N.M. highway plans threaten ancient art
Story-Date: 03:42 a.m. PST Sunday   , March 29, 1998

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N.M. highway plans threaten ancient art


By DOUG JOHNSON 
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Indians, environmentalists and others are alarmed by a
proposal to extend a six-lane highway through the Petroglyph National
Monument, an austere expanse of black volcanic boulders etched with ancient
images of dragonflies, serpents and masked men.

The highway would open a path to thousands of acres of homes being built on
the other side of the national monument, a 17-mile ridge northwest of
downtown Albuquerque.

"Our cultural areas are being sacrificed to make it easier to live here,"
said Steve Juanico, vice chairman of the All-Indian Pueblo Council. "There
is a monster out there larger than Godzilla, and we are powerless against
it."

Albuquerque is expected to grow at least 50 percent in the next 25 years to
more than one million people. With the city's growth blocked by the
snowcapped Sandia Mountains to the east and Indian reservations to the
north and south, developers say they have little choice but to look on the
other side of the Petroglyph.

Those who support the quarter-mile highway extension include residents who
fear that motorists in the new 60,000-resident subdivision will otherwise
use existing back roads through their neighborhoods.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., was so eager to see the road extension that he
attached the proposal to legislation seeking emergency appropriations for
military action in Iraq. The full Senate could vote as early as this week.
The legislation would merely authorize the road; the city would bear the
cost, about $13.5 million.

The highway would cut through an 8.5-acre corner of the monument,
destroying about a half-dozen of the park's 15,000 petroglyphs, most of
which are about 2,000 years old, park officials say.

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