The editors of the Santa Fe New Mexican published an editorial this week in which they examine the possibility of the Valles Caldera National Preserve being managed by the National Park Service. In response to a June request by U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall (D-NM), the NPS has been preparing a “reconaissance study,” analyzing the feasibility of the agency assuming control of the Caldera and running it as a National Park Preserve. Read the editorial here.
The editors note that, “with pretty good reason, the push is on to turn the Valles Caldera into a national park,” pointing out that “many New Mexicans are bridling at the lack of accessibility” on the Preserve, and that “prospects of profitability are, to put it mildly, bleak,” with the Preserve “producing only about $800,000 a year in fees; a fifth of what’s being spent to run it.”
However, the editorial asserts that a National Park Service takeover “should wait until the nation’s economy recovers from its depression-like condition, and big-time revenues return.”
A clarification should be made about an inaccuracy in this editorial: New Mexico’s two U.S. Senators requested a study on the possibility of turning the Valles Caldera into a National Preserve run by the National Park Service, not into a National Park itself. There are 18 other National Preserves in the National Park system — read about all of them here. A major difference between a National Park and a National Park Preserve is that hunting and fishing are allowed at most Preserves, which would retain some key Caldera revenue sources.
It is also interesting to read the various online comments that have been posted on the New Mexican web site in response to this editorial. Despite the declaration in the editorial that it would be more expensive to run the Valles Caldera by the National Park Service, the first comment asserts that it would be less expensive to run the Caldera by the NPS, since “the management system we have now is terribly inefficient and spends about 20 times per visitor what Bandelier [National Monument, bordering the Caldera] spends and 3 times per acre what Yellowstone Park spends, but provides very few services in comparison.” Read all of the online comments here.
