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TU Chief Operation Officer Chris Wood presenting Kevin Reilly with the 2009 Distinguished Service Award
Trout Unlimited has recognized New Mexico National Leadership Council representative Kevin Reilly with the 2009 Distinguished Service Award for his conservation efforts in New Mexico and nationally.
For years, Kevin has been a vital cog in the coldwater fisheries conservation in New Mexico and the west. He has been integral in developing TU’s Conservation Sucess Index, and in making it accessible to chapters for use in their conservation projects.
Floating the Mainstream Au Sable River.
Kevin Reilly and I are in Michigan for the TU 50th Anniversary meeting. We’re fishing in Grayling for a few day before the meeting starts in Traverse City. The fishing is great, the catching…not so much.
We’ll have a report from the meeting after we return.
Building an Exclosure on Comanche Creek
Over the past 7 years various organizations andagencies have come together to help restore Rio Grande cutthroat trout (RGCT) habitat along Comanche Creek. Here is a chance for you to contribute to this important effort.
If you can’t come Friday, still come on Saturday. Rio Gande cutts are in the stream once again for fishing. Free camping is available.
Details and registration with Quivira Coalition here:
http://quiviracoalition.org/Workshops___Events/index.html
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
William Schudlich
gregmcreynolds
kevinvreilly
