Upper Pecos Watershed Assn Annual Meeting

The Upper Pecos Watershed Association is having their annual meeting this Wednesday, June 25th from 6:30-8:00 pm.  The meeting will be held at Frankie’s Casanova restaurant in the village of Pecos.  Refreshments will be served.

There will be presentations on the status of the camping complex in the Pecos caynon, the plans (if any) of NM Dept of Game and Fish with regard to the property around Holy Ghost, and plans (if any) for a state park. Also, an update on curent grant applications.

What’s next for the Rio Grande Cutthroat?

There was a meeting yesterday of the Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout Working Group, and issues surrounding where we go from here were discussed with NM Dept of Game and Fish, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Interstate Stream Commission, and Trout Unlimited.

The Federal Register notice the list the cutt was discussed at length.  When we look at what has been done and what needs to be done to recover the fish and avoid the change from a candidte species to a listed one, we will need to focus on sustainable poplations.  There are quite a few small isolated populations of cutts around, but the question is, in the face of climate change, how will these small populations fare?

The dividing line sems to be that we should be focusing on streams that can sustain populations of 2,500 or more fish.  Right now, we have the large restoration project going on in the Costilla drainage, but where do we go next?  This group is somewhat New Mexico-centric, so some of the obvious places include the upper Pecos and the Rio Santa Barbara.  I think the Valles Caldera would be in the discussion, but the management up there is to unstable at this time to give it serious consideration.

From my perspecive, one of the problems is the lack of staff available at NMDGF and the federal agencies to start analyzing projects other than the Costilla, and I think it will fall on TU and other NGOs to push the governor and the feds for funds and staff.  Relying soley on the Costilla in NM and Placer Creek in CO would be a mistake.  Colorado also needs to start looking at some of the high quality streams in the upper Rio Grande for restoration.  If you’ve ever fished up there, you know how impressive some of that water is.

Ultimately, we do have some time to get projects going, but that time is getting short.  How a new administation in DC decides to deal with the long list of candidate species could change our timeline.

Fish the Santa Fe River – Limited Time Offer

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish as put out a salvage order for the Santa Fe River from June 5th, 2008 through June 9th.

They stocked out 500 fish for the kids fishing day last weekend, and they’ve offered up the opportunity for anyone to go get the left-overs by any means possible.  They are doing this to allow anglers to get the fish out before the city turns off the water (sounds kind of stupid doesn’t it - to turn off a river?).

Here’s the text of the news release:

Pecos Clean-Up this Saturday.

From Lexy over at the UPWA office:

Upper Pecos Watershed Association’s annual Spring Clean Up is this Saturday, June 7th. We will meet at the UPWA office (46 S. Main St.) at 8:30 am for coffee & pastries. We will form small groups, grab our trash bags and head up the canyon. Following the Clean Up, there will be a barbeque picnic at the Jamie Koch recreational area. We hope to see you all there!