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Welcome to Desert Journal Online, established in May 2001 in New Mexico. Our website offers our true crime book, Satan's Den Exposed - The David Parker Ray Story, and poetry and photo collections, Bombshell Liberation and Interference, and provides free access to our featured videos, columns, photos and news archives.

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Last modified: August 18, 2010

Police reserve unit suspended 

  Acting Truth or Consequences Police Chief Russ Peterson last Friday suspended the Police Department’s reserve officers unit pending the resolution of training and insurance issues.

Gila National Forest closes with fire danger 

  Forest officials announced Wednesday the Gila National Forest, National Park Service land administered by the Gila NF, and those portions of the Apache NF administered by the Gila NF, will be closed at midnight today (Friday, June 28).

…SMOG in Sierra County?

CLICK ON PHOTO
FOR PROOF

…Unveiling of
special recognition

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FOR ENLARGEMENT

Transporting dead game may have 
devastating consequences for NM herds 

  New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (DGF) announced last week the state has confirmed the first case of Chronic Wasting Disease in a deer found on White Sands Missile Range.

Domenici seeks hearing on National Fire Plan 

  Senator Pete Domenici last week formally requested a hearing to address the problem of hazardous fuels building up in the national forests, saying the ever-increasing toll of wildfires raging across the West call into question current forest management policies.

Skeen restores funding for NM counties 

  New Mexico's senior Congressman announced last week he was restoring proposed cuts in a federal government program important to the finances of every county in New Mexico.

Domenici denounces court decision ruling 

  Senator Pete Domenici on Wednesday expressed his disbelief and outrage with a federal appeals court decision that deems the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance as unconstitutional, and called for the ruling to be quickly overturned.

…Fire destroys home

Truth or Consequences and Williamsburg volunteer fire fighters arrive at 1408 Copper St. to find the mobile home of Kathy Stroud engulfed in smoke last Sunday. The overload of an electrical cord is believed to have caused the fire that claimed the lives of a cat and two birds and destroyed the home.

DJ Photo by Bill Johnson

Continued - Fire destroys home

Firemen in a quick response contained the blaze within moments of their arrival; however, hot spots kept them busy at the scene of the fire at 1408 Copper St. for an hour. Arrangements were made for temporary housing for Ms. Stroud.
DJ Photo by Bill Johnson

Police reserve unit suspended

By Fred Mramor of the Desert Journal

Acting Truth or Consequences Police Chief Russ Peterson last Friday suspended the Police Department’s reserve officers unit pending the resolution of training and insurance issues.

Peterson this week said he, TCPD Lt. Priscilla Mullins and Detective Tom Schalkofski met with the city’s three reserve police officers at their monthly meeting June 13.

Peterson said reserve officer Don Rose was concerned about the minimal training T or C’s reserve officers have had, especially in comparison with the much more extensive training reserve officers receive in Arizona where Rose was a certified reserve police officer for 25 years.

Another matter of concern was insurance coverage for T or C’s reserve officers.

Peterson said the reserve officers thought they were covered by the city’s insurance through the New Mexico Municipal League’s self-insurer’s program as are the city’s regular police officers.

Don Rose this week said T or C’s reserve officers were repeatedly told over a year ago by “police department sources” that they were covered.

After the June 13 meeting Peterson and Mullins have found through city officials and staff that T or C’s reserve officers are not covered by the same insurance that regular officers are, if any at all.

Peterson said he has asked the city’s personnel director to see if reserve officers are covered under any existing insurance policy but that so far it doesn’t appear that they are.

Peterson said he is concerned both for the reserve officers’ well-being and the city’s potential liability if reservists are injured while on duty.

Lt. Mullins said she contacted the New Mexico Municipal League and learned the League has no standard for training and insuring reserve officers because they do not recommend cities having reserve officers.

The League recommends that if the city does have reserve officers, they be retired law enforcement officers with continued training while serving as reserve officers, Mullins said.

T or C reserve officers, unless they have received training elsewhere or have other law enforcement experience, presently have only some weapons training and have undergone a Field Training Orientation of six to 10 weeks, Mullins said.

No training specifically for reserve officers is available to the TCPD at this time but Peterson said he hopes to establish a training program in cooperation with any law enforcement agencies willing to participate, possibly including the Sheriff’s Department, State Police, State Parks Rangers, District Attorney’s Office and Border Patrol.

