Catron County, New Mexico - Blueprint for the Destruction of Rural America?

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"In 1932, William Z. Foster, then National Chairman of the Communist Party, USA, restated the first plank of the Communist Manifesto; "The abolition of private property." Then in terms specifically applicable to the U.S., Foster stated, "The establishment of an American Soviet government will involve the confiscation of large landed estates in town and country, and also, THE WHOLE BODY TO FORESTS, MINERAL DEPOSITS, LAKES, RIVERS AND SO ON."

(Are we not seeing this in removal of forest roads, creating more and more national monuments, zoning, establishing vast areas as wildlife habitat, and taking control of other vast areas under the American Heritage Rivers designations?)

Look at this statement by Gus Hall, Communist Party Chief: "The battle will be lost, not when freedom of speech is finally taken away, but when Americans become so 'adjusted or conditioned' to getting along with the 'group' that when they finally see the threat, they will say, 'I can't afford to be controversial."
Jodi Bari, Earth First: "IF WE DON'T OVERTHROW CAPITALISM, WE DON'T STAND A CHANCE OF SAVING THE WORLD ECOLOGICALLY. I THINK IT'S POSSIBLE TO HAVE AN ECOLOGICALLY SOUND SOCIETY UNDER SOCIALISM. I DON'T THINK IT'S POSSIBLE UNDER CAPITALISM."

Catron County, New Mexico

A Blueprint For The Destruction Of Rural America?

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"People are suffering. These are proud folks who won't ride welfare and they have nothing left. We have suffered a lot of causalities. Some turned to the bottle, some blew their brains out, and many gave up and went away." Gary Harris, The last sawmiller in Catron County

Catron County, New Mexico; Commissioner Auggie Shellhorn is a big man, rugged, callused and tough from years of ranching high county and fighting forest fires with "Hot Shot" teams. He faces a task equal to his size and spirit in rescuing his economically ravaged county. Auggie stops his aging pickup truck on a slight rise overlooking a large abandoned and rusting sawmill, the ruins of the industry that was the very lifeblood of his community. He sighs heavily, "When the mill was running, everyone that wanted to work had a job. People could afford to raise their families here and our country could afford to provide a decent education for the children. But, that is all gone, gone thanks to the spotted own, The Gila Watch, and Kieran Suckling, Dave Foreman, and Peter Galvin." Shellhorn is silent for a few moments then perks up. "Someday, and we pray it is soon, America is going to need our timber again. So the County bought the mill. It's our investment in the future. We gotta believe in it."

From the old mill we drive into the county seat at Reserve, New Mexico and enter Uncle Bill's, a local saloon that proudly displays its motto. "Kids that hunt, fish and trap don't mug little old ladies!" Auggie introduced me as a writer for Range Magazine and Paragon Foundation which eased the tense looks I was getting from the grizzly clientele. The heated and controversial U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf reintroduction hearings were scheduled to be held in Reserve, so big city journalists had beleaguered the tiny population while trying to pry radical remarks from them. It seemed that everybody in the bar had a Sixty Minutes II, Discovery or CBS camera stuck in their face over the past week. "We sure are glad we finally got some press in town that'll tell our side of the story" smiled a tiny lady tipping her beer mug to me. "We just 'bout had enough of them "wolfers."

Catron County indeed has had enough of the media and the "wolfers." The citizens have been assailed without mercy, without pity, from environmentalists, the Federal Government, and biased media for over a decade.

The economy is totally devastated, the school system de-funded and most sadly Catron has lost its greatest treasure, the children. As communities declined, families leave, and with the families go the children. Shellhorn relates "The Spotted owl didn't just effect The Sawmill workers. Truckers, fallers, planters, thinners, construction workers lost their jobs. We lost so many children because of families moving away, that we shrunk from a 12 to a 6-man football team. 1n 1998 only 8 boys and one girl graduated from the Reserve High School. Before the spotted owl, our graduating class was 20 to 25. We have such limited funds for education that we have had to shorten the school week to four days."

Evidently, the county has been singled out as a testing ground for every new land-taking concept based on the Endangered Species Act. Perhaps it is even more than a random singling out. Perhaps it is as Rancher Hugh McKeen believes, "a federal test-bed for like-actions in other rural communities." The actions by the U.S. Forest Service The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and federal courts have been so continuous, so uncompromising, that they could be interpreted as a deliberate retaliation for the Herculean independence displayed by the Catron County citizens and their government. These good people have resisted, and still defy the heavy hand of the federal government on their personal lives and lands.

