For more than a decade, Heinrich has stood with Pueblos, land grant-merced, local community to champion efforts to protect Buffalo Tract from mineral development
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, issued the following statement after the U.S. Department of Interior heeded his calls and announced that it would finalize a proposal to withdraw 4,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in southern Sandoval County, including the Buffalo Tract and the Crest of Montezuma, from mineral development for 50 years:
“For over a decade, I’ve fought alongside New Mexicans to protect the Buffalo Tract from mining. Today, our hard work has paid off. The Biden administration has listened to our calls and recognized that the Buffalo Tract is clearly the wrong place for a gravel mine.
“The Buffalo Tract is a landscape that New Mexicans treasure. The environmental impact of mining it would be irreparable — to the Pueblos of Santa Ana, the Pueblo of San Felipe, the people of Placitas, and the Merced De Comunidad De San Antonio De Las Huertas land grant, and the wildlife that depend on the Crest of Montezuma corridor between the Sandia Mountains to the south and the Jemez Mountains to the north.
“This finalized proposal by the administration will provide key protections for the Buffalo Tract for 50 years. Next, it’s time for Congress to pass my Buffalo Tract Protection Act to make these protections permanent.”
Background
Today’s announcement follows years of advocacy by Heinrich to protect the Buffalo Tract permanently from mineral development, dating back to the introduction of his Buffalo Tract Protection Act in 2016. A timeline of Heinrich’s work can be found below:
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