By Mary Alice Murphy

At the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee meetings at Western New Mexico University in Silver City from July 19-22, 2022, the LFC Emergency Response Subcommittee of the Whole met to present an update on forest fires, recovery efforts and long-term impacts of the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon First near Las Vegas, NM, and the Black Fire in Sierra, Catron and Grant counties.

Deputy Secretary of NM Homeland Security and Emergency Management Kelly Hamilton presented on behalf of Secretary David Dye, who was ill.

Hamilton noted the Hermit's Peak Fire has torched 342,000 acres, making it the largest wildfire in state history and was 93 percent contained as of the day of the meeting. The Black Fire, at 70 percent containment, was located on primarily federal land, and is the second largest in the state's history.

He noted that post-fire the greatest concern is flooding "every time we get a shower in the burn scar," because the land has been scorched so badly in many places that it cannot soak up the rain. He said the runoff can put debris on roadways, as well as sending debris into the canyons, washes and rivers.

"Every day is a new day," Hamilton said. "One of the complications is that the federal government doesn't always agree with us on what is critical infrastructure. It can be a culvert keeping a ranch from flooding. Plus, the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) rules don't always match other federal agency regulations."

He said one of the biggest concerns with the northern fire is the Las Vegas water system. "The Hermit's Peak Fire has destroyed its watershed. We have been told that the situation is 'as bad as it gets.' The Office of the State Engineer is working with the National Guard to put in Gabion structures to control the flow of floodwaters. Las Vegas uses anywhere from 1.2 million to 1.8 million gallons of water a day. We have to try to keep their reservoir at Storrie Lake as good as possible. The state does not have the capacity to deliver that much water to the town. The material left on the ground by the fire is hydrophobic, which means when it gets wet, it turns into a jelly-like substance."

He noted the Black Fire watershed does not feed into a town, but water from the burn scar does go into the Mimbres River and will likely also impact the East Fork of the Gila River, both of which affect farmers and their agriculture.

Sen. Roberto "Bobby" Gonzales noted that infrastructure includes hayfields, livestock and fencing. "With every federal fire, when the fire exceeds the local capacity, they contact State Forestry, make a grant request from FEMA and then come the declarations. It was straight-line winds that were driving the fires. When the federal agencies become involved, then the USDA will offer assistance."

Sen. Patricia Lundstrom asked if the members of the LFC would see a New Mexico related budget process request for the damage caused by the fires.

A man commented that with every declared disaster, millions of dollars can come in from the federal government.

Lundstrom noted that some of the burned land is state land. "And how do we add the amount for private property? Do we have state responsibility?"

LFC Chair George Muñoz asked if some state money going out would be reimbursed by the federal government.

Hamilton said his office was having daily discussion on what is the next step. "We're just now seeing what is holding the water in the reservoir. If it doesn't hold, what is the next step?"

Rep. Harry Garcia asked if a family needs to drill a new well, "where will the money come from?"

Hamilton said as projects are identified and then approved, "we will find funding. These are mitigation projects."

Rep. Nathan Small asked Hamilton if he had a running total of the investments so far. "There were 172 structures burned. Where is the repository of what has been done? We want to see that."

Hamilton said his office is issuing frequent updates. "The OSE is replacing the headgates to Storrie Lake. And yes, we have a daily repository of granular detail of what is happening."

Small asked where the dashboard is for the information. "Is there a public-facing dashboard or can we create one?"

Hamilton said it was in the works.

"Great," Small said. "In terms of the work going on andm in the future, is it fair to say that the state is contracting and the federal government is contracting, as well as on the local level? Do we know what that will look like?"

Hamilton said the report is detailed. "There is not a general contractor. The state does something and then generally turns things over to local entities to maintain. Often local contractors are doing debris removal."

