VallesCaldera.com – The independent news source about the Valles Caldera

In June, Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall (D-NM) asked the National Park Service to prepare a reconnaissance study assessing the feasibility of including the Valles Caldera as part of the National Park System and operating it as a National Park Service preserve.  This report has been identified by Sen. Udall as a tool that that will help the New Mexico Congressional Delegation “take stock of where we are today” as a precursor for determining “the options in the future” regarding management possibilities for the Caldera.

According to a source close to this report in the National Park Service, the release of the study, which was drafted by officials in the Denver office of the NPS, is “getting pretty close.”  The source said that a draft of the report was completed in mid-October, and is currently “being refined and corrected” as a result of a second level of review that is being conducted by officials in Washington, D.C.

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The Valles Caldera National Preserve has been selected to host the 2010 National 4-H Wildlife Habitat Evaluation Program (WHEP) Invitational next summer.  According to the Preserve, more than 100 children and adults will gather in the Caldera for education and competition during the five-day event.  The WHEP is “dedicated to teaching wildlife and fisheries habitat management to youth in the United States.”

The participants in the event, which will be held from July 25 to July 29, will be housed at the Hilltop House Hotel in Los Alamos, rather than at the Preserve’s new Science and Education Center in Jemez Springs, which the Preserve is spending $111,000 annually to lease.