Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player. August 10, 2010 KRWG TV/FM Las Cruces-El Paso interviewed New Mexico Wilderness Alliance  Associate Director Nathan Newcomer last month regarding protection of Otero Mesa as a National Monument.  The video segment provides a glimpse at Otero Mesa’s natural beauty and an overview of issues at stake in saving New Mexico’s last great Chihuahuan grassland.

“I used to think that there was something magical about Otero Mesa, but now I know better. Otero Mesa is just simply—wild. This land of rolling hills, undulating black grama grass, and endless sky embodies the intoxicating spirit of freedom. It is a land that speaks to the soul, and it is a land that deserves to be permanently protected.” Posted below is an article about Otero Mesa National Monument, written by Nathan Newcomer for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance’s Summer 2010 Newsletter. Read on for further insight into the benefits of National Monument designation, the...

Now is the ideal time to encourage Secretary of the Department of the Interior Ken Salazar to pursue National Monument designation for Otero Mesa! In the spirit of President Obama’s April memorandum, America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, our government is being encouraged to promote community-based conservation efforts, and to listen to and learn from local voices. Make your voice heard! Let Secretary Salazar know that communities in New Mexico want permanent protection for the natural beauty and valuable resources exemplified by the Otero Mesa region. Otero Mesa encompasses the finest...

On April 28, 2009 the United States 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision invalidating the Bureau of Land Management’s oil and gas drilling plan for New Mexico’s Otero Mesa. The court ruled that the BLM’s original Resource Management Plan Amendment, which opened the vast majority of Otero Mesa to oil and gas leasing and limited protection for the desert grasslands, was fatally flawed due to its failure to consider protection for Otero Mesa and the Salt Basin Aquifer. The court ruled that the BLM had to consider an alternative that closed Otero Mesa to oil and gas leasing, admonishing...

From The Santa Fe New Mexican 4/29/2009 – 4/30/09 To embattled environmentalists and their lawyers, and for politicians taking their side, it came as a ray of sunshine. As for the endangered and threatened animals on whose behalf they’ve been fighting, ni hablar. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for New Mexico’s neck of the woods ruled that the federal rush to allow gas and oil drilling on Otero Mesa was, to put it mildly, flawed. For that matter, said a three-judge panel, so is the Bureau of Land Management logic that it must allow development on public land. What a turnaround...

There are very few large swaths of black gramma grasslands left in America. The following is presented only as a working list of grasses found on Otero Mesa in southern Eddy County, New Mexico. The list is based on the work by Kelly W. Allred, A Field Guide to the Grasses of New Mexico. This third edition guide is invaluable in learning about the grasses of New Mexico and is available from the Agricultural Experiment Station, P O Box 30003, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8003. The species listed below are possible species on Otero Mesa. The boundaries are considered to be the...

Blowing grasslands in central Otero Mesa. By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press Writer 4-29-09 The Bureau of Land Management failed to comply with federal law in developing a plan for managing oil and natural gas development on southern New Mexico’s Otero Mesa, an appeals court has ruled. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver said in a ruling filed Tuesday the BLM skirted the National Environmental Protection Act by not considering an alternative that would have put the mesa off limits to drilling and by not analyzing all of the likely impacts of the agency’s...