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

The Los Alamos County Council presented U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman with its “Key to the County” honor during a visit by Bingaman to Los Alamos last week. County Council Chairman Michael Wismer offered four primary reasons why the Council chose to bestow this award on Bingaman — one of which was the Senator’s ongoing effort to secure passage of legislation that would transfer management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve to the National Park Service. The other reasons Wismer provided were Bingaman’s support for green technology, support of LANL projects and Northern New Mexico’s economy, and funding of specific county projects and programs. Click here to read a story in the Los Alamos Monitor about Bingaman’s award.

Chairman Wismer presented the following remarks regarding Bingaman’s advocacy of transferring the Valles Caldera to the National Park Service:

This Summer, the Senator has been very active in matters concerning the Valles Caldera National Preserve – acreage near Los Alamos that is near and dear to our community – and one that we hope will have a favorable outcome soon with congressional action. I was honored to be in Washington D.C. to testify last June when Senator Bingaman chaired the Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing to discuss legislation that he and Senator Tom Udall wrote to transfer the management of the Preserve to the National Park Service. We support the Senators’ bill which directs the Park Service to take over management in a way that protects the Preserve’s natural and cultural resources. The preserve is a national treasure and we hope the legislation will be successful.

The Valles Caldera Trust has debuted a new section of its web site designed to educate the public regarding its “10-year strategy for the restoration and management of the forest, grassland, shrubland, and riparian ecosystems” on the Valles Caldera National Preserve, and to take public input regarding this plan.

Click here to visit the new section of the Trust’s official government web site.

While replete with information and supporting documents, the web site does lack some particulars. Namely, it does not mention how the proposed strategy would change if the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act, legislation that would transfer management of the Preserve to the National Park Service, is passed by Congress. This bill has been unanimously approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is now up for consideration by the full Senate. In fact, the National Park Service is not mentioned at all on the site. The document also mentions enhancing objectives of surrounding National Forest lands, but fails to discuss how to enhance objectives of the forests of the National Park Service’s Bandelier National Monument, which shares a boundary with the Preserve.

The Associated Press ran a story about the new section of the Preserve’s web site:

The web page includes documents, maps and other links related to the proposed 10-year strategy for restoring and managing the forests, grasslands and riparian ecosystems on the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Trust officials say restoration and management of the preserve’s resources is at the heart of their stewardship responsibilities and will be 1 of the most important planning efforts undertaken by the trust.

The plan will guide decisions on forest thinning, prescribed fire, wetland restoration, travel management and noxious weed control, among other things.

Comments will be accepted through Sept. 29.

UPDATE: Aug. 21– The Albuquerque Journal reported Saturday that the total amount that will be awarded for the Southwest Jemez Mountains Collaborative Forest Restoration Project will be up to $40 million (the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week reported this amount to be $392,000). Click here to read the Journal article (non-subscribers must click on the “trial access pass” button to read this story). The article points out that the preferred density in a ponderosa pine forest is between 40 and 60 trees per acre. In much of the area targeted by the project, there are between 1,200 and 1,800 trees on each acre, and in some spots there are more than 2,000 trees per acre. This problem will be mitigated by this project through thinning on 90,000 acres and prescribed burns on 76,000 acres of the Santa Fe National Forest and Valles Caldera National Preserve.

ORIGINAL POST: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced last week the funding of ten forest restoration projects throughout the nation, including the Southwest Jemez Mountains Collaborative Forest Restoration Project, for which a total of $392,000 will be awarded to the Santa Fe National Forest and the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Below is some information from the Department of Agriculture regarding the Southwest Jemez Mountains project:

The Southwest Jemez Mountains area is 210,000 acres, 93 percent of which is divided between the Santa Fe National Forest and the Valles Caldera Trust-Valles National Preserve. The project will improve the resilience of ecosystems to recover from wildfires and other natural disturbance and sustain healthy forests and watersheds. This will be accomplished by thinning and prescribed burning to restore more natural fire regimes. Additional project components include streambank stabilization, invasive plant control, road and trail decommissioning, riparian and wildlife habitat improvement, conservation education, and rehabilitation, closure, and improvement of roads.