Catron County caught the nation's attention with their effort to return to a regulation-free life. It birthed the county independence movement. It was the first to pass statutes resisting federal reign over national land within its boundaries. The message has been plain: Get the federal government out of our people's lives.

Jim Catron, the County attorney, is a fourth-generation New Mexican and a distant relative of Thomas Benton Catron, for whom Catron County is named. "There is a culture in the American West," he says. "It lives and it breathes and it is under assault in the name of environmental protection. In the name of environmental conservation, we're attempting to destroy the last vestige of people who resist central government in the world. If those one-worlders and those federal imperialists really believe they've got us whipped, that the final resistance to centralized government is over, they're wrong. We don't use bullets and swords; now we use lawsuits and injunctions. When these people see government getting strong enough to push them off their lands, destroy their culture and their livelihoods, when these people see the federal government protecting owls and fish instead of humans, they tend to fight back."

Reserve with its empty streets and boarded up windows seems an unlikely place to ferment a rebellion and the citizens certainly don't see themselves as revolutionaries. They are common working folks who were pushed against the wall, put out of work, and watched their lives being destroyed by over-zealous regulatory agencies and environmentalist lawsuits. Their county leaders merely passed ordinances they believed would defend the citizens' livelihoods. It hasn't worked. Instead federal agencies continue tightening the noose to the point of perceptible discrimination.

Back in Uncle Bill's bar, Gary Harris, owner of the last tiny, one-man sawmill in Catron County explains how absurd the Forest Service regulations have became. "We had a fire in the Gilas a couple years back. 16,000 acres of prime large trees burned. Out of that the Forest service only allowed five acres of Douglas fir to be salvaged. We only cut for two weeks. As we were salvaging, the enviros got a court order to quit cutting and quit skidding the burned timber. So the rest, and it was prime wood, simply rotted. Outside of that, the forest service has only had one timber sale in ten years. It is ridiculous. We have 60% more acreage in tree cover today than in 1935. We are surrounded by timber, but people are building houses with lumber trucked in from Canada."

Gary stares into his beer for a long moment, shakes his head, turns to me with a somber face, and said "Look here is how it is. No timber for sale, after the wolf reintroduction ranching will dry up, the wolves have limited game to eat, so after the deer, and elk are gone, we'll lose our hunter income. It boils down to the fact that ways to make a living are disappearing. People are suffering. These are proud folks who won't ride welfare and they have nothing left. We have suffered a lot of causalities. Some turned to the bottle, some blew their brains out, and many gave up and went away. I guess It's got me too. I'm out of wood to cut so I'm closing my mill."

The wolf reintroduction into the Gila Wilderness is viewed most by Catron citizens as the final kiss-of-death to the county's economy. Con Allred, old-time rancher, and former New Mexico State Representative sits by the window at the Golden Girls cafe in Glenwood, a small village down the road from Reserve, drinking coffee and talking politics. He sums up the dilemma posed by the wolves. "We have almost no deer left and the elk population so small the wolves will wipe them out fast. We'll lose our hunters and the damn wolves will continue killing our cattle."

Con's son, Darrell, a rancher, and realtor specializing in ranches, adds to his dad's observations. "Nobody wants to purchase a working ranch where wolves are a threat to livestock. The effect is that ranching properties are drastically devalued. Those folks who need to sell are going to be forced to subdivide. This pristine land will be turned into a sprawl of summer home subdivisions. We don't want that; we'd like to see the old ranches kept intact. By reintroducing the wolf, the environmentalists and federal agencies are instrumental in increasing the population pressure on our resources and destroying the land."

Catron County resisted the Mexican Grey Wolf reintroduction plan to the bitter end. In March they hosted a rally in Glenwood to provide alternative information on the reintroduction program. A thousand peaceful folks from all walks of showed up for the meeting to protest the wolf reintroduction. The major media swarmed the assembly obviously hoping to further reinforce the "violent redneck" image of the Catron folks that has been carefully choreographed by Federal agencies, and environmentalist-driven media over the last decade. They seemed disappointed that noting happened. An Albuquerque newspaper reported the rally as "remarkably sedate." A TV station in Albuquerque showed five seconds of the Glenwood rally, then allowed an environmentalist considerable air time on how ranchers destroy the land. The other major media was incredibly biased and distorted. Skewed sound bites and a prejudiced notion of what was going to be reported was painfully obvious. The only media that gave an accurate accounting of the events was small, independent press.

