My View: Fight to keep out OHVs gearing up in Glorieta
By Connie H. Eichstaedt
Santa Fe New Mexican
September 14, 2007
I am writing to protest the proposed recreational off-highway-vehicle destination area proposed for Glorieta-Rowe Mesa.
I am a 26-year-resident of lower Cañoncito, located in Apache Canyon, just off of Ojo de la Vaca. My family and I built
our adobe home with our hands and have spent our time in this valley as responsible stewards of the land. I have lived
in Santa Fe for 31 years and am a native New Mexican.
I am horrified to learn of the Forest Service proposal and initial plan to sacrifice Glorieta-Rowe mesa to the OHV lobby
under the guise that those activities already exist in the area. The suggestion that this is a way to control the abuse
is ridiculous! Off-road vehicles are one of the most environmentally destructive forces I can imagine. To sacrifice our
forest in this time of global warming to gas-consuming, exhaust-belching, boundary-less, noise-generating and soil-
ripping machines is insanity.
The concept that you will manage activity that already exists, by keeping the OHV folks on designated roads and trails
and therefore reduce the damage, is idiocy. Off-road vehicles go “off road,” and there is no budget in place or even
serious hope for funding proposals that can come anywhere near being adequate enough to enforce the rules or monitor the
inevitable destruction.
Glorieta Mesa is a great resource for New Mexico livelihoods of ranching and family homesteads, while providing
traditional resources of stone, wood and grazing land. It is also a place of beauty and serenity, not only for those of
us fortunate to live nearby, but also the residents of Santa Fe and outlying communities, as our recent meeting of
concerned citizens demonstrated. Attended by 125 to 150 people — old timer and newcomers, Anglos and Hispanics, old and
new politicians, country folks and city folks, ranchers and hikers — the disappointment in our government and our forest
service was immensely evident, as was their love for our community and for the mesa.
While off-road vehicles may comprise 6 percent of the population, those who don’t use them comprise 94 percent. This
protest comes from tax-paying citizens that feel our community was either intentionally by-passed in the process or at
least under-notified. Our community showed up in force and we just learned about this proposal two weeks ago! How can
the gateway of Ojo de la Vaca and the residents of the mesa be so ignored?
Our voices deserve to be not only heard, they deserve to be respected. I do not want the Santa Fe forests to be an
advertised destination spot for out-of-town riders. I support the growing coalition joining glorietamesa.org, and the
numerous significant issues they have identified. I will do my utmost to make my community members, the other
neighborhoods facing the same threat, the environmental community and governmental authorities aware of my concern and
extreme displeasure for this proposal. I understand we are to be engaged in this struggle for a long time and promise to
be an active voice against this proposal.
Connie H. Eichstaedt is the director of Southwest Seminars, committed to sensitive cultural education and to working
with those who share the same commitment.
GlorietaMesa.org
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