Small clarified: "So, at this point, there is no unitary contract with the state or the federal government. We know there will be debris removal to prevent worse damage. This year, we've had the two largest fires in state history. We've had the worst drought, lower humidity and the highest winds. Are there any discussion on how we work to mitigate these? There are tens of millions of trees. How do we approach a balance in emergency management?"

Hamilton said in his time in Homeland Security and Emergency Management, "we've thought it best to put the eggs in the emergency basket. We have learned that mitigation should be a separate bureau. These are lessons learned the hard way. We know we have to do our best."

Small said about the Black Fire: "There are concerns about the East Fork of the Gila River with the potential for very negative impact."

Rep. Jack Chatfield again asked if the committee would see a request for the budget. "There needs to be something in the works, if so. Do you have any idea of the cost of remediation?

Hamilton said he could not imagine the cost because every situation has a new cost.

"When President Biden came in, he said: 'We will pay 100 percent, up to a certain time.' Every expense we incur as a state we will aggressively ask for federal reimbursement. It's a moving target, when FEMA and the National Forest Service can't agree on the definition of critical infrastructure."

Chatfield said: "We need to push forward now. We need to start fighting now. To my best understanding, it is federal authority, but is there a bill for reimbursement?"

Hamilton replied: "I believe there is a bill, with an opportunity to build back better than where we were."

Rep. Jack Chatfield noted that with supply chain issues and shortages, "sometimes we wonder if we can even build it back. So much of the burn scan is back to bare soil. I see trees that need to be brought back. We need seeds for perennial grasses. What provides food for the elk, the deer, the livestock? I hope someone is looking at it who will understand the succession stages."

Hamilton said before his current job, he worked with the USDA. "So, yes, it is involved."

Sen. Pat Woods asked about the firefighting costs. "The payback period for 100 percent reimbursement is 180 days, so the clock is ticking. Is there a 180-day clock for the Black Fire, too? When does repayment go to 75 percent, with a 25 percent match from the 100 percent?"

Hamilton said: "The clock strikes on Aug. 5. Reimbursement on costs up to that time is 100 percent. After that time, then it's 75-25."

Woods noted that producers with livestock had had a lot of feed donated. "Is that still being provided?"

Hamilton did not know the answer to that.

Woods said it costs about $240,000 a month to feed all the animals impacted. "Congress can move fast if it wants to or slow if that's what it wants to do. I worry if they know how fast we need the compensation. One confusing thing is about the insurance companies. If the insurance company has already paid, will the federal government reimburse the company? If a piece of land or livestock was not insured, will the government depreciate it? There are people out there who have lost everything. They need help with a place to live. And what's happening with the Black Fire cattle that were lost?"

"We can visit for weeks on these questions," Hamilton said. "I have talked to Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte. I know he is already engaged, and I believe the Congressional delegation has been well briefed."

Woods said a lot of the electrical infrastructure that was impacted was a co-op for the area. "They lost a lot of poles. They need a lot to be rebuilt. In the end it is a ridiculous amount of money they have had to borrow. The co-op members will have to pay it back whatever they borrow at higher rates. I don't know what we can do, but let's keep it in mind."

Hamilton said as individuals apply to FEMA, "you will hear from constituents that they had to go through the Small Business Administration process. It does not mean they have to get a loan, they just have to use that process."

Woods noted the SBA process is cumbersome.

Sen Siah Correa Hemphill asked what the impact had been on cattle with the fires. "The Black Fire was primarily on federal land, but how much was state and how much private?"

Hamilton said he had been told that the land was 99+ percent federal.

Correa Hemphill said the fire was 70 percent contained. "What about the watershed impacted by the Black Fire?"

Hamilton said he wasn't sure, but he would find out. He noted he was embarrassed not to know the answer because his agency has been so focused on Las Vegas and their watershed.

Rep. Gail Armstrong said the Black Fire had impacted ranchers who had federal leases for grazing their cattle. "In Catron, Sierra and Socorro counties, fences, as well as infrastructure for supporting the ranchers and shipping their cattle have been destroyed. They also face a lot of flooding for years. Are private landowners able to ask for funding?"

