Reclamation’s First AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer

A partnership between Reclamation and the Chama Peak Land Alliance

VISTA volunteer Will Donahoo at a proposed trailhead on the Rio ChamaWith the first rays of morning light, New Mexico’s Upper Chama watershed reveals itself. The valley extends south from Cumbres Pass, winding its way over ridgelines and through meadows. Dropping in elevation, forests of mixed conifer slowly change to tall Ponderosa Pines and then rolling plains of juniper and grasslands. Twenty-six miles to the south lie the cliffs overlooking Heron Reservoir, a resting place for supplemental water on its way to the homes, farms and people of central New Mexico, as well as El Vado Reservoir, which provides water for irrigated agriculture in the Middle Rio Grande valley.

The view from Cumbres Pass does little to convey the fragility of this region. Changing precipitation patterns, rising temperatures and decades of fire suppression point towards an uncertain future for the adjacent Chama and San Juan watersheds; a future dominated by the risks of catastrophic wildfire, excessive sedimentation and loss of an important source of clean reliable water for the region.

In May 2016, the Bureau of Reclamation sponsored its first AmeriCorps Volunteer under the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program. AmeriCorps VISTA is a federal program designed to provide nonprofits with the organizational capacity to tackle issues of poverty reduction in all of its forms, from early childhood education, to veteran support and environmental stewardship. Reclamation’s VISTA Volunteer, Will Donahoo, lives in Chama, New Mexico. He works as Reclamation’s representative in partnership with the Chama Peak Land Alliance (CPLA), a nonprofit organization of conservation-minded landowners who promote ecologically and economically sustainable land and forest management practices on over 1.4 million acres. Will assists by meeting with landowners on whose lands forest thinning and treatments are planned. He organizes public events and makes public presentations to describe forest treatment work and its objectives.

In addition to stewardship and outreach efforts, CPLA conducts forest thinning and prescribed fire treatments in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The work of CPLA to protect private forest lands directly benefits Reclamation and its efforts to maintain a clean, reliable water supply for its projects in New Mexico. CPLA’s outreach and forest treatment work focuses on the Rio Chama watershed, which serves Reclamation’s Middle Rio Grande Project. Additionally, the Navajo, Little Navajo and Rio Blanco watersheds provide critical supplemental water resources to central New Mexico through Reclamation’s San Juan-Chama Project.

Completed in 1976, the San Juan-Chama Project is a series of diversion structures, tunnels and a reservoir that divert, store, and release water for the benefit of Project contractors under the Colorado River Compact. Check dams, located at the base of three tributaries of the San Juan River (the Navajo, Little Navajo and Rio Blanco) in southern Colorado near Pagosa Springs, divert water through tunnels, which together carry runoff 26 miles under the Continental Divide from the Colorado River watershed to the Rio Chama, in the Rio Grande watershed. The total allocation of the San Juan-Chama Project is divided between 9 municipalities, 6 pueblos and 2 counties, with the city of Albuquerque being by far the largest recipient, receiving over 50 percent of diverted waters. Within Bernalillo County alone, the San Juan-Chama Project provides 90 percent of the drinking water for over 600,000 residents.

A fire within the upland forests, above the San Juan-Chama diversion could have a substantial impact on the ability to provide the quality and quantity of water required by downstream users. In addition, a fire within the Chama watershed could impact the quality and quantity of water available to irrigators served by Reclamation’s Middle Rio Grande Project.

Laid bare by fire, soils become prone to erosion, leading to increased runoff, sedimentation and water quality degradation. Fire-damaged watersheds have a reduced capacity to store water in the form of snowpack, leading to water supply shortages during hot summer months. Fire-damaged watersheds also generate increased runoff during storm events, which can lead to downstream flooding. Limits on the amount of water that can be directed at any given time through the San Juan-Chama diversion means that the total amount available on an annual basis to downstream communities such as Albuquerque could be reduced. Additionally, increased runoff would dislodge debris created by wildfire, requiring removal at diversion structures and potentially inhibiting their operation for days, weeks or longer.

Catastrophic wildfire outside the range of natural variation would forever alter the characteristics and economy of the region, but wide-scale forest treatments have the potential to reduce this risk. Even small acreages of thinned forests exhibit different characteristics when fire passes through the landscape than those exhibited by untreated forests. Reduced fuels mean fire burns at a lower intensity and has less opportunity to spread between neighboring trees. Research in conjunction with The Nature Conservancy’s Rio Grande Water Fund estimates the cost of thinning one acre of forest at $700, versus a potential economic impact of $2,150 if the same acre is damaged by wildfire.

Over time, Reclamation’s mission of managing water in the West has become more about preserving, improving and balancing the resources already available, ensuring the resiliency of our water infrastructure to meet future needs. Through partnerships with the CPLA and many others, along with the first generation of VISTA Volunteers, Reclamation is working to protect the San Juan-Chama Project and the water supply to its Middle Rio Grande Project by supporting the direct management of upland forests. This is accomplished by informing stakeholders of the importance of the watersheds above the diversions and reservoirs, and promoting a local economy that can utilize natural resources, including water and forest products, for the benefit of the local community, as well as downstream users. These actions, which together help reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire in the Chama region, protect the infrastructure and water supply that Reclamation uses to serve its contractors and project beneficiaries.

Published on September 26, 2016