Peterson said he will also try to find an insurer who will cover T or C’s reserve officers with the training they have and will see if the city will budget for the cost of insuring the reserve officers.

Peterson said also he is looking for other written policy pertaining to the city’s reserve officers and for any additional documentation of the training they have received.

For the time being, however, T or C’s reserve officers unit is suspended, but not disbanded or abolished, until training and issues are resolved, Peterson said, adding that the reserve officers still have their equipment.

Rose said he agreed that T or C’s reserve officers unit should be suspended until training and insurance issues are resolved.

Peterson said he wants very much to reestablish the reserve officers program and to see that reserve officers are properly trained and adequately insured.

Reserve officers are very helpful to the TCPD especially with traffic and crowd control at special events such as Fiesta and graduation, at DWI checkpoints, and at public relations events such as National Night Out, Peterson said.

Peterson said he put reserve officers on traffic redirection duty downtown during a recent incident involving the discovery of old dynamite at a T or C residence.

Reserve officers save the department on officer overtime and reservists offer their services on a voluntary basis without pay, Peterson added.

<<<   >>>

…SMOG in Sierra County?

Smoke from the 330,000-acre-plus Rodeo Forest Fire in east-central Arizona finds its way across New Mexico’s pristine sky and settles over Truth or Consequences (above) and Elephant Butte (below). It’s unusual not to be able to see Turtleback Peak or the other side of the lake nearly every day of the year since Sierra County can boast of having clean air nearly 100% of the time. But the smog was so thick this week you could see neither and some transplants from Los Angeles said they felt right at home.
Photos by Bill Johnson

Gila National Forest closes

at midnight with fire danger

Limited camping & day-use allowed

SILVER CITY - Forest officials announced Wednesday the Gila National Forest, National Park Service land administered by the Gila National Forest, and those portions of the Apache National Forest administered by the Gila National Forest, will be closed at midnight today (Friday, June 28).

“We have been assessing fire and smoking restrictions and forest conditions almost daily for the last three weeks,” Pat McKee, Acting Forest Supervisor, said on Monday.

“Currently, firefighting resources in the Southwest - and nationally - are being tapped hard by the other ongoing wildfires like the Rodeo Fire in Arizona. With limited response capabilities, we have to ensure the safety of the public and firefighters,” McKee said.

The Forest, including all wilderness areas, will be closed to all public access except for pre-identified, high-use recreation areas that are considered to be safe.

Open sites will allow for recreational activities, however no open fires or smoking outside vehicles will be permitted.

Day Use Sites Staying Open

The following sites will be open to day-use only:

Catwalk National Recreation Trail, Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, Whitewater Picnic Area, Lake Roberts Picnic Area, Ruins Vista Interpretive Trail and Site, Gila Visitor Center, Upper and Lower Scorpion Campgrounds, Little Walnut Picnic Area, and the Grant County Shooting Range.

Overnight Camping

Areas that will remain open for overnight camping include:

Quemado Lake Recreation Area, Head of the Ditch Campground, Cottonwood Campground, Bighorn Campground, Apache Creek Campground, Upper End Campground, Mesa Campground, and the Mogollon Box Dispersed Camping Area.

Other Open Spots

Rest stops and Vistas that will also be open and accessible are:

Emory Pass Vista, Luna Divide Overlook, Aldo Leopold Vista, Pine Lawn Rest Stop, Clinton P. Anderson Vista, and the Upper Gallinas Rest Stop. Overnight camping is not permitted in any of these areas.

Individuals with private land in or near the Forest will be allowed access to their property.

State highways will remain open.

For more information about current fire activity or area closures, please contact Loretta Ray at the Gila National Forest Fire Information Office at (505) 388-8271, or the Black Range Ranger District Office in Truth or Consequences at 505-894-6677.

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…Unveiling of special recognition

Ken Maxey, Area Manager of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Albuquerque Area Office, unveils a plaque recognizing the dedication and quality work performed by members of the Elephant Butte Field Division and their associates in completing critical rehabilitation of Caballo Dam’s radial gates. The presentation was made during the BOR’s Centennial Celebration Tuesday afternoon, June 25, at the group shelter at Elephant Butte Lake State Park. The work at Caballo Dam, which is about 20 miles south of Elephant Butte Dam, was finished last March after a seven-month project. Members of the Rehabilitation Team included Alfred Bauer, Paul Bustamante, William Lanford, Raymond Lopez, Matt Madrid, Mike McAdams, Phillip Mortensen, William Neeley, Robert Olivas, Scott Pierson, Ed Rodriguez, Jonathon Rosas, Scot Sanders, Danny Smith, Brent Tanzy and Craig Weisner. Management and Support Team members consisted of Helen Bean, Ellen Elston, Pat Finney, Galan Hanson, Ray Lucero, Mary Wagner, Jeanette Alderete, Wayne Treers, Russ Fennema and Dino Alaraji.
DJ Photo by Bill Johnson

