Rio Grande Cutts Stocked in Comanche Creek

The first segment of the large Rio Costilla project was completed today as the  NM Department of Game and Fish, the federal agencies, and volunteers from TU stocked out the first batch of Rio Grande Cutthroat.  Kevin Reilly participated in the stocking, and hopefully he’ll have some pictures next week.

TU has contributed over $100,000 and countless hours to this project.

Here is the press release from NMDGF:

NM Senators Ask Park Service to Study Valles Caldera

In a press release last week, sentors Bingman and Udall have asked the National Park Service to study the possiblility of making the Valles Caldera National Preserve part of the NPS.  This, combined with the ongoing GAO audit of the preserve should provide the impetus to get some serious changes made in the operation of the preserve.

Gila Trout Catch a Flight to Mora.

It’s still a tenuous existence for Gila trout. Even thought they were downlisted from “endangered” to “threatened” a couple years ago, there are still so few populations that fish need to be helicoptered out to avoided the ash flows resulting from wildfire.

A couple years ago, fish from the Whiskey Creek lineage were quickly transported to another creek under threat of wildfire.  Hopefully, a sustainable replicate population of the Whiskey Creek fish can be established, or that population may be lost.

Year Round Water for the Santa Fe River

At today’s Santa Fe River Festival, Mayor David Coss and County Commissioner Harry Montoya jointly announced that the parties have come to an agreement that when the Buckman Diversion comes on line in 2011, the county will donate water to the Santa Fe River.

The diversion is expected to provide the county with 2,000 acre feet per year.  With expected demand, the couty believes that it can donate 1,000 excess acre feet per year to the river on a temporary basis.  Maybe for as long as 10 to 20 years.

While not a permanent solution, at least this is a start to building returning a real recreational fishery to the river.  1,000 acre feet should provide a base flow to the river in times when the city and teh water utility have let the river run dry.

Stone Bouillabaisse

Granite Cutthroats

The granite sculpture of 27 Rio Grande cutthroat trout is being installed between the new convention center and city hall. This is a nice tribute to our state fish, but as I wrote a year ago, it is unfortunate that we don’t have any real cutts swimming in the Santa Fe River, a mere couple blocks away.

For a city that considers itself “enlightened,” it is an enormous embarrassment that the city’s river runs dry for a good portion of the year.

The city committed something like 700 acre feet to the river this year after a good snow pack last winter, but the politicians fall short of understanding that the river needs to flow all year round to be a living river that holds living fish. Instead of a sustainable flow, we get a cosmetic flow put on during the summer to impress the tourists.

The mere fact that a city was able to totally shut off a river when they built the dam is unbelievable. They’d never be able to get away with that today. And the city likes to impose conservation measures to make us think we are all saving a valuable resource, but when we peons save water, it just goes into more development.

It’s time.

It’s time the city deal with this problem and commit the water savings from the citizens, not to new development, but to a sustainable year-round flow in our river.

More data needed on San Juan

Lots of information is flying around about the San Juan below Navajo Dam these days. Unfortunately, almost none of it is grounded in hard scientific data.
Before anyone takes action on the San Juan, a science-based study needs to take place to determine what is changing about the river and what steps might be prudent to correct those problems.
I think pretty much everyone who has watched the San Juan over the last decade would agree that the river is changing. Is that change the result of oil and gas development and is it likely to degrade the fishery? Maybe, maybe not.

Pecos River Clean Up May 30th.

Come get your hands dirty and help clean up the Pecos River.

Meet at the offices of the Upper Pecos Watershed Association, 78 Main St., Pecos, NM

Coffee and pastries from 8:30 to 9:00.

Barbeque to follow from 12:00 to 2:00 at the Jamie Koch Recreation Area. Bring the kids for fishing demonstrations. Raffle prizes for participants.

Sponsored by the Upper Pecos Watershed Association, the Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited, U.S. Forest Service, Tas no Mas and the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish

NMTU Receives $9,100 for Valle Vidal

McCrystal Creek

The Coalition for the Valle Vidal has given NMTU $9,100 to do stream restoration work in the Valle Vidal, primarily of Middle Ponil, North Ponil and McCrystal Creeks.

In order to accomplish this work, a coalition of groups, similar to what has been done on Comanche Creek, will be formed to do on the ground projects that will improve the riparian habitat for Rio Grande cutthroats.

It will take several years to accomplish this work.  The work plan for 2009, is to determine just what needs to be done, and what can be done similar to Comanche.  From there we will add more grant money to the pool so that something significant can be accomplished to improve fish habitat.

San Juan Quality Waters Coalition

The New Mexico Council of Trout Unlimited has joined with several other sportsmen’s groups to form the San Juan Quality Waters Coalition.  The purpose of this group is to address the issues that have resulted in a general decline in the trout fisheries on the San Juan since the Bureau of Reclaimation changed the flow regime out of Navajo Dam in 2002.

Though the stated purpose of the flow change was to improve habitat for the Colorado Pikeminnow, it was fairly obvious to anyone who read through the EIS, that the real, covert reason was to suck as much water out of the river without violating the Endangered Species Act restrictions as they pertain to the pikeminnow.

On February 25th, the coalition sent this letter to the San Juan Recovery Imlementation – Coordination Committee asking them to address the numerous problems on the San Juan river that have impacted the fishery.  The San Juan remains New Mexico’s premier destination trout fishery, and the actions of the BoR have had serious negative impacts on the economy surrounding the fishery.

Upper Pecos Watershed Association Fundraising Banquet June 6th

The Upper Pecos Watershed Association is holding their first annual fundraising banquet, the Pecos River Romp on June 6th at Frankies at the Casanova in Pecos, NM.  Tickets are $25.

Details and a request for donations can be found here.

The UPWA is dedicated to protecting, maintaining and improving the health of the Pecos River watershed as well as the local economies and culture.