Testimony of

Fred D. Huff, Land Use Coordinator, Las Cruces Four Wheel Drive Club

On S.3599, a bill to establish the Prehistoric Trackways National
Monument

Before the Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources

United States Senate

September 27, 2006

My name is Fred Huff. I appreciate the invitation to appear before the
Subcommittee to discuss S.3599, a bill to establish the Prehistoric
Trackways National Monument in the State of New Mexico, near the city of
Las Cruces. I was born and raised in Las Cruces and grew up exploring
the area proposed for the Prehistoric Trackways Monument. I have a
degree in Geology from New Mexico State University. I have been
interested in the unique geologic features, as well as in the varied
recreational opportunities, the region offers for most of my life. I
currently serve as Land Use Coordinator for the Las Cruces Four Wheel
Drive Club.

Based on my personal knowledge of the geologic and recreational
resources existing in the region, the designation of a National Monument
is not appropriate nor is it needed for the protection and management of
the natural, cultural and recreational resources existing in the area.
The paleontological resources lack the scientific significance to
warrant a National Monument. Existing management provides sufficient and
appropriate protection. In addition, S3599 contains language that would
arbitrarily impact the recreational uses of the area and establish
arbitrary buffer zones.

[Significance, protection and study of the fossil tracks:]{.underline}

Since the discovery of the Trackways in 1987, there have been many
scientific studies of the Abo red beds (the rock formation where the
fossils are found) that extend about 300 miles, from Santa Fe, New
Mexico, to the U.S./Mexican border, and these tracks are found in all of
them. The Trackways are neither unique to the Robledo Mountains nor
significant to more than a few paleontologists.

The term "megatracksite" is misapplied in the literature describing the
significance of the Robledo Trackways. Megatracksites are typically
described as "footprint-bearing layers of strata that cover large
geographic areas on the order of hundreds, even thousands of square
kilometers"[^1] One such megatracksite is the Morrison Formation that
covers about 1 million square kilometers in the western United States.
Indeed, the term "megatrackway" was redefined by promoters of this
Monument to fit their need to classify the Robledo Mountain find as a
"megatrackway."[^2]

A National Monument is not an appropriate designation for the protection
and study of the Trackways. The Smithsonian Institute performed a
comprehensive study pursuant to Public Law 101-578 and recommended a
locally-based private foundation, not a National Park or other federal
designation for appropriate protection. It should be noted that most of
the recommendations made by the Smithsonian study have been implemented,
including the designation of a 736 acre Research Natural Area (RNA). 
The RNA provides significant civil and criminal penalties for any human
disturbance of the Trackways.

It is noteworthy that the Smithsonian reports that thousands of
specimens have been removed and stored at the New Mexico Museum of
Natural History and Science in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The site that
most of this material came from was an area about 120 feet long and went
about 16 feet into the hill side. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
officials, as well as folks from the Paleozoic Trackways Foundation,
have all been quoted repeatedly in newspapers as saying that "the
trackways are not very visible" or refer to them as buried treasure.
This means that all of the exposed Trackways of note were removed from
this area. There are no more exposed Trackways left. It is only
speculation that more lie buried under hundreds of feet of overburden.
It will require extensive and costly operation to attempt to expose any
Trackways, if they exist.

The most significant site is still there, but all the exposed Trackways
are gone. The overlying rock has protected the Trackways for 280 million
years and still protects any that might be there. If the purpose of the
proposed Monument is to protect speculated Trackways, what better way
than to just leave them buried in place under all that rock?

[Adjacent rock quarry]{.underline}

It is my understanding that many people want to shut down an active rock
quarry in this area.  I agree we should not let any prehistoric sites be
destroyed, but it is unclear if the current mine has any potential to
impact. 

It should also be noted that the rock quarry has been in existence for
at least 50 years. In fact, it is the numerous finds of tracks from this
quarry that led to the discovery of the Trackways. Although this quarry
is out of the proposed Monument boundaries, it is a common assumption
that one of the purposes of this bill is to shut down the quarry.
Language in the legislation would certainly do that:

SEC. 5 (a) (3) is clearly written to accomplish this:

1.  *(3) PROTECTION OF RESOURCES AND VALUES.---The Secretary shall
    manage public land adjacent to the Monument in a manner that is
    consistent with the protection of the resources and values of the
    Monument.*

Proponents claim that the quarry has covered up some of the other
localities identified by the Smithsonian report. However, the quarry
does not extend into the Research Natural Area established by the BLM.
Interestingly, three or four of the localities identified by the
Smithsonian report are within the quarry area and outside the RNA
boundary. Also, keep in mind that until recently, the BLM had refused to
identify the boundaries of the RNA or provide maps[^3].

