Nonprofit purchases land providing access to Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks monument

LAS CRUCES - On a visit to Doña Ana County Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., went for a hike on the Achenbach Canyon Trail, which leads into the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. 

The access point off of Ladera Canyon Road has been crossed by hikers visiting public lands for years, despite it sitting on privately-owned property. On Wednesday, however, the nonprofit Wilderness Land Trust reported it had secured a purchase of the property with plans to turn it over to the federal Bureau of Land Management. 

The trust's vice president and senior lands specialist, Aimee Rutledge, joined the hike, occasionally checking for updates on the transaction via her mobile phone. Heinrich was also accompanied by two officials from the federal Bureau of Land Management — acting state director Steve Wells and Las Cruces district manager Bill Childress — as well as Friends of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks director Patrick Nolan. 

It was a breezy day offering clear views across the valley, with blooms appearing on the tips of ocotillos, a spindly desert shrub. Heinrich and Childress could be overheard discussing recent sightings of oryx, a large antelope species, near the trail as well as in the Dripping Springs Natural Area.

"At some point in the future — we don't know when that is — our BLM office will get the funding to acquire the land," Nolan said. 

"Our job is to do the real estate part of this," Rutledge said. "We buy it from the private owner quickly because the federal government can't move quickly — they're careful."

The funding for the transfer will come by way of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, created by the U.S. Congress in 1965 and which received permanent funding last year through the Great American Outdoors Act, a law sponsored by Heinrich along with the rest of New Mexico's delegation. Then-President Donald Trump enacted the law last August. 

Acquisition of private land like the piece near this trailhead is one of the fund's crucial expenditures, since public lands are sometimes surrounded by private parcels that could be developed by owners, inhibiting access. The fund is currently working on other potential purchases in the area as well. 

"We've seen visitation at Soledad (Canyon) and Dripping Springs go up 300 percent since the monument designation," Nolan said, "and there aren't a ton of access points along the Organs. Now we're making this one official and opening it up the public." 

Rutledge said the nonprofit's purchases of land aim to preserve natural habitats, scenic and conservation areas as well as access to designated public lands. The transactions are complicated at times by third-party rights to minerals, water or timber on the parcel are involved.

"It's called the 'bundle of sticks' of property rights. We try to get all of the sticks back in the bundle before we transfer it," Rutledge said.

Negotiations with buyers open to selling can still take years or even decades, she said: "Sometimes it's a generational change that makes that happen. Sometimes it's a business decision."

Rutledge said this parcel appeared to be less complicated to clean up before delivering it to the federal agency, and that the transfer might take a year barring unforeseen complications. 

"When this is in private hands, we can't even have that conversation with BLM," Nolan said. "We get this into public hands soon, and then we can start having those conversations about how all these areas are managed."