That was before the 2011 Las Conchas Fire, at the time the largest wildfire in New Mexico history, covering 156,000 acres. More than a decade later, downstream communities are still feeling the effects, said James Calabaza, the Indigenous lands program director for the Colorado-based nonprofit Trees, Water and People.
Sediment has been sliding down to Cochiti Dam due to a lack of trees.
A proposed project by Trees, Water and People for restoration work in the Santa Fe National Forest would help mitigate the erosion and improve the watershed. It recently was awarded federal funds to move the effort forward.
"Without having a forest cover with the standing trees, the ground is not able to really recharge its underground water system, which then affects the total availability and quality of water in certain ways," Calabaza said.
"With the Jemez Mountains being a very important watershed tributary to the Rio Grande, a lot of the downstream communities are annually facing shortages of water because the watershed up top do not have trees to help infiltrate water down into the groundwater system," he added.
Calabaza, a member of Santo Domingo Pueblo, started working with the organization about five years ago. Around that time, Trees, Water and People organized an effort with the pueblo, planting Ponderosa pines and Douglas and white firs to help combat erosion and the effects of the fire.
"We started off small, maybe about 6,000 trees," Calabaza said. "We had community members come out and volunteer. From there, 2020 on, we started working with Cochiti and Jemez [pueblos] as well. It was cool, because we didn't necessarily go and outreach those communities. They came knocking on our door."
That work is about to expand.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation announced in December it was issuing 61 new grants through the American the Beautiful Challenge, with $122.5 million for conservation projects nationwide -- including the one in New Mexico.
Trees, Water and People was granted $1.1 million to restore 40 acres in the Jemez Mountains by planting trees and building structures to capture sediment and improve the area's hydrology. The total cost for the five-year project, including staff salaries, travel and project expenses is estimated at $2.3 million, Calabaza said.
Two agreements between the nonprofit and the Santa Fe National Forest went into effect in October -- one allocating $125,000 in federal funds to the nonprofit and the pueblos of Santo Domingo, Cochiti and Jemez for Native youth reforestation programs and another establishing a partnership between the national forest and the nonprofit for post-fire recovery.
"I am pleased to sign these agreements to formalize the SFNF's partnership with TWP, an important and up and coming conservation organization," Forest Supervisor Shaun Sanchez said in a statement in July, when the agreements were signed. "TWP is already performing significant work here in New Mexico with Native communities. This agreement will augment our collective efforts in this regard."
The three pueblos are the primary partners, Calabaza said. Trees, Water and People contracts with each community's tribal forestry crew to work in the Santa Fe National Forest, an agreement Calabaza called "unprecedented" for the Forest Service.
"We tap into those individuals who have local expertise and local knowledge of traditional kind of practices of stewardship and conservation," Calabaza said.