There is also a lawsuit against the quarry in Federal District Court
right now. It was filed by a "grassroots" group called Friends of The
Robledos. This group is led by a board member of the local Sierra Club
in charge of mining and grazing. She is also the mother of the chairman
of The Paleozoic Trackways Foundation that is pushing for this monument.
No grassroots here, but a massive environmental group pushing for land
closure by any means.

[Size of the proposed Monument:]{.underline}

The Smithsonian Report starts out on page one by stating: **"The most
extensively studied and scientifically significant Robledo tracksite
occurs in redbeds of tidal flat origin at UTM 3584120N, 323070E, zone
13."** At the bottom of that page, the report states that "...with the
discovery of the deposit now known as AF2 (NMMNH locality 846), **on
which this report is primarily based**." The report is clearly stating
that only one small area was studied. [^4]

Although the Smithsonian report originally identified 34 paleontological
sites, it is now widely acknowledged that at least one third of those
sites do not contain Trackways. Even the Paleozoic Trackways Foundation
acknowledges that the Smithsonian report was misleading in the number of
sites that it reported.

During field research, I investigated most of the 34 sites identified in
the Smithsonian report. At about a third of the sites, when the GPS unit
indicated we were at the spot, we were standing where someone had done
some strip mining or were within less than fifty feet of a noticeable
dig. Another third of the coordinates placed us near a red bed outcrop,
but no clear signs of mining were visible. Several were also in the same
outcrop just a few feet from each other, so they should have been
considered as just one site. The remaining coordinates were nowhere near
a dig or even a red bed. We called these sites "phantom sites."

The **significant** site is where Senator Bingaman was taken to in the
late 1980s and is where everyone else is taken to in an attempt to sell
the idea of the National Monument -- one tiny area less than 500 square
feet, and yet monument proponents want 5,367 acres of speculated
Trackways "protected" via this National Monument.

[Concern about administrative cost of a National Monument:]{.underline}

As members of the Subcommittee are well aware, federal budgets for
public lands are insufficient. We cannot even keep our current National
Monuments and Parks functioning. Look at the Yucca House National
Monument in Colorado, since 1919 it has waited for funding to do
something with it. It has just been fenced in and locked up.

The Fossil Cycad National Monument was created in October 21, 1922,
because scientists recognized that the fossil locality preserved a
significant exposure of a Cretaceous cycadeoid forest. Hundreds of
fossilized cycad specimens, one of the world\'s greatest concentrations,
were exposed at the surface of the 320 acre site during the early 1920s.
Lack of funds and miss management at the Monument resulted in adverse
impacts on the fossil resource. The fossils on the surface disappeared
faster than erosion could expose other specimens from beneath. The loss
of the exposed petrified plant remains eventually left the site devoid
of fossils and, ultimately, without a purpose to justify its existence
as a unit of the National Park Service. On September 1, 1957, the United
States Congress voted to deauthorize Fossil Cycad National Monument.
Fossil Cycad National Monument was never officially open to the public
and has never had a visitor center or public programs.

An article in the May 25, 2006, Las Cruces Sun News talked about the sad
plight of the Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Utah. Then on July
12, 2006, the Dinosaur National Monument had to close its visitor center
for lack of funding for needed repairs. The Monument web site had this
message:

> *THE DINOSAUR QUARRY VISITOR CENTER IS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
> This is the Dinosaur Fossil Bone Quarry Near Vernal & Jensen Utah.\
> The Quarry Visitor Center in Dinosaur National Monument will close
> beginning Wednesday, July 12 for structural repairs according to
> Superintendent Mary Risser. The building will remain closed
> indefinitely until significant life, health, and safety issues are
> addressed.*

Dinosaur National Monument receives over 300,000 visitors a year and
still cannot afford to repair the visitor center. When is money going to
be allocated for that?

A January 22, 2004, story on EFENews.com looked at the plight of the
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument:

> *Tucson, Arizona, Jan 21 (EFE).-Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in
> Arizona, just north of the Mexican border, is on the short list for
> possible \"decommissioning,\" a status some blame on massive illegal
> immigration.*
>
> *The scores of plastic bags, water bottles, empty food cans, old
> shoes, clothes and toothbrushes discarded by the migrants, besides
> being an eyesore, are threatening the park\'s ecosystem, according to
> the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), which placed Organ
> Pipe on its list of 10 most endangered national parks.*
>
> *\"The monument shares a 30-mile border with Mexico that has become an
> entryway into the United States for thousands of undocumented
> immigrants,\" said Ron Tipton, the NPCA\'s senior vice president of
> programs\...*
>
> *\"This park is under siege and must get immediate attention or we run
> the risk of losing forever the resources that earned this national
> treasure a world-class designation as a biosphere reserve,\" \[Ron
> Tipton, National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA)\].*

This proposed Monument has already earned a coveted spot on the
Porkbusters.org website. Why add another Monument to the system when the
current Monuments are being neglected?

