Conservation
The New Mexico Central Arizona Project Entity, or NMCAPE, decided to abandon an estimated billion dollar plan for capturing the river's water, which entailed diversion of the Gila and storing waters in an off-stream reservoir near Turkey Creek. The NMCAPE directed its engineering contractor to continue studying only those projects that would cost $80-100 million to build, which is the amount of funding New Mexico anticipates receiving from the federal government to develop water from the Gila. The NMCAEPE also acknowledged that the project will be smaller, and would not be capable of delivering all 14,000 acre feet of water ... Read More
Ron Loehman, Conservation Chairman New Mexico Trout conservation volunteers worked hard and accomplished a lot earlier this month on a series of projects on the Rio Cebolla along Forest Road 376. As is customary, the first work project of the season also featured a barbeque lunch for all the volunteers. Our work was guided by Phyllis Martinez, a ranger with the Jemez District, and Cecil Rich, fisheries biologist with the Santa Fe National Forest. We had a good turnout, with enough volunteers to tackle three separate tasks. The first task, which was directed by Cecil Rich, was to plant willow ... Read More
Jerry Burton, Ron Loehman, and Art Vollmer of Trout Unlimited met with the SFNF Supervisor, Maria Garcia, her Deputy, Joe Norell, and Alan Setzer, the acting ranger on the Jemez District at the SFNF offices in Santa Fe on May 24. The FS requested the meeting to address our objections to the New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse (NMMJM) decision and to try to convince us to withdraw those objections. We discussed the jumping mouse issue with them for more than three hours and hammered out the agreement. The New Mexico Trout Board accepted the agreement by email vote. In my ... Read More
Our annual member BBQ will be held on Saturday, June 4 in conjunction with a work project on the Rio Cebolla. We have worked with Santa Fe National Forest staff to identify a three-part project that will provide important benefits to the Rio Cebolla.
- Planting willow cuttings along the Cebolla inside one of the areas fenced off as NM Meadow Jumping Mouse habitat.
- Building vehicle barriers to protect stream banks that are eroding sediment into the Cebolla.
- Removing campfire rings inside the newly-constructed vehicle barriers that are too close to the stream and are an additional source of stream pollution. We will ... Read More
Our next conservation project will be on June 4, 2016 at a site still to be decided along the Rio Guadalupe/Rio Cebolla corridor. Forest Service staff need to do some more field work to decide the best project for that date. The project will also include our annual conservation barbecue ... Read More
The Forest Service has issued the final Environmental Assessment (EA) of its plan to protect NM Meadow Jumping Mouse (MJM) habitat along mountain meadow streams in the Jemez Mountains. The final plan bans non-consumptive recreation (as well as grazing) from MJM habitat for at least 10 years. Background In 2014, the Meadow Jumping Mouse was listed as an endangered species. Its endangered status is attributable to destruction of its mountain meadow stream habitat by years of excessive cattle grazing on Forest Service grazing allotments. Even though there is no evidence for damage to MJM habitat from non-consumptive recreation, such as ... Read More
Twenty-one New Mexico Trout members turned out on Saturday morning, April 9, 2016 for our annual trash cleanup along FR 376 above the Gilman Tunnels. That road parallels the Rio Guadalupe, which is our home water and one of the best brown trout fisheries in New Mexico. FR 376 is also the most heavily traveled of all the roads on the Santa Fe National Forest and it receives about 100,000 visitors in a typical season. Unfortunately, all those visitors leave a lot of trash over the course of a year. Doing these annual cleanups is one way we can express ... Read More
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has provided funding to help protect some of New Mexico's special places through the acquisition of land and conservation easements to protect national parks, wildlife refuges, forests, trails, and BLM sites, support for local and state park needs, protection of critical wildlife habitat, watersheds and recreational access, and conservation of working farms, ranches and forestlands that enhance local economies. The LWCF is funded at no cost to the taxpayers from a portion of the revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling. Congressional authorization for the LWCF lapsed at the end of September due ... Read More