The final inputs into the Wolf Reintroduction Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shortly after the Glenwood Rally. The hearings were conducted in Reserve and Silver City, New Mexico. The hearings were extraordinary tense. Shortly before the hearings, a pack of reintroduced wolves had been lured across the New Mexico-Arizona border by baiting with elk and dear cadavers. Once in New Mexico, the pack promptly started killing livestock.

Bud Collins and his partner Judy Cummings of the Cross Y ranch that straddles the state line were hit first. The pack first ripped a fetus from a cow, ate it, then killed the cow. A few days later the pack downed a 1400-pound bull on soothing iron Mesa. The wolf pack seemed unafraid of the two hunters who happened upon the scene of its kill, "calm and reluctant to leave," according to a sheriff's report. Buds Collins said, "The wolves don't appear to be afraid of humans and seem to prefer hanging around the ranch line camp. It's very disconcerting," he said. "It's hard to get the horses to come up here anymore."

Judy's take on the slaying of the Cross Y livestock was one of shock and betrayal. She was new to ranching and had invested a lifetime of savings from her former position as a Vice President of The Bank of America in California. She had transitioned from gray flannel business suits, to jeans and boots. Ms. Cummings was a life member of Defenders of Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental Defense Fund. "Suddenly reality hit me," Judy said. "All the green groups I had been contributing to were working with the government to put me and every rancher like me out of business!"

The wolves killed the bull about two miles from the Glenwood Elementary School. Then a solitary male was spied several times wandering through the tiny Village of Alma eating pet cats and hanging around the school bus stop. The alarmed communities were suddenly held hostage by the rogue wolf and fear that the pack might attack a child. The threat was so real that they kept their children inside.

It was under these incensed conditions that the final EIS was held. The Wolf reintroduction team, after presenting formal statements turned the meeting over to a professional facilitator and set stone-faced and mute in their chairs refusing to answer or in any way acknowledge questions from the hundreds of angry people in the audience. Dozens of representatives from New Mexico agencies, county commissioners, city officials, hunters, ranchers, mothers and children stood and voiced to the emotionless panel of U.S. Fish And Wildlife employees that they did not want the wolves reintroduced into their backyards.

None of this outpouring of citizens against the wolf reintroduction was heeded. Shortly after the hearings, the wolves were unleashed. As Auggie Commissioner Shellhorn says. "Sooner or later, one of the hand-raised wolves is going to attack a human. Maybe then the government will listen to us."

Is Catron County a blueprint for the destruction of rural America? Certainly the havoc wreaked there can be effectively applied anywhere. It would be simple because the fiats to effectively accomplish such a plan are in place. Use the Endangered Species Act to shut down major industries and destroy the tax base. When the tax base is destroyed, funding for schools and public services are vastly diminished. Working people are forced to leave for lack of employment. Private lands found to be habitat for endangered species would be so devalued that owners would be forced to sell them to governmental agencies or nonprofit groups like The Nature Conservancy further reducing the tax base. Private citizens cannot afford to defend themselves against the power, might and the unlimited monetary resources of the Federal Government and a judicial system that seems to have predetermined the course of environmental-takings law suits.

The destruction blueprint used in Catron county is starting to happen again. This time on 500 privately owned farms near London, Ohio. Read about in the next Range.

Authors Note: In writing this article I thought of my good friend and mentor in Constitutional law, Alabama Attorney Frank Bailey. I was telling Frank about the problems in Catron County and he innocently said "Well, The government cannot take private property with a species that they protect, so why don't they simply pay the ranchers for thier livestock and let the wolves eat them." Frank, and all you other good folks, I hope this scribbling will give you a real view of what is happening to our rights.

J. Zane Walley, Journalist-Photographer

P.O. 161

Lincoln, New Mexico 88338

Ofc: 505-653-4024

Cell 505-420-2841

Fax: 505 434-4658

frc@pvtnetworks.net

Photo Credit Sheet

For the Catron Country Article

Sheet one:

Rows 1 & 2: Con Allred. Former New State Representative and Catron County Rancher: Quotes for from Con "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service and the damn environmentalists have destroyed our county. Mining and logging are dead and the wolf reintroduction will drive the final coffin nail in ranching."

Row 3: Gary Allred, former rancher who now caretakers a Big Horn Sheep refuge in Catron County "We have spent untold dollars to reintroduce the Big Horns, they are pretty tame and I believe the reintroduced wolves will find them easy prey and destroy all the work we have put into bringing the sheep back."

Row Four: Uncle Bill's Bar in Reserve, New Mexico. When I visited the bar for a beer the owner asked me " You ain't one of them Wolf Lovers are ye? Environmentalists ain't welcome here. "

Row five: The Gila Wilderness in Catron County.

Sheet Two:

Rows 1 and 2: This abandoned and rusting sawmill was the largest employer in Catron County. It was completely shut down by the listing of the spotted owl. Now almost no timber is harvested in the county.

Row three: Gary Harris, Owner of the last, one-man tiny sawmill in Catron County. "I'm having to shut the doors on my sawmill. Forest Service Regulations are so strict that there is no lumber left to harvest.

Row Four: Catron County Commissioner Auggie Shellhorn " Our economy is devastated but we have to believe that logging can't be dead forever. Americans need lumber; Americans need paper. Our county has bet on the future by the county by purchasing the old sawmill."

Row Five: Dick Manning's abandoned mine near Mogollon, NM. The mine was shut down by extreme EPA regulations

Sheet Three

Rows one and Two: Jess Cary, Former sheriff of Catron County. Jess now owns the Three Trees Gun Shop. Agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided his shop. They accused Jess of killing reintroduced Mexican Wolves and seized a portion of his inventory. "They have all but put me out of business." Jess says. People are afraid to do business with me because I am under investigation by the feds."

Rows Three Four and Five: Sights and Signs from Catron County,the Wolf Rally held in Glenwood, NM and The USFWS EIS hearings.

SHEET FOUR

Rows one and two: Bud Collins, Catron County Rancher who suffered the first wolf kills of his livestock. Quotes, "I wouldn't really care if the wolves were here or not, but they are killing my cattle." The dead cow's owner, Bud Collins of the Cross Y ranch, said the wolves don't appear to be afraid of humans and seem to prefer hanging around the ranch line camp. "It's very disconcerting," he said. "It's hard to get the horses to come up here anymore."

Row Three: Judy Cummings , Former Bank of America Vice President and Environmentalist. "I am a life member of the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife and other environmental groups. I always loved the west and ranching, now that I am a rancher I can tell you firsthand how the groups are destroying the rural way of life."

Archuleta County, Colorado

Private property debate sparked by conviction

By John M. Motter

Editor's note: The following article appeared February 10, in the Pagosa Springs Sun (Colorado), describing yet another Forest Service road closure and the impact on a private property owner. The following week, the victim, Diana Luppi, published a letter to the editor that provides details not revealed in the original article.

A property rights question festering in western Colorado and across the West is focusing on an issue that sprouted in Archuleta County.

The question at issue is, can the U.S. Forest Service abrogate private property rights that existed prior to the existence of the Forest Service?

A group of citizens who believe that the Forest Service cannot violate those old private property rights has visited with the Archuleta County commissioners twice during the past two weeks. They want the commissioners to take a stand backing the older rights and opposing the Forest Service position. That stand could include county assertion that the roads are county roads, thereby removing them from Forest Service jurisdiction.

A local focal point of the issue is the criminal conviction of Dianna R. Luppi, an Archuleta County resident who owns property on Turkey Springs Road patented by the U.S. Government under the 1882 Homestead Act.

Luppi and her supporters argue that tenets of the Homestead Act, plus other legislation connected with creation of the Forest Service in the early 1900s and other laws, guarantee her access to her property. The homestead patent on her property was granted before the Forest Service was created.

The Forest Service contends that forest development roads such as a portion of the Turkey Springs Road and other roads in the county on Forest Service property belong to the Forest Service and therefore to the people of the United States. As stewards for the people of the United States, the Forest Service assumes responsibility for the condition of those roads. That responsibility is manifested through the issuance of leases with road maintenance stipulations.

"We are required to issue a lease to these private enclaves, but we can stipulate road maintenance conditions," said Sonja Hoie, Forest Service land specialist with the Pagosa Ranger District. "That is because it is our responsibility to prevent damage to public property and because of safety concerns."

Hoie agrees with the assertion made by several people in the audience that the county can take over many of these roads.

"If the county wished to take jurisdiction they could," Hoie said, "but the roads would become public and the county would be responsible to maintain the roads and keep them open all year."

The Forest Service also has a process for transferring roads to the county, according to Hoie.

Luppi's property is surrounded by Forest Service property. The Forest Service insisted that Luppi sign a lease allowing her to use the road across Forest Service property to reach her own property. Luppi refused.

The Forest Service then brought criminal charges against Luppi in federal court, District of Colorado. On Dec. 1, 1998, Luppi was convicted on two counts amounting to a charge of using national forest roads without authorization, fined $5,000, ordered to sign a lease contract, and placed on probation for one year.

Since her conviction, Luppi has retained an attorney and is appealing the lease requirement, challenging the conviction, and suing the government for violating certain rights.

"I was coerced into signing the lease by the court order," Luppi said. "That is wrong."

Luppi's case is not the first or only case establishing precedent for the Forest Service's actions, according to Hoie.

At least one local resident, J.R. Ford, is concerned that the Forest Service "power grab" will adversely affect a number of private property rights. In addition to road right of ways, irrigation ditch right of ways are threatened, according to Ford.

"I'd like to see the county protect easements that existed before the Forest Service was created," Ford said.

"We need to take this to our attorney and get some information so we can deal with this intelligently," said Commissioner Gene Crabtree.

Meanwhile, a number of citizens from Montezuma County have asked the Archuleta County commissioners to take action. They assert that the issue is gaining momentum across the West.

Luppi's letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

As the "convicted criminal" mentioned in John Motter's article titled "Private property debate sparked by conviction" of Feb. 10, 2000, I would like to add some information.

The Forest Service demanded I sign an easement contract, pay a fee and acquire a permit to travel to and from my home, located off Turkey Springs Road. Although I paid the fee, I refused to sign their contract as it offered me nothing but increased liability in exchange for a right I already enjoyed, namely unencumbered access to my property.

The U.S. Forest Service was not satisfied with merely being paid. The contract was extremely important to them, so important that this is what the government was "forced" to do to gain my compliance:

Charge me criminally for three counts of driving home without a permit

Mount surveillance cameras to "catch" me in the act of driving home

Try me under "special maritime and territorial jurisdiction" (military law)

Strip me of all my constitutional rights in court, including my right to court appointed counsel, trial by jury and a speedy trial

Change the penalty of $500 per count allowable by statute to $5,000 per count

Threaten me with imprisonment throughout the proceedings with no counsel present

Issue a bench warrant for my arrest based on the U.S. Attorney's false testimony in court

Attempt to disenfranchise me of my appeal rights based on the fraudulently obtained bench warrant

Place me on criminal probation for one year which, among other abuses, stripped me of the right to bear arms and allowed trespass and entry to my property without warrant

Deny me access to my home for more than a year on the pretense that I would be committing a crime to drive home without signing a contract and thereby violating the terms of my probation

Threaten to appoint a conservator to sign the contract for me if I continued my refusal

Place two $5,000 liens against me under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

For the act of driving to and from my home I was brutally treated as if I were a dangerous felon, stripped of my liberty without just cause and my property without just compensation. I was forced into contract, risking imprisonment or worse if I failed to obey.

The minor details that the road in question is an unrestricted Archuleta County road leading to a U.S. Land Patented homestead property did not stop the U.S. Forest Service in their ruthless pursuit of a coerced signature of a contract I had no legal obligation to sign. Section 701(a) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, under which Act I was tried and convicted, states the following: "Nothing in this Act, or in any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed as terminating any valid lease, permit, patent, right-of-way, or other land use right or authorization existing on the date of the approval of this Act [Oct. 21, 1976]."

Pay attention to this case, Archuleta County. Your property and your liberty may hinge on it. You may soon find out why this contract was so important to the U.S. Forest Service and you may not like the answer.

Diana Luppi

A legal defense fund has been established to help Diana win this battle with the Forest Service. Support of her efforts now may help you avoid a similar battle in the future.

The Four Corners Land Defense Fund

(Acct # 30181701)

Community Bank

2 Main Street

Cortez, Colorado 881321

References - More Reading Materials on Zoning & Property (Rights)

In court? Need assistance? JurisdictionaryÆ

Modernization of Zoning - A Means to Reform

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg19n2f.html

Property and Freedom - a book review

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv22n2/bookreviews.pdf

Property and Freedom, by Richard Pipes; Hardcover, 317pp., ISBN: 0375404988; Publisher: Knopf Alfred A; April 1999