Sunday, February 19, 2006

Reclamation & Transformation

Picture taken last July prior to reclamation project.

This morning my brother Tom and I flew his Bonanza over to Pena Blanca for some more aerial photography. I have blogged several times about the reclamation project on some of our irrigated farm land in Pena Blanca. Last July we started by cutting down hundreds of wild elm trees that had sprung up on the 22 acre parcel.

We then contracted with the Natural Resource Conservation Service to do a water conservation project on the property under a cost sharing agreement. The land has been laser leveled and in the last week the new irrigation system was completed. It is a system of underground 15 inch pipe that connects into the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District ditch. You can now see the transformation of this property. After my dad's death in May my brother Tom and I decided to start this project. It will save immense amounts of water during the irrigation season. This is a great program that NRCS has, but I fear it will not be funded well in the future because of bush's war costs. The state engineers office in New Mexico, which over sees water, should consider the same kind of cost sharing program The amount of water that is conserved will be well worth the costs.

Picture taken this morning, February 19th, 2006 of reclamation results.


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