…Reclamation Act 100 years old

The Reclamation Act of 1902 opened the West to large irrigation projects and without it, Elephant Butte Dam – its first project completed in 1917 - would not exist along with about 90,000 acres of irrigated farmland in southern New Mexico. The Elephant Butte and El Paso Field Divisions of the Bureau of Reclamation celebrated the centennial occasion – “A Century of Water for the West” - with a barbecue picnic at the group shelter at Elephant Butte Lake State Park Tuesday afternoon.
DJ Photo by Bill Johnson

Transporting dead game may have

devastating consequences for NM herds

By Laura Schneberger

Winston, NM

gnfpa@gilanet.com

New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (DGF) announced last week the state has confirmed the first case of Chronic Wasting Disease in a deer found on White Sands Missile Range.

The disease is often compared to Mad Cow disease, though it does not spread to domestic livestock. It is a similar disease that affects the brain tissue of the affected animal and spreads rapidly among deer and elk herds.

The “prion” can survive in the soil for an unknown amount of time after a carcass rots on the spot. Game grazing in that area can contract the disease by ingesting the prion, possibly for years after the prion is deposited.

Efforts to stem the potential for the eruption of the disease in the state have been limited to control of importation of domesticated elk by game ranchers.

Agencies have done little to control the transport of potentially diseased elk and deer throughout the state by their counterparts in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Since 1998 the FWS has collected and transported road killed elk and deer carcasses throughout New Mexico and Arizona, to be used in feeding captive raised Mexican wolves during the Mexican wolf reintroduction program being carried out in Arizona and New Mexico.

Collection of carcasses has included areas close to the borders of states with the disease.

The DGF was unable to pose restrictions on the federal agency and at times assisted in the location and collection of carcasses.

In the spring of 2001, Marvin Cromwell of the Pierson Ranch cooperated with the DGF in the destruction of his elk herd near Magdalena after the importation of a domestic bull elk from an area in Colorado that had been quarantined due to an outbreak of the deadly disease.

Upon the destruction on his herd, Cromwell was approached by FWS personnel and asked to allow them to collect the carcasses for feeding in the Mexican wolf program. Cromwell contacted DGF officials, who drew the line at that request.

Though testing for the disease was not completed, the carcasses were destroyed. Testing of the Cromwell animals eventually showed that the disease had not entered his herd.

DGF officials were worried that the use of the carcasses had the potential to spread the disease even though the elk at the Pierson Ranch had adequate veterinary care.

At this time, FWS personnel are feeding two wolf packs in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico and one pack in Arizona with potentially infected carcasses.

Meanwhile, the only preventive effort exercised by DGF is the testing of heads donated by volunteer hunters.

Elk in the Gila area are declining in areas where wolves have been known to frequent. There aren't sufficient numbers of wolves to cause a population decline, whatever is affecting the herds is unknown at this time.

Immediate emergency management procedures are needed to determine the immediate threat to New Mexico's game herds from this disease and where the disease is localized.

Until these precautions are taken, free and easy carcass transportation and feeding should be curtailed in areas where the disease will devastate the Southwest’s game resources.

It is absolutely necessary to do immediate testing and destroy all carcasses in FWS freezers intended for feeding animals used in reintroduction programs.

What's good enough for elk ranchers like the Cromwells is good enough for federal and state agencies.

<<<   >>>

…Castles in the sand

Sand castles protrude from the beach at the Dirt Dam day use area at Elephant Butte Lake last weekend.
DJ Photo by Bill Johnson

Domenici seeks hearing on Fire Plan

Questions forest health as wildfires rage in west

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Senator Pete Domenici last week formally requested a hearing to address the problem of hazardous fuels building up in the national forests, saying the ever-increasing toll of wildfires raging across the West call into question current forest management policies.

"The time has come for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to conduct a major national hearing to see what has gone wrong with our forest management policies, or if these disastrous wildfires are what we should always expect,” Domenici said.

