Below is some reaction from the New Mexico media regarding last week’s release of the National Park Service’s report endorsing the idea proposed by New Mexico’s U.S. Senators of managing the Valles Caldera as a National Park Preserve. To read that report (PDF), click here. To read the report’s cover letter from the director of the National Park Service (PDF), click here. Click on a headline of an article quoted below to read the article in its entirety.
Santa Fe New Mexican: “Study: Valles Caldera would thrive under park service management”
Bringing the 88,900-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve under National Park Service management could increase visitor numbers and boost the local economy, according to a new study from the federal agency.
The preserve is a good candidate to include in the National Park System because of its national significance as one of the best preserved examples of a resurgent volcano and the probability it could be managed more cost efficiently out of nearby Bandelier National Monument.
Several groups hailed the study as one more reason Congress should move the preserve’s management from the Valles Caldera Trust to the National Park Service.
KUNM-FM (89.9): “National Park Service says it should take Valles Caldera under its wing”
Northern New Mexico’s Valles Caldera may be a step closer to inclusion in the country’s national park system. The U.S. Interior Department has released a report indicating that since the last study conducted on the area in 1979, conditions have become more favorable for the move.
The Interior Department conducted the study as a result of a letter written and co-signed in June by both New Mexico U.S. Senators, Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall. In the letter, the Democrats argued that including the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera in the national park system would offer the best way to safeguard its resources into the future
Associated Press: “Study: Valles worth adding to parks”
A study of northern New Mexico’s Valles Caldera National Preserve says the area is a worthy addition to the National Park Service system. The study – released Thursday by the Park Service – was praised by Audubon New Mexico, the National Audubon Society’s state office.
Los Alamos Monitor: “Park service turns gaze on Valles Caldera”
The Valles Caldera National Preserve’s eligibility to become a national park has been enhanced in recent years by several important changes, according to an updated report prepared for New Mexico’s U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall.
Ironically, two of those changes have been introduced by the Valles Caldera Trust, the preserve’s governing body. The Trust would likely be dissolved should the preserve become a part of the park system, rather than the independently chartered federal corporation that it is now.
Los Alamos County Views: “Valles Caldera NPS Feasibility Study”
A feasibility study by the National Park Service, to determine if the NPS should take over the management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve away from the current Trust that runs the Caldera, has come back extremely positive on doing so!
I’m a big fan of having the NPS take over. I believe the Trust has been a huge debacle for our region, with it’s constantly destabilizing turn-over in politically appointed Trustees, it’s ever shifting directions and priorities, it’s lacking customer/visitor service orientation and it’s exclusive feeling “secret society” way of doing business.
