1/1/24

USACE finds cattle most significant impact in Galisteo Dam Master Plan

The Galisteo Dam was completed in 1970 by the US Army Corps of Engineers and built solely for flood control and sediment impoundment on the Rio Galisteo because of its long history of violent floods including one that wiped out the Kewa or Santo Domingo Pueblo. 

To accommodate the dam project the Pueblo and main line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad were relocated; now the rail bed serves Amtrak's Southwest Chief and the New Mexico Rail Runner. Sam Peckinpah shot a bunch of scenes for the 1978 film Convoy out here, too. The Corps has long abandoned responsibility for the dam road's maintenance and the US Bureau of Reclamation blocked access to a recreation area at the dam in 2018. 
Read the entire revised Master Plan linked here.

In 2019 an interested party met with state police, law enforcement from two counties, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal police who all believe the dam road is a state highway through tribal lands but it's been under contention for decades. The state maintains the frontage road portion of NM16 because it has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the US Postal Service and if there were any children who attend public school farther up the state would maintain it to where a school bus could turn around. 

Because we rent our casita to Airbnb guests I've repeatedly offered to patch potholes but have always been rebuffed by NMDOT and the Kewa Tribal Council.

Thanks to neighbor Bob for passing the information to the blog!

ip image: two more free-roaming horses are grazing on the decimated Kewa Pueblo pasture just below the dam but they haven’t hooked up with Alph’s herd yet.
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