Two letters were published in New Mexico newspapers in the past week regarding the U.S. Senate’s legislation to transform the Valles Caldera into a National Park Preserve.

The first one was in the Santa Fe New Mexican:

‘Park’ Valles Caldera

The Valles Caldera needs our support, and it needs it now. On June 30 in Washington D.C., the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on S. 3452, the bill to dissolve the Valles Caldera National Preserve Trust and have the National Park Service assume management of the preserve.

How wonderful for this gorgeous preserve to get some experienced management, and who better than our beloved Park Service? Connecting Valles Caldera with the Park Service’s prestige and public outreach will gain it much needed visibility, opening it to greater enjoyment by New Mexicans and our out-of-state visitors alike. Don’t you just love it when the government does things we can be proud of? Thank you, Sen. Jeff Bingaman!

Kimberly MacLoud
Santa Fe

The second was printed in the Journal North:

Valles Caldera Better With NPS

New Mexicans could be relieved that our U.S. senators have advanced legislation to transfer the Valles Caldera National Preserve from the temporary experimental trust to the National Park Service, which would afford permanent protection to this national treasure. The Bingaman/Udall proposed legislation will help the regional economy, give the public quality access to the preserve, protect natural and cultural resources, expand hunting opportunities, and protect tribal interests.

The current managers of the preserve apparently will not let this necessary change happen without some discord. Valles Caldera National Preserve Trust Chairman Steve Henry has recently expressed great concern, in a Journal article dated July 14, about possible forest fires and the need to thin the forests on the preserve. It is hard to understand why he would mention this now. In 10 years, the Trust has only done only one small thinning project and has delayed its planning for fire and thinning up to 2013. Further, thinning and fire has rarely been mentioned in over a decade of Trust public meetings.

Meanwhile, neighboring Bandelier National Monument, operated by the National Park Service, has managed all wooded acres of the park with a combination of thinning and/or prescribed fire to make the monument fire resistant and restore it to a pre-European contact condition. All National Park Service areas in the West have detailed, publicly vetted forest or grassland restoration programs.

Chairman Henry also mentioned his concern about parts of the new Valles Caldera legislation which would protect the mountain peaks in the preserve from development and motorized access but which would allow hiking. Mr. Henry is worried that the public won’t have access to those peaks. Yet under his leadership, all of the peaks except one on the Preserve have been completely closed to public access, with a $200 fine for trespass. Likewise, his worry about hunting under the new law seems detached from recent history. Expensive private hunts and a nearly hopeless lottery under the Trust would be replaced under the new law by a system accessible to all hunters under New Mexico Game and Fish control.

Sen. Bingaman has long experience with public land legislation and knows that inserting micromanaging ideas would be both unnecessary and counterproductive. We fully support the bill in its current form and urge Congress to pass it as soon as possible.

TOM RIBE
Executive Director, Caldera Action
Santa Fe

The Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) today released a draft environmental impact statement regarding its new Travel Management Plan, which includes five alternatives for managing where the public can drive motorized vehicles in the forest. The alternatives would eliminate between 47% and 63% of the Forest’s currently open roads (except for alternative one, which would do nothing). The SFNF also announced eight public meetings throughout Northern New Mexico in August to receive public comment about today’s released documents.

Also today, Daniel Jirón, the supervisor of the Santa Fe National Forest, announced that he is leaving his post to serve as the Deputy Regional Forest Supervisor for the Pacific Southwest Region, according to Staci Matlock of the Santa Fe New Mexican. Deputy forest supervisor Erin Connelly will serve as the interim supervisor for the SFNF. Click here to read Ms. Matlock’s article.

The Supervisor of the Santa Fe National Forest is automatically an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, so Mr. Jirón will also be departing from his position with the Preserve’s Board and will be replaced by Ms. Connelly. However, in practice, ex-officio members of the Board have had very little power relative to the politically-appointed members of the Board.

The Santa Fe National Forest manages 1.6 million acres of forest in Northern New Mexico, including most of land surrounding the Valles Caldera National Preserve, and about 20% of the geologic Valles Caldera itself.

Read the entire Draft Environmental Impact Statement by clicking here.

Access all of the documents released today by the SFNF by clicking here.

