Mount Taylor erupting again —
New hearing set

[photo by Brian Leddy / Independent]

By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Mount Taylor has been standing quiet over the area now known as Cibola County for approximately two million years, but the venerable peak may erupt again when state archeologists and preservationist bring their meeting to town later this month.

The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs Historic Preservation Division will hold their next Cultural Properties Review Committee meeting in the Cibola County Convention Center at 515 W. High Street, Grants, June 14, at 10:30 a.m.

On the agenda is the hard-sought open comment period for state — particularly tribal and other Cibola County residents — to offer input on the committee’s proposal to list large parts of Mount Taylor as a protected traditional cultural property on a temporary basis.

In an emergency session on Feb. 22, the committee granted the one-year emergency listing as a traditional cultural property in New Mexico, but the meeting was ruled illegal on the grounds of insufficient notice by the attorney general’s office and the listing invalid.

The committee must rehear the proposal in a legal and properly publicized meeting and take the vote again.
In response to requests from civic leaders and complaints from citizens — including a meeting of sometimes-heated public comment the county commission held in April — the Historic Division is bringing the mountain to Mohammed in holding the next meeting to the people who use its forests, roads and resources regularly.

Listing the nearly 600 square miles of Mount Taylor as a TCP will require companies, and in some cases individuals, who apply for a permit to develop, drill, mine or otherwise undertake to disrupt the ground on the mountain to undergo a more detailed review than is the policy now.

Citizens have expressed fears that the mountain can be closed off to hunters, hikers, fuel gatherers and other regular users. Some have expressed the belief that the listing will allow private property to be seized or controlled or skepticism toward reassurances that the listing would only affect development. The meeting in Grants will allow citizens to directly address the committee and to hear the reasons the mountain is being considered for listing.

Discussion of the listing is item nine of 13 on the agenda and will cover a summary of the February meeting, witness presentations and public comment.

The committee is a policy advisory committee of the state historic preservation division and is responsible for listing sites on the state register of cultural properties and recommending sites for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.