Before the meeting, Congressman Steve Pearce checks his messages.

By Mary Alice Murphy

Congressman Steve Pearce was in town to connect with media outlets and to hold meet-and-greets with his constituents.

At a one-on-one with the Beat, Pearce began talking about the National Forest Service.

"About 1-+ years ago, I met with 18 Forest Service officials," Pearce said. "I told them basically that we couldn't continue operating like this, just de facto burning down forests."

They said they were doing forest cleanup, and Pearce replied: "Yes, 30,000 acres at a time in a million acres of forest. You'll never catch up."

Three months ago, he reinitiated contact with several of them. He explained this was background to his trip to Grants about a month ago.

He said the community was asking him for help to create the jobs they used to have. "It was the forest. We need to cut trees."

"We get to Grants, and the one mill left in New Mexico is there," Pearce said. "One-hundred-twenty-two mills have closed down in the state. We've been frictioning for my whole 12 years because these mills were closing down."

The last mill owner was at the table, and he said he had a stewardship contract and if it lapsed, he, too, would have to close. Pearce said he pushed the Forest Service not to let the last guy shut down, so they gave the mill owner a 10-year extension on the stewardship contract. Pearce explained it was up to his staff to see it was completed.

He noted the Forest Service made a deal to treat -+ million acres in Arizona with an 84-year-old, who didn't have any money and no ideas, so "don't use that as an excuse that you can't do large projects." The man has offered to form coalitions and partnerships to get it done.

"So thirdly, I need to know what you are doing to cut trees," Pearce said to the Forest Service, which replied that it had a 90,000 acre-project on the books that was close to final signatures.

"Two days later, we went down to the Lincoln Forest, close to Weed," Pearce said. "Jim Upchurch (deputy southwest regional forester) had come, because (Southwest Regional Forester) Cal Joyner had let me know he could not come."

In a three-hour meeting, Pearce said he explained the problem for the ranching family. "You're blocking off their water. You're telling them they have to move their cattle to market," but the fence is right up to the mountain on one side and the road on the other, "so the family will have to herd their cattle down the county or state road to get them to market on the one-way road and people will come flying around the corner and meet a herd of cattle. You're telling me this is what they will have to do. I think we can do better."

He said they had a very productive meeting where "we came to a draft agreement, still have to work on some language, about how to have cows in the forest to have economic activityG