She noted that Catron and Socorro counties aren't even mentioned on the LFC agenda on the fires and emergency management. "How much will it cost to build back better, and when is the end?"

Hamilton said FEMA will build back up the point of the fire. "Mitigation funding will help in the rebuild."

Lundstrom said: "It can't be building to pre-disaster. A lot of the buildings were old, in old communities. The requirement cannot be only up to where they were. They must be brought up to code. That will add costs. I see a lot of unknowns on bills and potential legislation. I remember when we first got the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funding there were a lot of questions about what it could be used for. We had to allocate contingent on the allocations coming in. We have to remove debris and mitigate flooding. How do we derail new outlets and washes for the floods? Will the funding be on a reimbursement basis with no inhibitions or caveats?"

Hamilton repeated: "I can't guarantee no caveats if we can't even get FEMA and the Forest Service to agree on what is a critical infrastructure culvert or to replace fencing."

Lundstrom said she didn't know if there would be a legislative budget request.

Rep. Tara Lujan said she and others got an inclusive presentation in Las Vegas to the Economic Development Committee and a lot of information is available on the EDD (Economic Development Department) website. "With all the unknowns, we know that loans can be applied for, but they are not being applied for, because the residents who need the funding are not able to pay them back. They have lost their livelihoods. How many are being applied for?"

Hamilton said: "What I can tell you is that people in the Economic Development Department are in constant discussions about that. I also know that federal Covid funds are likely to be repurposed for mitigation, but I'm not sure where that's at right now."

Lujan said: "For reforestation, we have NMSU, UNM and Highlands coming together on management. They gave a whole presentation on this. Some of the information on assistance is available. As soon as we get this, we can look at legislation. There is some funding from the executive branch that is available."

Hamilton said there had been discussions on repurposing Covid funding for mitigation. "I often call our academia because they are think tanks."

Lujan said: "We need all this information together in one place."

Sen. Pete Campos said the legislators need to talk about the holistic picture. "What concerns me is we have been in discussions trying to do the best we can, but we're all working in siloes. We need to restore their lives, their integrity and traditions. We've talked about land that has been seared. Lives have been lost just recently because of heart attacks caused by the stress on their lives. The list goes on of losses. I know various agencies are working together, but if the bill stalls in Congress, who will pay for the water as it goes through Storrie Lake, and we still don't have a state plan to be the change for all of us and the federal government. These families of those lost [in a recent helicopter crash that killed four first responders] were helping rural New Mexico and they didn't make it home. Help me understand the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Guard, the Office of the State Engineer, Department of Health and all the agencies that are together and how they will come together to make New Mexico whole."

Hamilton replied that in the 2019 "when we were dealing with the border crisis, we had to determine how to shelter people. Mr. Abbey (David LFC staff director) will remember this. He said 'you'll need to gather this information on how to shelter people, and you need to remember this because this information will be used over and over.' When Covid came along, he was 100 percent correct, because we used that information to shelter people. This is horrible, but, Senator, to your point if we don't all come together and take the lessons learned. I don't know what the vehicle to do that is, sir. But we will have failed terribly if we don't take the lessons learned, put them into a plan and apply them to this situation and those in the future."

Campos said he would hope that "our message goes back to put such a process together. We talk about the session coming up in six months, and we talk about a special session, but we're not prepared for a special session. I hope the media will listen and ask us all the questions and the possibilities and how we are going to work together. We're trying to put an inventory together, which continues to grow as areas are impacted by the rains that we badly need. The individual agencies have plans, but if we don't come together and receive concrete responses, we will lose people to other states, because people will lose confidence in their government."

Chatfield apologized for going twice, but "I have one more question. What specifically are we doing to help people who were affected? It's a human crisis, with people homeless, jobless and that have lost everything."