“I am of the opinion that something has gone wrong and that we have changed the nature of our forests by neglect or by the way we have been forced to manage them through court orders," Domenici said.

Domenici and other colleagues on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee are asking the committee chairman, Senator Jeff Bingaman, to soon schedule a hearing on the National Fire Plan and its effectiveness.

The Senators wrote that an oversight hearing could be critical as congressional appropriators begin developing the bills to fund forest management programs next year.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that the National Fire Plan as currently funded and at current staffing levels, combined with cumbersome administrative processes, is not working," said Domenici in the letter to Bingaman.

The correspondence points out that since a May 7 committee hearing on federal fire preparedness more than 1.5 million additional acres have burned, hundreds of homes and buildings have been destroyed, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in fire suppression efforts.

At the same time, the Interior Department has not produced a long-awaited new strategy for combating wildfires.

"The new cohesive strategy seems to have disappeared into the bureaucracy. We need to understand what the hold up is in getting that plan released, what that plan calls for (in terms of actions and financial needs), and what the departments have done to implement the elements of that plan," the letter said.

Specific to FY2003 forest thinning work, the administration budget requests $234.7 million for hazardous fuels reduction activities, including $160 million for the Domenici-authored "Happy Forests" initiative for cooperative efforts to remove hazardous fuels from federal public lands to alleviate immediate emergency threats to urban wildland interface areas.

Domenici also has sought increased Forest Service attention to the need to accelerate forest thinning efforts within watersheds for communities like Santa Fe and Las Vegas.

A catastrophic wildfire in either watershed could ruin water supplies for the communities, the Senator has warned.

Domenici also serves on the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee that provides funding for federal land management programs and policies.

<<<   >>>

Bro’ Bert Johnson of Albuquerque takes a moment to relax from his busy schedule in TV land while at Elephant Butte Lake last weekend. Bro’ Bert said he was surprised at how low the level of the lake has gotten with the drought that is plaguing the Southwest.
DJ Photo by Bro’ Bill Johnson

Skeen restores funding for NM counties

Proposed PILT cut rejected

WASHINGTON, DC - New Mexico's senior Congressman announced last week he was restoring proposed cuts in a federal government program important to the finances of every county in New Mexico.

Rep. Joe Skeen, the House Interior Appropriations subcommittee chairman, will restore $45 million to the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program when he unveils the Fiscal Year 2003 bill this week.

Last year New Mexico counties received $18,029,532 from the $210 million program, the second largest share in the United States, for 22,589,823 acres of non-taxable federal lands in the state. Sierra County during FY 2001-02 received $608,801 for a total of 1,336,541 acres, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Earlier this year a $45 million cut in the program was proposed by the Bush Administration, which created an outcry from New Mexico counties as well as counties across the nation.

"After explaining the importance of this funding to our counties’ general operating budgets, I have been assured that the Bush administration will not oppose this action," Skeen said, adding that he hoped additional money may be found before the completion of the appropriation cycle that would allow an actual increase in funds over last year's level.

The PILT program was authorized by Congress to compensate county governments whose property tax base suffers because of the significant amount of land the federal government owns in individual counties.

Last year Skeen also restored funding for the program when a $50 million cut was proposed.

<<<   >>>

Domenici denounces court ruling

Pledge of Allegiance ‘unconstitutional’

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Pete Domenici on Wednesday expressed his disbelief and outrage with a federal appeals court decision that deems the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance as unconstitutional, and called for the ruling to be quickly overturned.

Domenici joined the Senate in unanimously approving a resolution condemning the decision issued by the U.S. 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Domenici issued the following statement regarding the court decision:

"There are literally no words to express my profound disbelief and disappointment in the decision handed down by the 9^th Circuit Court today. It is a travesty. It truly defies all common sense and all sense of patriotism.

"In this day and age, when this nation is at war with those who would seek to destroy our way of life through acts of terror, Americans should be rallying around the notions of unity and commitment to our country that are expressed in the Pledge of Allegiance.

“Every day, Americans join our military men and women around the globe in making this pledge. It is a unifying force in our common goal to promote liberty and freedom.

"I guess the best news for my constituents is that New Mexico is not in the 9^th Circuit. Therefore, our children still have the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I'm proud to join my colleagues in officially condemning this decision.  I hope and, indeed pray, that this despicable decision will be overturned quickly," Domenici said.

<<<   >>>