Radicals Challenge New Mexico
State Grazing Lease Process

SANTA FE —(AP)— Three environmental activist groups have filed a lawsuit in state district court challenging the grazing lease system for millions of acres of state trust lands in New Mexico.

The lawsuit was filed Monday against the State Land Office and Land Commissioner Ray Powell by Forest Guardians, based in Santa Fe, the Southwest Environmental Center, based in Las Cruces, and the Western Gamebird Alliance of Tucson, Ariz.

The activist groups were joined by four parents of public school children in the state.

The lawsuit contends the Land Office is violating the New Mexico Constitution and Enabling Act by failing to manage the 8.9 million acres of surface trust lands in a way that would maximize the amount of revenues to the state. The lawsuit also claims the Land Office is failing to protect the land by allowing livestock to degrade it, especially along ``sensitive zones and in desert grasslands.''

``The ranching industry has been given a monopoly to state school trust land that provides them with dirt-cheap grazing leases at the expense of our public schools,'' said John Horning of Forest Guardians.

Powell said late Monday he had not had an opportunity to review the lawsuit but said many of the issues raised by the groups dealt with state laws that can be changed only by the Legislature.

``What most of their lawsuit revolves around is changes in statutes,'' Powell said. ``It's something we've been trying to convey to them for years. If they want to get change, they have to go to the Legislature.''

The lawsuit targeted five current policies. They included preferential rights; the lack of competitive bidding and public auctions for grazing leases; a ban on all partial bids; failure to protect the land; and policies which the environmentalists contend ``insulate ranchers from market forces.''

The lawsuit contends grazing fees on the state school trust lands are less than half the rate that is charged for leasing private lands in New Mexico.

Powell said the state's trust lands generated $267 million last year, but only three and a half percent of that total came from grazing leases.

``Ninety-one percent of it came from the oil and gas industries. We also generate revenue from the mining industry and from our commercial industries,'' Powell said.

Jon Tate of the Western Gamebird Alliance said the lawsuit was ``a necessary and long overdue challenge to a politically entrenched system.''

The groups said less than one percent of all leases are subject to any form of competition under the current leasing system.

State trust lands were given to New Mexico to provide long-term financial support of public schools and other public institutions. Powell said the revenues produced make up about 18 percent of the budget for New Mexico's public schools.