Public Comments and Forest Service Response to the Las Huertas DEIS, the vast majority of letters expressed opposition to paving. Many public agencies and elected representatives-including the State Highway Department, local fire and rescue groups, the Sandoval County Sheriff and Commission, and U.S. Representative Bill Richardson-have expressed opposition to the proposal.

The final Environmental Impact Statement was issued in june of 1989. The Forest Service decision is to pave the upper three miles of the canyon road and gravel the lower portion next to the creek. Promoted as a "compromise" decision, this plan is regarded as pre-paving, and sedimentation of Las Huertas Creek will continue to be a problem. The Forest Service maintains that its first obligation is to provide Albuquerque with the highest level of motorized opportunities and to provide access to private inholdings.

Those of us on the study group who recommended closure are more than disappointed. We feel the FEIS clearly violates the amended Cibola Forest Plan in two very important respects: first, that the Forest Service has chosen to give priority to motorized recreation when the plan calls for an emphasis on dispersed recreation and alleviation of overuse in the Sandias; and secondly, that public participation requirements were paid lip service without any substantive compliance.

The Cibola Plan acknowledges that the Sandias, particularly the Sandia Mountain Wilderness, are being used at near capacity, and management directives are to guide users to other Cibola districts and wilderness areas. Additionally, the plan calls for favoring dispersed recreation over developed recreation, and though the Forest Service tries to interpret vehicular traffic in Las Huertas Canyon as "dispersed, " the paving decision will overburden a sensitive area already "loved to death."

Noncompliance with public participation is especially disheartening. Much of the new language in the amended plan addresses the issue of public involvement in Forest Service management decisions. During the negotiations on the Cibola Plan, the agency readily admitted there had been a lack of sensitivity on its part to public concerns, particularly with regard to Hispanic land-grant heirs, who comprise many forest communities, and Native Americans, who use the canyon for religious purposes. The Las Huertas work group was to address that.

The Forest Service, however, chose to disregard the recommendation of the community groups, which included land-grant and Indian representatives, in favor of a proposal supported by the canyon landowners, who are part of a corporation that stands to benefit financially from improved canyon access. True or not, the specter of a backroom deal where the developer and the Forest Service are the only participants looms ominously over the proceedings. Apparently the Forest Service feels that as long as it solicits public comment, it is fulfilling NEPA requirements. But in reality it is unprepared to listen or to respond to the will of the people.

The FEIS was appealed by many of the same groups who were appellants of the Cibola Plan and who were represented on the Las Huertas work group. The appeal states that the decision is inconsistent with the Cibola Forest Plan, fails to protect Las Huertas Creek, ignores and misrepresents public comment, fails to assess accumulative impact on environmental resources, and impinges upon the rights of Native Americans to freely practice their religion.

Once again we find ourselves in an adversarial relationship with the Forest Service, the ultimate irony being that while we anticipated possible appeals and injunctions in the unresolved areas of the settlement agreement to the plan, primarily on timber issues, we had hoped, perhaps naively, that the Forest Service would really work with us to reach a decision that would promote progressive management and appropriate use of the resources in Las Huertas Canyon. The work group had looked at forest management in Sabino Canyon near Tucson, Arizona, where the same kinds of problems had caused the Forest Service to eventually close the canyon to individual use in favor of shuttle use. By recommending partial closure of the lower part of Las Huertas Canyon and maintaining access to the picnic ground, we had hoped to avoid the extreme situation that resulted in Sabino Canyon. The Forest Service never considered the closure alternatives, citing its obligation to provide "reasonable access" to the private landowners, and its obligation to speak for the "silent majority" of Albuquerque who desire a loop drive around the Sandias.

In November of 1989 we were notified that all our appeal points had been rejected by the Regional Office reviewing officer. The only change in the FEIS will be to delete a winter closure that was included, as the Forest Service intends to keep the road plowed and maintained all year long (it had never been completely plowed in previous winters). This is the result of an appeal by the canyon landowners who contested even a wintertime partial road closure.

Needless to say, we are again discouraged by that decision. The appeal automatically goes to the Chief of the Forest Service, who will decide if he wants to review it. Our only real hope for Las Huertas lies in a court battle. That means more money for a lawyer to represent us and more time and energy on the part of all of us who have fought for the canyon these past five years.

(As we go to press, it was learned that the Chief had decided not to review the landowners' appeal. A coalition of local groups plans to file a lawsuit.-Ed.)

This decision is especially discouraging in light of the compromises we made when we settled our appeal of the Cibola Forest Plan. After that agreement was signed in 1986, the Forest Service used it as a prototype when proposing settlements of other forest appeals. The Las Huertas Canyon decision validates our suspicions that it was a mistake to settle, as apparently the Forest Service is not prepared to bargain in good faith.