SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - The Valles Caldera National Preserve decided this week to ask Congress for more federal funding to manage operations for another five years.
The preserve’s board of trustees voted at its quarterly meeting Wednesday to submit a recommendation for extending federal appropriations through 2020. There are inherent government functions that will likely require aid on the federal level, Valles Caldera Trust Board chairman Kent Salazar said.
Those functions include compliance with historic-preservation and environmental laws, forest restoration and infrastructure repairs. More than 60 percent of the preserve was affected by recent wildfires and post-fire flooding, officials said.
The 90,000-acre preserve in the Jemez Mountains was a private ranch with grazing and logging operations before the federal government bought it in 2000.
If the trust is not financially self-sufficient by the end of this fiscal year, the board can request Congress for more funding under the Valles Caldera Preservation Act. Under the act, the trust can also be dissolved and the preserve would be transferred to the U.S. Forest Service, the Albuquerque Journal reported (https://bit.ly/YsiLza ). Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have also proposed legislation giving control of Valles Caldera to the National Park Service.
The nine-member board will send a formal letter to Congress sometime in the next few weeks.
“Until Congress addresses the long term disposition of the Preserve, the Board supports the continuation of the trust’s experimental land management structure and we are confident that the trust will continue to make great strides in implementing its innovative, sustainable, and science-based management goals,” Salazar said in a news release.
The board also approved the fiscal year 2015 budget, which takes into account flat funding from the previous year of about $3.4 million.
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