Hamilton said it was a great question. "It's everything from my team working day and night with the electrical contractors to get power up to houses that didn't burn to getting cell phones on. It's State Police dedicating more officers to San Miguel County to address the immediate flood to rescue people and find out where they can put them. It's Human Services, working with Red Cross, to have five shelters ready to immediately open. It's Department of Information Technology trying to get emergency sirens in the area, so people know floods are coming. We can't get radios because of issues with the supply chain. It's our Communications team rewiring cell phones, so they can activate sirens from a distance. It's disaster center with receptionists from the governor's office sitting in the center for weeks on end and listening to every person. It's all the disaster systems at work."

Chatfield said he knows there are efforts toward getting them food and toward getting a place to live.

"It's a concerted effort," Hamilton said. "FEMA will pay you $35,900
if your house burned. That does nothing. How do we get them with their insurance company? It's a whole list of things we are trying to do for them."

Sen. William Sharer asked if there were one incident commander in charge of all the agencies.

Hamilton said his department director, which is Hamilton in the absence of the director, and the state FEMA director talk daily to make an incident plan, but there are different divisions doing different things and putting them together. "My ultimate commander is the governor."

Sharer said: "I'm hearing that every morning you are discussing what happened last night. Are you thinking beyond last night? We've always known the rains were coming. The Army Corps of Engineers seems not to know the rains were coming. Why didn't we build things 10 years ago, a hundred years ago?"

Hamilton said Homeland Security and Emergency Response has as its mission that as soon as the response starts, recovery starts.

Sharer said he had been talking about managing the forests for 30 to 40 years "I recently learned that, because I'm a Republican, that meant clear cutting, which is why people presumed I wanted to clear cut the forests, because the progressive manual said so. Someone, such as the governor, needs to say: 'This is New Mexico. You either need to talk to us or let us do it.' This fire didn't need to happen. It's why we need to do forest management. There is no reason to do a prescribed burn in April. We know the wind blows in April, every year. That's why we need to do it. And there are other ways to do proper forest management, without burning it down or clear cutting it. I think we have an obligation to let the federal government know, and we also have an obligation to think beyond just last night."

LFC Chairman George Muñoz said Sen. Campos, Senator Sharer and Sen. Hemphill made a valid point "that you need to think beyond just last night. I think we need to meet in Chama and call those federal guys up and see what their dollar funds are and what their plans are. If we don't hold their feet to the fire, call every day and say $39,000 for a house is nothing. You can't even demolish it for that. Kids need to get back to school, parents need to be in their houses. A vast evacuation is going to take place in the winter, and they will not come back, because they'll be better somewhere else, and we will have lost that core generational group out of those communities. The executive may need to file a lawsuit against the federal government for not complying. I know there are already private lawsuits against them. It seems like we're still talking about planning, and we're not getting people back to where they should be. I did some math on the $10 million that was distributed for the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Fire. For the 58 awardees that's $182,000 a person. That's way different from the $37,900 for a dwelling. If a person claims against their insurance, their insurance will go up and may not even reinsure them because of the claim. We have to hold the feds' feet to the fire. You as a state agency determine what culvert is needed, not the federal government. We're driving the boat. The federal government just needs to load money into the back of the boat, so we can get it distributed. We need some leadership, a lot of determination and push or we tell them: 'We'll see you in court.' The federal government needs to get those affected back to where they were, no matter what the cost is. They agreed to pay for it. If they have to pay an extra $500 a foot for utility lines, that's their issue, not ours."

"Understood, sir," Hamilton replied.

Muñoz said it was not aimed at Hamilton, but just that the state has to be firm. "If a fire happened in Washington, I bet it would be fixed quickly, but when it's rural folks, especially minorities, it doesn't count for much."

The next presentation, to be covered in a subsequent article, features Sierra County Commission Chair Jim Paxton and Grant County Commission Chair Chris Ponce. The woman, Ellen, coordinating the speakers, said the Catron County Commissioner Anita Hand had let her know that morning that she would not be able to attend.

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