At a meeting held today in Santa Fe, the US Forest Service introduced the public to its ongoing efforts to rehabilitate the Jemez Mountains area in the wake of last summer's Las Conchas fire, and restore habitat in the interest of preventing similar disasters in the future.
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The project, part of a nationwide effort, actually originated before Las Conchas. The federal Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act of 2009, supported by US Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, is designed to
reduce megafires and create more ecologically-sound forest management practices in the nation's wildlands. The New Mexico project area was chosen in 2010 in the first round of funding. Aside from reducing the risk of massive wildfires, the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project is also intended to improve
wildlife habitat in the selected areas and to create jobs in environmental management.
The Jemez Mountains area could receive $40 million between now and 2020; so far it has received $2.8 million. For comparison, suppression of the Las Conchas fire cost approximately $41 million , according tothe Jon Williams, Ecosystems Staff Officer with Santa Fe National Forest.
The project area encompasses 210,000 acres, including 110,000 acres of Santa Fe National Forest, plus the Valles Caldera National Preserve and some of Jemez Pueblo. About 35,000 acres of the project area
burned in the Las Conchas fire.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, such projects must go through an initial public participation process. Meetings scheduled in April (see below) will present a draft of the specific proposed actions on the project area. An approved plan allowing the project to go forward isn't expected until August 2013. But the project partners have already accomplished many milestones that had gone through the NEPA process when the funding was awarded. Five thousand, two hundred and forty two acres of the project area have been treated to improve the watershed. This year, the partners are moving forward with other actions that have also been NEPA improved, including thinning and prescribed burning of 14,532 acres in the Paliza area of the Jemez, rehabilitation of campsites along the east fork of the Jemez River, removal of invasive species in 30 acres of the project area, and monitoring of wildlife, stream quality and vegetation.
While much of the area has been treated by thinning and prescribed fire in the past, it was done in small "postage-stamp" segments, Williams noted. That method is not as effective as this larger-scale project, both because fires don't respect political boundaries and because the NEPA process is lengthy.
A second public meeting on the project will be held this Saturday, March 31, from 10 am to 12 pm at the Valles Caldera Education Center (90 Villa Louis Martin Dr, Jemez Springs).
Future meetings on proposed project activities:
April 12 , 1-5 pm, SF National Forest Headquarters (11 Forest Lane, Santa Fe)
April 14 , 9 am – 1 pm, Valles Caldera Education Center
