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.

UPDATE – Sept. 6: The Associated Press published a widely-reproduced article on the Trust’s ten-year restoration plan and its accompanied website. Click here to read the entire article, the opening of which is quoted below:

Visitors line the highway, most peering through binoculars, as they strain to get a better look at dozens of brown specks in the distance.

The specks — members of Valles Caldera National Preserve’s infamous elk herd — are munching in green pastures that stretch for miles. They are surrounded by mountain peaks blanketed with ponderosa pine, spruce and fir trees.

The expansive preserve is a sight to behold, but caretakers say Valles Caldera’s forests, grasslands and wetlands are not as healthy as they look. Nearly a decade of research has provided them with statistics to say so, and now they have developed a 10-year plan to get the preserve back into shape by using everything from prescribed fire and thinning to weed control and wetland restoration.

ORIGINAL POST: 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: Sept. 3: Marie Rodriguez, the Natural Resources Coordinator of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, sent the following email to VallesCaldera.com today in response to the above post:

In your posting regarding the proposed Landscape Restoration & Management Plan you noted that we had provided no information about how the possible transfer of the Preserve to the National Park Service would affect this plan.

We simply cannot provide any official statement of certainty as to how a transfer would affect the proposed restoration.

However, the Bill that was actually voted on in committee (your link is to the Bill as introduced, not as voted on) states, “The Secretary shall undertake activities to improve the health of forest, grassland, and riparian areas within the Preserve, including any activities carried out in accordance with title IV of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of
2009 (16 U.S.C. 7301 et seq.)”

Further, it allows the Secretary to continue activities and programs developed by the Trust until planning is completed in compliance with Interior regulations.

One administrative issue is funding. The funding awarded under title IV can only be expended on National Forest System land. Should the transfer occur the current funding would no longer be availble for expenditure on the Preserve. However, we would be optimistic that the Secretary would support the collaboration and commitments made by all stakeholders.

In policies and documents such as the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and the New Mexico Restoration Principles, federal land managers recognize that the management of ecosystems including habitats and disturbance must be considered across administrative boundaries.

The goals and objectives of the proposed plan are completely consistent with the current and proposed legislation that guides (or would guide) the management of the Preserve.

Bandelier National Monument, directly adjacent to the Valles Caldera, will host a grand reopening celebration of its visitor center on Wednesday, August 25, from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm. The public is welcome at the reopening, and entry to the park is free all day on the 25th. The center had been closed for more than a year for construction of improvements, including a new theater. According to Bandelier’s web site, planning for the revamp was ten years in the making.

New museum exhibits that will be featured in the retooled visitor center include a new 12-minute, high-definition park film, panoramas of backcountry sites, topographic displays, ecosystem profiles, and priceless artifacts.

The reopening will include Zuni dancers, craft demonstrations, tours of the new museum exhibits, a viewing of the new park film, as well as a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 3:00 pm.

Bandelier has a presence throughout the internet. Click the links below to visit its sites:

Web: http://www.nps.gov/band/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BandelierNPS?ref=ts
Twitter: http://twitter.com/bandelierNPS
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/BandelierNPS

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.

Matt Gagnon, a student at the University of New Mexico who is pursuing a graduate degree in geography, is conducting a thesis study regarding folks’ perceptions of, and aspirations for, recreation access to the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The study is titled “Management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve: the Recreationist Perspective.” 

One aspect of his study consists of the enviable task of spending parts of his summer in the Jemez Mountains and asking people — both visitors and locals — to fill out a survey that quantifies what they’d like in terms of future management of the Preserve in terms of recreation offerings and access.

His survey can also easily be filled out online. Anyone with an interest in outdoor recreation on the Preserve can fill it out. The anonymous survey shouldn’t take respondents more than ten minutes.

Please take some time and fill out this survey. Not only will it assist a grad student with his thesis, but it will contribute a great deal of insight to what the public wants in terms of future management of our National Preserve.

Mr. Gagnon’s cover letter describing his study can be read here.

You can fill out the survey by clicking here.

The Valles Caldera Trust will conduct a public meeting in Jemez Springs in the evening on Thursday, Aug. 12 to receive public comments on their “Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for a Long-Term Landscape Restoration and Management Plan To Restore and Manage the Forest, Grassland, and Riparian Ecosystems of the Valles Caldera National Preserve.”

You can read this 1,860-word notice by clicking here.

Who: Valles Caldera Trust
What: Public meeting to discuss its proposed ten-year landscape restoration and management plan
When: Thurs., Aug. 12, 5:30 -8:00 PM
Where: VCNP Science and Education Center, 90 Villa Louis Martin, Jemez Springs

In a unanimous, 13-0 vote, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday approved S.3452, the bill that would award management of the Valles Caldera to the National Park Service and dissolve the Valles Caldera Trust. The bill (the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act) is now up for consideration by the full U.S. Senate.

Bill Wicker, spokesman for the committee, told VallesCaldera.com that bills such as this one are “rarely considered as standalone legislation” by the full Senate, and that the Senate would likely vote on the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act as part of an omnibus bill, a piece of legislation that packages together multiple measures into one. “Given the time constraints, this is the logical way forward,” Mr. Wicker said.

Mr. Wicker also provided some insight into the timeframe of the path forward for this legislation, predicting that an omnibus bill containing the Valles Caldera legislation would probably be voted on by the full Senate in late September or early October.

The legislation approved (or, officially, “reported”) yesterday was slightly different from the version originally submitted in May. Click here to read the revised version that was approved by the committee. While mostly identical, the most significant change regards the restrictions on motorized access (and constructing roads and facilities/buildings) on the Preserve’s volcanic domes. In the original version of the legislation, motorized access and construction on domes above 9,250 feet was restricted. Now, such access and construction is prohibited:

within the area of the domes and peaks above 9,600 feet in elevation or 250 feet below the top of the dome, whichever is lower.

New Mexico’s U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, who co-sponsored this bill, touted the approval of this legislation by the committee.

From Sen. Bingaman:

The Valles Caldera is one of the most beautiful public landscapes in the country, and the nation would benefit from its inclusion in the National Park System. With [the] committee’s endorsement of this bill, we’re able to send it to the full Senate for consideration.

From Sen. Udall:

With this vote, we are another step closer to bringing one of New Mexico’s most stunning natural landscapes into the National Park System, where it will be protected for the enjoyment and appreciation of generations to come. I congratulate Senator Bingaman on his leadership in shepherding this critical legislation through his Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and I look forward to its consideration by the full Senate.

However, statements by spokesmen for several Republican senators in the online publication Environment and Energy Daily yesterday call into question the prospects of an omnibus bill passing the Senate this year:

“The chance of an omnibus bill is pretty much dead for the year,” said Robert Dillon, spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the Energy and Natural Resource Committee’s top Republican. “There’s just not a lot of Republican interest in moving such a big bill.”

Dillon also said there was unlikely to be time on the crowded Senate calendar, especially if the omnibus ran into opposition. “Even if it’s a bipartisan omnibus bill it can still be controversial,” he said.

Such was the case with the last omnibus, which Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) threatened to filibuster in the final months of 2008, delaying the bill through early last year.

The passage of another public lands omnibus by this Congress is “extremely unrealistic, if not impossible,” said Coburn spokesman John Hart, who added that his boss would demand any new spending in the bill be offset by cuts elsewhere.