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Valles Caldera Under the Microscope

By Emily Esterson, 1-19-06

	Courtesy NMSU

The Santa Fe Reporter has a great cover story this week about the fate of the Valles Caldera, written by Laura Paskus, who I just happened to meet for the first time about a couple of weeksago. Laura relocated from Paonia, Colorado, to open a Southwest Bureau of High Country News, and has been doing some (as you can see) excellent freelance work.

Laura's piece details the fate of Northern New Mexico's Valles Caldera preserve. The public lands experiment involved the federal purchase of the Baca Ranch, which was then set up to run as a financially self-sufficient, self managed public park, without the National Park Service or Forest Service's interference. Former Land Commissioner and current Land Commissioner candidate, Ray Powell, was the Executive Director of the Valles Caldera--a seemingly good choice given his experience as a large animal veterinarian and a public lands manager. Powell left Valles Caldera in August 2005--at the time he told me what he told the Reporter--differences with the board.

The unfortunate part of the Valles Caldera, which is a "wholly-owned government corporation" (read the Government Accounting Office report) is that the early missteps in the preserve's management may jeapordize the long term value of a very interesting project. In any new venture missteps are part of later success.

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