ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A 54-year-old conservation program that has helped provide outdoor recreation access across New Mexico and the nation would be all but eliminated in the 2019 budget President Donald Trump has sent to Congress.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund gets its money from offshore oil and gas leases, but the proposed budget would divert 98 percent of those funds. Land Tawney, president and CEO of the group Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said for decades, the program has been successful in increasing access to parks and public lands by diverse groups of people.

"You know, there's nothing more American than our public lands, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund helps provides opportunities for all Americans to enjoy these public lands that belong to all of us,” Tawney said. “And the idea of cutting this program doesn't make any sense to us, and I don't think it's going to make any sense to the American people."

In New Mexico, LWCF funds have helped conserve such places as the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge and the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. The budget proposal would use LWCF funding to help address the maintenance backlog in national parks instead.

In addition to funding public lands access, Susan Torres with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation said LWCF grants are used as matching money to build community soccer fields and baseball diamonds.

"There are these parks that rely on LWCF funding to maintain their access and make them safe for kids throughout the city,” Torres said. “So I think that that's one of the things that I personally think is very important about LWCF is making sure that our parks are safe and equitable for everyone to be using them."

Outdoor recreation is the nation's third-largest economic driver, generating $887 billion each year. Torres said ending the program would leave many current parcels of land unprotected and outdoor restoration projects unfinished.

"So there could be a lot of restoration programs throughout New Mexico that don't go funded - wetlands rehabilitation, increased access to places in Rio Grande Del Norte where people can go fishing,” she said. “A lot of those places where we're working to get more access, those things could just kind of fall to the wayside and cut people out from where they should have access to."

The Land and Water Conservation Fund has never received full funding, as Congress often diverts the money for other purposes. In recent years, funding has hovered around one-third of the full, authorized level.



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The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has issued flood alerts following wildfires burning huge swaths of the state.

Floods are more likely after fires because there is less vegetation on the land to absorb water. At least 64 wildfires are burning in Montana right now and the state is closing in on a thousand for the year.

While wildfires can burn quickly and threaten structures and human lives, they create another danger even after the flames are out.

Traci Sears, national flood insurance program coordinator for the department, said the blazes leave behind acres of barren land unable to absorb rain water.

"Essentially, that soil actually becomes what they call 'hydrophobic,'" Sears explained. "It will repel water almost like concrete would. It can cause situations where you don't just have flooding but you could actually have mud flows as well."

The state is creating an interactive flood plain map to track where floods are likely to happen and to help residents plan for them when heavy rains come.

The severity of the flooding varies based on the terrain and type of vegetation destroyed by the fire but Sears pointed out it can take as long as seven years for some areas to regrow shrubs and other ground cover, and longer for trees. On the positive side, Sears noted the issue is drawing more attention because the state has been making residents more aware of the threat.

"There has definitely been more awareness, I would say, in the last six to seven years," Sears observed. "Montana has been really proactive in working not just with the flooding department but also looking and working with our fire department as well, to try and coordinate on some of this messaging."

The fires in Montana have scorched nearly 90,000 acres as dry and windy conditions persist throughout the western United States.

The federal government is looking to combat the climate crisis and protect public lands in Utah and around the country by empowering young adults.

Ken Goodson, director of the National Civilian Community Corps for AmeriCorps, said its newly launched partnership with the U.S. Forest Service will give people ages 18-26 hands-on experience in wildfire mitigation, reforestation, conservation and resource management.

"The origin story here is largely one based on successful history of AmeriCorps programs and working in the environmental, conservations space," Goodson pointed out. "Then just the increasing risk that we see through a greater frequency of fires and a greater intensity of fires, particularly here in the Mountain West."

Goodson pointed out the U.S. Forest Service launched its wildfire crisis and reforestation strategies over a year ago and approached AmeriCorps in an effort to grow its "people power" to implement both strategies, and invest in a future workforce.

Goodson said the Forest Corps is one of the first new programs launched as part of President Biden's American Climate Corps, an initiative aimed at training young people in high-demand skill areas for jobs in the clean energy sector.

"Under the Climate Corps initiative you have the opportunity to help get these disparate efforts largely rowing in the same direction," Goodson emphasized. "Thinking about greater, collective impact and then also individual programs being able to share their successes, their challenges."

More than 40,000 acres have burned in Utah so far this year, significantly more than last year's 18,000 acres.

With climate change having an effect, Goodson added it is another reason the Forest Corps program is so needed.

"The moment in time right now with fires becoming more frequent and more intense really causes me to feel like the Forest Corps is the right program for the right time and would certainly welcome any 18- to 26-year-olds who are interested to please check us out," Goodson concluded.


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Environmentalists are applauding a Bureau of Land Management decision to allow the sale of a small national public land parcel for an affordable housing development.

The sale of public lands is controversial, with Republicans and conservative groups seeing states as preferable stewards. Conversely, Democrats and conservation groups argued states cannot afford to protect public lands and would sell them to private companies.

Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, said there are public lands adjacent to metro areas in some Western states well-suited to development, which could help solve the nation's housing shortage.

"But that's the kind of stuff that happens five, 10, 20 acres at a time," Weiss explained. "Not the wholesale transfer of tens of thousands or even millions of acres to states and private parties."

For the first time ever, the BLM this week approved the sale of 20 acres of national public land near Las Vegas to the Clark County Department of Social Services for an affordable housing development. Weiss pointed out the federal "memorandum of understanding" is specific to the Nevada parcel but he believes there are others near Phoenix or Tucson that would make sense for consideration.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Gov. Joe Lombardo, R-Nev., are the most recent politicians citing the housing shortage as a need to sell off public lands to developers. In a letter to President Joe Biden, Lombardo urged approval for the transfer of 50,000 acres of public land around Las Vegas with few restrictions, which Weiss believes would create urban chaos. He contends mixing in housing is a new approach to how conservatives now talk about public lands.

"Much of the Republican Party finally recognized that calling for wholesale transfer was a political third rail in the West," Weiss observed. "No matter how conservative the state, voters everywhere across the political spectrum do not want to dispose of national public lands on that scale."

Weiss added any sale of public lands for housing should require it be affordable and not end up providing "McMansions" or "trophy homes" for billionaires.


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