Bill Sponsor Rep. Anita Gonzales
By MARGARET O’HARA
The Santa Fe New Mexican
The Upper Pecos watershed attracts hikers, wildlife enthusiasts, anglers and outdoorspeople of all kinds — and for good reason, said fly fishing guide Adrian Akin.
In addition to participating in local chapters of the freshwater conservation organization Trout Unlimited, Akin leads expeditions for Santa Fe fly shop The Reel Life, estimating he brings a half-and-half mix of locals and tourists to the near-pristine upper Pecos River.
The area is special, he said. It’s resilient.
“It’s in very good condition for what it’s been through … it’s a really big part of a lot of outfitters operations up there,” Akin said.
Lawmakers on Thursday moved one step closer to calling for long-term protections for the Upper Pecos River watershed, which encompasses a sizable chunk of the Santa Fe National Forest’s Pecos Wilderness Area.
House Joint Memorial 5, sponsored by Rep. Anita Gonzales, D-Las Vegas, would support federal administrative action to withdraw certain lands from mining and mineral leasing and call on Congress to pass the Pecos Watershed Protection Act to protect portions of the area from all mineral development.
In a 7-1 vote on Thursday, the House Agriculture, Acequias and Water Resources Committee voted to advance the memorial to the House floor.
The memorial, Gonzales said, sends a clear message about protecting this unique place: “As a community, we’re coming together, just to show support for the land.”
The Upper Pecos watershed has been through a lot in recent years; it’s been “getting beat up for some time,” Pecos farmer and acequia parciante Ralph Vigil told the committee Thursday.
In the 1990s, spring snowmelt carried contaminants into the Pecos River, killing fish and contaminating drinking water. The area is also still reeling from the environmental impacts of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in 2022.
The river, Vigil said, is “finally coming back to a place where it’s healing, and we want to keep it that way.”
Concerns about new mining in the Pecos grew in 2019, when an Australian mining company proposed new mining development near Terrero. In December, then-U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced a two-year hiatus on new mining claims and new federal mining leases on a 165,000-acre portion of the Upper Pecos watershed.
At the time, watershed advocates celebrated the move as a necessary step for conservation while worrying it could be quickly undone under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The withdrawal proposal is subject to public comment through March 17, according to online versions of the Federal Register. However, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service postponed a planned Feb. 26 public meeting about the withdrawal.
Through HJM 5, the Legislature would voice its “strong support” for proposed action to withdraw some lands from federal mining and mineral leasing.
The memorial also shows the state’s support for the Pecos Watershed Protection Act — a bill introduced by U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján with tandem legislation in the U.S. House introduced by U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández — and the establishment of permanent protections to safeguard the areas “ecological, cultural and economic value for current and future generations.”
Patrick Jaramillo, an irrigator, acequia parciante and co-director of American Friends Service Committee’s New Mexico program, joined the committee meeting in support of the memorial.
“Water is life. Water is sacred,” he said.