[Concern regarding administration and management:]{.underline}

Monument proponents say this Monument will not affect recreational uses.
Indeed, they often point to section 5(f) and state the existing
motorized trails currently permitted by the Bureau of Land Management
will remain open.

However, the legislation defines "authorized uses" as those that "would
[further the purposes]{.underline} for which the Monument has been
established."  It would be impossible to show that grazing, OHV riding,
bike riding, hunting, gravel mining or just about any other use would
"[further]{.underline}" the purpose even though they may have no impact
on the resource.  This needs to be changed to "not inconsistent with the
purposes."

Section 4 (d) allows for minor boundary adjustments to the Monument if
additional paleontological resources are discovered on adjacent public
lands. Since the Abo red beds extend from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the
U.S./Mexico border, we could end up with a Monument two thirds the
length of the state. This paragraph should better define the term
"minor" or limit the Secretary's authority to adjust the boundary to a
certain acreage figure. Only Congress or the President should be able to
enlarge a National Monument.

Section 5 (f) should include a paragraph stating: "Continued motorized
and mechanized access along currently designated routes shall be deemed
a valid use of the public lands, and further administrative decisions
regulating access along these routes shall not have the effect of
prohibiting or unduly restricting travel by any presently-authorized
vehicle type."

Section 5 (a)(3) Any other provision that allows for "buffer zone"
management must be removed. As has been done in many recent Wilderness
bills, a provision should be included clarifying that "buffers" will not
limit management discretion over multiple-use lands outside the
Monument.

[Conclusion]{.underline}

This bill is not about protection, it is about exploitation.

The 1990 law designating the Prehistoric Trackways Study Area asked for
a study, and it was done. That same law specified that the study was to
recommend whether or not this area was worthy of being designated as a
part of the National Park System. [That study DID NOT recommend that
this area be designated as a National Park or Monument.]{.underline} It
only called for protection and further study of the Trackways, but not
as a National Monument.

It is true that this is an important area to the scientific community,
however most of the visiting public just will not understand or
appreciate the significance without the WOW factor that we have come to
expect from our National Monuments.

Why not just build a visitor center that is run by the Las Cruces Museum
of Natural History and place the best finds in this center with dioramas
of the creatures in their environment of 280 million years ago. The
scattered sites are still protected, and every visitor gets to see the
best of the best specimens that have been recovered. They will also have
someone there that can point out all the evidence of prehistoric life
hidden within the rock.

I really feel that the current RNA is adequate to provide the protection
desired for this area without the burden of National Monument
designation, especially since there is really nothing left that anyone
would want. I agree that this is interesting scientific discovery, but
that alone does not merit the implied grandeur or significance of a
National Monument. If anything, this location would cheapen the
greatness of our National Monument system. However, I would like to be
able to work with the committee to make improvements to the bill if you
still feel that a national monument is absolutely necessary.

I agree with Senator Domenici's comments when this bill was introduced
that this issue should really be a part of a comprehensive land
management bill for Doña Ana County. But, that bill needs to at least
follow the BLM recommendations concerning wilderness and release the
areas that were found not suitable for wilderness designation.

[^1]: Lockley, M.G., 1991, Tracking Dinosaurs. Cambridge, Cambridge
    University Press, 238 p.

[^2]: In the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Bulletin
    6, article titled Geology of Early Permian Tracksites, Robledo
    Mountains, South-Central New Mexico, By S.G. Lucas, O.J. Anderson,
    A.B. Heckert, and A.P. Hunt, page 24, the authors redefine
    megatrackway down to 20 square kilometers, to fit their need to
    classify the Robledo Mountain find as a megatrackway.

[^3]: I had to do a Freedom of Information Act request to get a map of
    the RNA. Only recently has the BLM driven metal fence posts into the
    ground every several hundred feet, marking the boundary of the RNA.
    If the quarry has destroyed any of the identified localities, it is
    the ones that are outside the RNA. The sites that we found outside
    the RNA appear to have just been covered up with tailings, rather
    than destroyed through material removal. They are now just better
    protected from exploitation.

[^4]: These areas now have large ugly scars with erosion from the
    hillside above starting to fill in the gash.