By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
The Natural Resources Conservation Service official gave attendees a warning.
"It's gonna get worse before it gets better. We're not out of monsoon season yet," cautioned Don Ashby, Jr., area range management specialist.
Ashby was explaining the Emergency Watershed Protection program administered through the federal Department of Agriculture.
The EWP program is about "implementing emergency measures to relieve imminent hazard to life and property created by natural disasters," said information on a display beside Ashby.
But some of the 50 people assembled at the Tajique Community Center on Tuesday evening left with unanswered questions.
The area soil and water conservation districts, Claunch-Pinto, Edgewood and East Torrance, asked the conservation service to come to the area after the Trigo Fire, said Cheri Lujan, East Torrance district manager.
That fire, which began on April 15, burned more than 21 square miles in the Manzano Mountains and destroyed 59 homes.
The districts, Torrance County and the conservation service partnered together to receive $373,000 in federal funds earmarked for restoration projects including reseeding, hazardous material removal and clearing debris out of dirt tanks, said Dierdre Tarr, Claunch-Pinto district manager, who was present at the meeting.
"We're going to aerially seed all the privately burned areas of medium to high burn (intensity) lands," possibly beginning today, Tarr said.
Another map behind Ashby showed the burn areas from the Trigo Fire, the Ojo Peak Fire, which happened late last year, and the Big Spring Fire, which began early in the morning of June 24 and burned 5,478 acres.
"There's nothing up there to stop any of this" flooding, Ashby said to the group, acknowledging the devastation that the three fires and their aftermaths have brought to the community.
A number of people in the audience told Ashby they were concerned about bridges leading to their homes or properties and how they would be fixed.
"What's the reason for not repairing private homeowner's bridges?" asked Lynnette Walker, who was attending with her husband, Richard. The Walkers are Estancia teachers who lost their home in the Trigo Fire.
After the meeting, Ashby said, "bridges do not fall into our program," and added that part of the problem is that the structure of the bridge is sometimes diminished by the flooding.
Ashby told the audience that Roger Ford, an engineer with the conservation service, would be assessing the Tajique Bridge on Wednesday.
After the meeting, Wanda Maldonado and Loretta Doty, who both live in Tajique, talked about a surge of water that came up and over N.M. 55.
About 3 p.m. last Saturday, a rush of water about 75 feet wide and five feet high rushed down the arroyo near Anaya Loop, Maldonado and Doty said.
By about 7 p.m. most of the water had disappeared.
But the women were frustrated that the county took until Tuesday to clean up the mess, which was "torrential," Doty said.
And Maldonado said she was still frustrated after the meeting because she still doesn't know how to get assistance.
"Hey, guys, let's just do it ourselves," Doty suggested because she was tired of waiting for help.
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