The Santa Fe Municipal Watershed Restoration Project: Demonstrating Community Collaboration in Long-term Watershed and Financial Management

Click here to download the Watershed Plan

This new CFRP-funded project is the logical next step following completion of forest thinning in the non-wilderness portion of the upper watershed. That project is still incomplete, awaiting the burning of slash piles left over from the thinning in some 3,000 acres. These piles need to be burned as weather conditions permit. But even as we keep our attention on the urgency of finishing that work, we also need to start planning for the future of our entire watershed, including the wilderness portion. All of it, the entire 17,384 acres of beautiful forest, contributes to the wellbeing of all of us living downstream, as the source of water for Santa Fe's two reservoirs.

The CFRP-funded project will produce four thematic sub-plans, together comprising the first comprehensive management plan for our municipal watershed: (1) a forest management plan to make sure the forest stays healthy, including a program of periodic burns to keep the fuel load down; (2) a water management plan, including monitoring water quality, erosion, and silt loads in the reservoirs (3) a public awareness and outreach plan including educational programs and more public access into the watershed to enjoy its beauty and understand where our water comes from, and (4) a financial management plan to make sure there will be money available to keep our watershed managed properly.

Along with the dry science of forest and watershed management, the new plans will also address some controversial issues for us to consider in our future watershed. One sensitive issue is the "no trespassing" policy which the City and Forest Services adopted in 1932 to keep people out of the watershed. Most municipal watersheds are open to public use such as hiking and even mountain biking. Our watershed has been consistently closed for ever-changing concerns about water quality, fire danger, and now terrorism. Our new plan will revisit the current policy of closure against the many benefits of greater public access: awareness of how the watershed works and where the water comes from, as well as the aesthetic enjoyment of this beautiful forest.

Another controversy the plan will address is money. Who should pay for the improved management practices which our plan will undoubtedly propose? The US Forest Service continues to have a mandate to manage our watershed, along with the rest of the Santa Fe National Forest, but with drastically declining budgets, they probably will not have the capacity to manage our watershed as carefully as we would like. Our municipal watershed is of unique and irreplaceable importance to the growing community of Santa Fe, and we need to consider how to finance the right kind of management practices. If the Forest Service can't pay for it, the community has an interest to somehow make up the difference. In the language of watershed management, this is called, "payments for ecosystem services" or PES.

The management plan that we will be working on during the next year is another expression of how critical our watershed is to our continued existence. Wise management of our watershed is not optional; it is absolutely required. The challenge is to figure out what "wise management" means on a practical day-to-day level, as well as over the long-term.

Watershed Hikes

Because the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed is closed to public access (and has been since 1932), the SFWA offers supervised hikes into the closed portion of the watershed, to show the public where our water comes from. We hope to offer these hikes on a monthly basis, and this will be built into the upcoming Comprehensive Plan for managing the upper watershed. Currently we offer public hikes on an ad hoc basis, advertizing the hikes through our email list and newspaper notices. Our next scheduled hike will be in the Spring of 2008. Call the Watershed Association office to register and get directions. Space is limited, so you will need to sign-up in advance. To get on our email list for future activity announcements, send a brief note to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .