Oct. Letter to BLM Requesting Extension
The attached letter was sent by FedEx, on October 4, 2012, to Mike Pool, National BLM Director, and is from the Las Placitas Association (LPA) and the Eastern Sandoval Citizens Association (ES-CA). To date, the BLM has stonewalled on the previous 45 day request regardless of the numerous inconsistencies discovered in the current RPM draft.
LPA and ES-CA are working together to draft substantive comments; however, as of Wednesday October 3, it was still unclear what prescriptive uses were actually included in the Rio Puerco Regional Management Plan’s (RPM) four options for lands in Placitas. As of Sunday, October 7, for the lands within the Placitas Area, there is still not an accurate definition of potential uses available to the public. Publicly available maps and text do not agree, and it may be that Parcel A, the 3, 000 acre “Buffalo” shaped land at the north end of Placitas, may in fact be without a BLM recommended prescriptive use. This makes substantive comments all the more difficult and basically has created an “anything goes” scenario with only the BLM able to interpret final use. This could be a disadvantage to Placitas if comments are wildly varying and considered by the BLM not substantive.
With an accurate draft RMP, and adequate time for the public to understand potential uses, the lack of definition could actually be an advantage if Placitans can achieve some consensus on potential uses or non-uses. The uncertainties within the RMP draft document and BLM’s unwillingness to grant more time to protect the public process has made some of us suspicious of BLM’s intent.
Great summary, Bob. As you know, it’s been frustrating trying to get the BLM to simply and clearly disclose what’s in the future for mining that 3142-acre Buffalo parcel. The only thing that *is* clear is how error-ridden and confusing the Placitas portion of the gravel mining prescriptions are.
And the only part of this draft Plan that shows these prescriptions are the maps, which the official BLM website says are incorrect! Well, OK – then where are the *correct* maps? And if/when the correct information finally appears, how long will we have to digest it?
Right now, the countdown stands at 23 days left until November 2, the last day for public comment. Tick, tick, tick. Government regulations specify a 90-day comment period for this type of Plan. Hence, our October 3 extension request letter to BLM.
If folks would like to see the new maps with the “anything goes” area, that LPA and ESCA saw last Wednesday, here is the site:
http://www.lasplacitas.org/rio_puerco/oct_3_2012_maps/
Please check out the “Read_me_map_key” file on that page for a short explanation of terms.
And please note that these maps are unofficial, and that at least one of them will change yet again. Who knows what we’ll end up with, and when. But LPA and ESCA are on it! When we know, you’ll know.
Chris Frye
Director-at-Large
Las Placitas Association
Due to all the great efforts of ES-CA and LPA, and with the help of our state and federal legislators, the BLM has now published the correct maps, and extended the comment period to November 26. Stay tuned for more details.