Read today’s press release from the Santa Fe National Forest (containing the five Travel Management Plan alternatives as well as details on the eight public meetings that the SFNF will conduct in August) by clicking here.

Continue reading ‘Between 47% and 63% of Santa Fe National Forest’s open roads could be closed under Travel Management Plan; eight public meetings planned for Aug.; Jirón departs as supervisor’

In an article in today’s Albuquerque Journal, Stephen Henry, the Chairman of the Valles Caldera Trust, misrepresented essential details of the U.S. Senate bill that would transfer the Valles Caldera National Preserve to the National Park Service. Click here to read the article. Non-subscribers must click on the “trial access pass” button to read this story.

Specifically, Mr. Henry misrepresented the portion of the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act (S.3452) that restricts certain activities on peaks above 9,250 feet in elevation on the Preserve. Henry is quoted in the article as stating:

“Ninety-two thousand feet [sic] also shuts down some of the major roads we have to transport people from one end of the preserve to another,” he said. “That can probably be changed, but who wants to run a national park known for its sightseeing, and no one can climb to the top of any peaks?”

However, despite Mr. Henry’s assertion, no restriction on climbing to the top of these peaks exists in the legislation.

Specifically, section 3(h)1 of the bill states that on 14 volcanic domes higher than 9,250 feet in elevation in the Preserve, “no roads or facilities shall be constructed; and no motorized access shall be allowed.” But the bill does not restrict hiking access to these peaks — it actually protects them from development and vehicular use.

As a matter of fact, in the nearly ten-year history of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, the public (with the exception of Pueblo members) has been entirely shut out of opportunities to legally hike to the top of all volcanic domes inside the rim of the Caldera at all times, apart from South Mountain, which was opened last year.

It is ironic, therefore, that Mr. Henry would be objecting to a bill by claiming that it would restrict hikers’ access to 14 stunning and dramatic volcanic domes, when under his leadership, the public has been forbidden to climb to the top of all but one of these peaks and savor the views of the scenic crown jewel of Northern New Mexico from nearly two miles high.

Mr. Henry also implies in the article that the legislation is inadequate because forest restoration and thinning priorities wouldn’t be tackled by the National Park Service if the bill passes. But the Journal article implicitly points out the weakness of this argument:

The new bill would specifically require the NPS “to protect and preserve the fish, wildlife, watershed, natural, scientific, scenic, geologic, historic, cultural, archeological and recreational values of the area.”

This would presumably allow for thinning to go on as it would at any other national park where tree density is a concern. Nearby Bandelier National Monument, for instance, conducts thinning operations.

During this crucial time in the post-Baca Ranch history of the Valles Caldera, debate should be encouraged as to the merits of the legislation. But all sides should stick to the facts.

Roughly one decade after the devastating Cerro Grande fire of May 2000, a new book has been published that aims to tell the complete story of “the most costly wildfire in U.S. history.” Inferno by Committee: The True Story of the Cerro Grande (Los Alamos) Fire, America’s Worst Prescribed Fire Disaster is an in-depth study and “white-knuckle narrative” of the prescribed burn that began on the eastern rim of the Valles Caldera and proceeded to destroy hundreds of homes in nearby Los Alamos, as well as many structures at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, forcing a lengthy evacuation of the town and neighboring White Rock.

The 345-page book, published by Trafford Publishing, is written by Tom Ribe, a fire fighter and science journalist who also serves as the executive director of Caldera Action, a Valles Caldera advocacy group.

You can buy this book online by clicking here. You can also buy it by clicking here to visit the author’s web site, which also contains lots of other information regarding the fire.

The Los Alamos Monitor wrote that Ribe’s book is “useful and valuable to readers,” while informing the public “everything they wanted to know about the dynamics of Cerro Grande fire and the methods to fight it but were afraid to ask.” Click here to read the complete review. Below is an excerpt:

Ribe doesn’t just look back 10 years ago to the first week of May 2000, he scans all the way back to about 8,000 years ago to the area’s first residents. Furthermore, he examines how, over time, humans significantly change the landscape – whether it was through grazing or logging or politics. He discusses at length about the differences between the National Forest Service’s philosophy of maintaining the land and the National Park Service’s beliefs.

