Errata

On April 9, 2025, Rio Puerco Field Office issued an errata for the Record of Decision, and the Approved Resource Management Plan; see the "Documents" tab on this page.

Record of Decision

On December 23, 2024, the Bureau of Land Management issued a Record of Decision, and the Approved Resource Management Plan for the Rio Puerco Field Office; see the "Documents" tab on this page.

The Rio Puerco Proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP) and Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) analyzed and updated BLM’s management of public lands in Bernalillo, Cibola, McKinley, Sandoval, Torrance, and Valencia counties of central New Mexico. The planning area consists of approximately 9.5 million acres of land within the six counties.  This includes approximately 731,600 acres of public surface lands and 3.6 million acres of Federal subsurface minerals managed by the Rio Puerco Field Office.

The RMP development process began with publication of the Notice of Intent (NOI) in the Federal Register in February 2008.  When approved, this RMP will replace the 1986 Rio Puerco RMP and subsequent amendments, and will guide the management of public lands administered by the Rio Puerco Field Office into the future.  

The RMP revision is needed to provide updated management decisions for a variety of uses and resources, including land-tenure adjustments, land-use authorizations, mineral resources, recreation, areas with special management designations, lands with wilderness characteristics, livestock grazing, transportation access, renewable energy, visual resources, wildland/urban interface, and others.

In the Proposed RMP/Final EIS, decisions made will determine how publicly-owned and administered lands and resources will be used for the next 15 to 20 years.  Changes in population, types of uses, technologies, user interests, and public understanding of resource availability, capabilities, and constraints have made the existing (1986/1992) RMP decisions less effective in allocating use.  It has become more and more difficult to find public land parcels with non-conflicting uses in the area managed by the Field Office.  Growth in the Southwest region has boomed the past decade, with the population within the Field Office boundary nearly doubling from slightly over 500,000 people to about 1,000,000 since the last RMP revision in 1992.

The agency has engaged various communities in extensive outreach, leading to the development of the Proposed RMP/Final EIS.  Public involvement has been solicited throughout the planning process to ensure a successful outcome.

 

Contact Information

For more information, please contact Adam Lujan at (505) 761-8734.