Molly Montgomery, Rio Grande Sun Journalist Profile

Articles

Beaver Fever • Source New Mexico

3 weeks ago | sourcenm.com | Molly Montgomery

by Molly Montgomery, Searchlight New Mexico, Source New Mexico June 7, 2025 Twice last year, in the spring and fall, water burst from the Rio Santa Cruz and poured into the tiny northern New Mexico community of Santa Cruz, between Española and Chimayó. It cracked concrete ditch liners and spilled into houses and a trailer park. Irrigators along the streams are frustrated and worried about the time and money that beavers could cost them.
Water is Life | Searchlight New Mexico

3 weeks ago | searchlightnm.org | Molly Montgomery

Often called the “lifeblood of northern New Mexico,” acequias are collectively tended, democratically governed irrigation ditches, primarily located in the north-central part of the state. The term acequia can refer either to the ditch or to the collection of people who rely on it to irrigate their crops. Those people are called parciantes.
Acequia managers and conservationists in conflict over beavers

3 weeks ago | searchlightnm.org | Molly Montgomery

Twice last year, in the spring and fall, water burst from the Rio Santa Cruz and poured into the tiny northern New Mexico community of Santa Cruz, between Española and Chimayó. It cracked concrete ditch liners and spilled into houses and a trailer park. Irrigators along the streams are frustrated and worried about the time and money that beavers could cost them.
The boots on Buck Jackson Road

1 month ago | sourcenm.com | Molly Montgomery

At first, in the haze, they look like birds, perched on fence posts along the road. But they don’t shift or take flight, and there’s one on every post for as far as I can see. They are upside-down boots. “I’m so grateful to the people who get up every day and do the work in the grueling and the awful conditions,” says Jozee Zuñiga, an environmental activist and the daughter of a man who worked in the oil fields. “But I want people to know that, yes, we depend on it. Yes, we need it.
The battle against federal ownership of New Mexico’s public lands

2 months ago | tricityrecordnm.com | Molly Montgomery

Meet Howard Hutchinson, a private property rights activist who is quietly organizing county-level rejection of a landmark law: the Antiquities Act of 1906 In January and February, county governments in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and North Carolina began passing resolutions containing nearly identical language. The resolutions oppose what they refer to as an “abuse” of the Antiquities Act of 1906.
A long tradition of anti-federal wrath

2 months ago | sfreporter.com | Molly Montgomery

Editor's Note: This story was originally published by searchlightnm,org The rise of the Coalition, and Hutchinson’s political evolution, occurred alongside the rise in the 1980s and ’90s of a right-wing land-use movement called Wise Use. The movement took its name from an early twentieth-century debate between Gilford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club.
The battle against federal ownership of New Mexico’s public lands

2 months ago | sourcenm.com | Molly Montgomery

In January and February, county governments in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and North Carolina began passing resolutions containing nearly identical language. The resolutions oppose what they refer to as an “abuse” of the Antiquities Act of 1906. Enacted by Congress as people went west and frequently looted from historic sites, the law gave presidents the authority to protect any area on federal lands by declaring it a national monument.
The crusade to end federal public lands in New Mexico

2 months ago | hcn.org | Molly Montgomery

This story was originally published by Searchlight New Mexico and is republished here by permission. In January and February, county governments in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and North Carolina began passing resolutions containing nearly identical language. The resolutions oppose what they refer to as an “abuse” of the Antiquities Act of 1906.
The battle against federal ownership of New Mexico’s public lands | Searchlight New Mexico

2 months ago | searchlightnm.org | Molly Montgomery

In January and February, county governments in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and North Carolina began passing resolutions containing nearly identical language. The resolutions oppose what they refer to as an “abuse” of the Antiquities Act of 1906. Enacted by Congress as people went west and frequently looted from historic sites, the law gave presidents the authority to protect any area on federal lands by declaring it a national monument.
A long tradition of anti-federal wrath

2 months ago | searchlightnm.org | Molly Montgomery

The rise of the Coalition, and Hutchinson’s political evolution, occurred alongside the rise in the 1980s and ’90s of a right-wing land-use movement called Wise Use. The movement took its name from an early twentieth-century debate between Gilford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club. Muir believed that nature is a source of wonder, and that people have no right to profit economically from it.