After heavily sifting through the ashes of time, Ribe presents an argument that is applicable now, tomorrow and forever after. He stresses the importance of environmental stewardship but also the need to exercise stewardship amongst humans. A lot of problems can be resolved by good teamwork, unity and taking the time and effort to make the right decisions for everyone.

Continue reading ’2000 Cerro Grande fire studied in new book, Inferno by Committee‘

[PHOTO: Pueblo of Jemez Governor Joshua Madalena testifies before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today. From committee web broadcast]

The future of the scenic crown jewel of New Mexico was publicly discussed in Washington, D.C., today, as Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) presided over a meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee examining the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act (S.3452), which would transfer the Caldera to the National Park Service. During the hearing, eight individuals who represent significant stakeholders in Northern New Mexico offered testimony regarding their positions on the legislation.

The Albuquerque Journal reported that the bill “earned widespread support” at the hearing. Click here to read the Journal article — nonsubscribers must click on the “trial access pass” button to read it. You can also watch a report on the hearing by KOAT-TV by clicking here.

Four of the eight witnesses expressed unqualified support for the legislation (Sen. Tom Udall, Los Alamos County Council Chairman Michael Wismer, New Mexico Wildlife Federation Executive Director Jeremy Vesbach, and National Park Service Deputy Director Daniel Wenk). Two witnesses — the governors of the Pueblo of Jemez (Joshua Madalena) and Pueblo of Santa Clara (Walter Dasheno) — offered conditional support for the bill. The two other witnesses, Valles Caldera Trust Chairman Stephen Henry and Harris Sherman, the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment (the official in charge of the U.S. Forest Service), did not express support.

The conditional backing offered by the pueblos during the hearing is significant because as recently as January, Jemez Pueblo Gov. Joshua Madalena publicly opposed transferring management from the Valles Caldera Trust.

A synopsis of each witness’ oral and written testimony follows, in order of appearance. Click on the name of a witness in order to download his prepared remarks.

Continue reading ‘Senate committee hears testimony on legislation to bring Caldera into Park Service; pueblos offer conditional support’

Due to the U.S. Senate’s memorial service planned in honor of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd on Thursday, the hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to receive testimony about legislation to convert the Valles Caldera into a National Park Preserve has been moved to tomorrow (Wed.), June 30 at 12:30 PM MDT.

You can watch the hearing live by clicking here.

Albuquerque’s ABC affiliate, KOAT-TV, filed a report today on this upcoming hearing, stating that “fireworks are expected in Washington Wednesday when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee discusses the future of the Valles Caldera National Preserve.” Click here to watch this report.

The committee also released an updated witness list for the hearing. One change from the prior witness list is that Sen. Tom Udall is now scheduled to testify, replacing Barbara Johnson, the vice chair of Los Amigos de Valles Caldera. Here is the latest witness list:

Panel 1
The Honorable Tom Udall, U.S. Senate

Panel 2
Daniel Wenk, Deputy Director, National Park Service, Department of the Interior
The Honorable Harris Sherman, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Agriculture
Stephen Henry, Chairman, Valles Caldera Trust

Panel 3
The Honorable Joshua Madalena, Governor, Pueblo of Jemez
The Honorable Walter Dasheno, Governor, Pueblo of Santa Clara
The Honorable Michael Wismer, Chair, Los Alamos County Council
Jeremy Vesbach, Director, New Mexico Wildlife Federation

The Santa Fe New Mexican published the following letter to the editor today by Rudy Rios of Placitas, who opposes the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act, which would transfer the Preserve to the National Park Service:

Trust in the trust

Regarding recent comments concerning the Valles Caldera Trust and its alleged elitism and restrictive public-access policies: The Valles Caldera Trust has had some bumps, but it has fulfilled its role as a working ranch and has provided access with educational workshops, seminars and van tours that cover subjects including archaeology, botany, ecology, geology, history and wildlife.

The Valles Caldera has become, in a very short period of time, an outstanding example of sustainable government management of public lands.

On the other hand, the National Park Service, which some say should now manage the Valles Caldera, has at times alienated and polarized the Native American community. The Valles Caldera Trust has managed what was once a private preserve as a very public entity that respects the multi-culturalism of New Mexico. Turning this to the National Park Service is not the best management direction.

Rudy Ríos
Placitas