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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.
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.
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
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.
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.
Mark your calendar for Friday evening May 8, at the historic Sagebrush Inn in Taos New Mexico.
Social hour will begin at 6:00PM with dinner to follow. Our chapter board is busy putting together a gala never to be forgotten evening. The Enchanted Circle Chapter of Trout Unlimited has grown from our humble beginning crowd of thirty- three members to well over one-hundred!
One of our original goals was to host a chapter fundraising banquet during our second year of operation. Great News!!
There will be wonderful raffle and auction prizes including guided fishing trips, guided elk hunts and lots of very cool merchandise. Our “Grand Raffle” first prize will Read the rest of this entry »
William Schudlich
gregmcreynolds
kevinvreilly
