New Mexico AG Filed Motion to Enforce Judicial Order on Public Access to White Peak Area

JULY 30, 2020

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas filed a motion requesting a state court hold a private landowner in violation of a 2018 court order intended to ensure public access to White Peak, a popular recreation area on state lands in northeastern New Mexico. The motion noted that the court granted an enforcement order in early 2019 after the landowner “continued to maintain locked gates and other obstructions on at least five of the roads declared to be public” in the 2018 order, “despite the Court’s unmistakable command to refrain from obstructing the identified public roads.” The motion alleged that the landowner “continues to obstruct public access to at least one of the roads identified” in the 2018 order, and that the defendant’s “ongoing, willful violation of the Court’s authority warrants holding him in civil contempt and imposing appropriate sanctions.”