La Jicarita

 

Concerned about Project Ranger?  Join State Emergency Response Commission Virtual Meeting on Thursday, October 22nd

Did you know that this week Tessa Snyder, the Hazardous Materials Coordinator, confirmed in writing that she recently met privately with Castelion Corporation about their Project Ranger, a 1,000-acre hypersonic missile motor manufacturing and static firing testing complex – the largest in the United States – on the West Mesa near Rio Rancho, New Mexico? https://www.castelion.com/project-ranger/

Snyder informed Castelion of the upcoming Thursday, October 22nd State Emergency Response Commission (SERC) meeting of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. https://www.dhsem.nm.gov/preparedness/hazardous-materials-program/serc/ and https://www.dhsem.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/August-2026-SERC-Meeting-Minutes.pdf

She also reported that Castelion has attended the Sandoval County Local Emergency Planning Committee meetings, where members of the public can ask questions. But no notifications have been provided to the community members living near the weapons complex. https://www.sandovalcountynm.gov/departments/emergency-management/

These facts raise serious questions about agency transparency, hazardous materials oversight, and the public’s right to know. https://commongroundrising.org/castelions-project-ranger-solid-rocket-motor-plant/

 

Get all the details at nuclearactive.org

By KAY MATTHEWS

Making a movie about the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire is not for the weak of heart. Untangling the tension between those who suffered so much destruction and those, namely the US Forest Service, that caused that suffering, requires courage and tact. Fortunately, a talented filmmaker named Hillary Bachelder has both, and her film, “Burn, Scar,” is an achingly fair and honest assessment of what happened. The first showing in New Mexico will be at the Santa Fe Film Festival, October 15. Starting Friday, October 30, the film will show in Las Vegas at the Indigo Theater, 5 pm and 7:45 pm with multiple showings throughout the week. Tickets are available at Indigo Theater.

In April of 2022 a prescribed fire set by the Forest Service near Hermit’s Peak in Mora County jumped its perimeter boundary. Soon after, a previously prescribed burn in a nearby canyon that had smoldered under the winter snows erupted into a fire that joined the fire near Hermit’s Peak. In total, what became known as the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burned 341,471 acres and destroyed 903 structures in Mora, San Miguel, and Taos counties.

Before I continue with this review, I have a disclaimer. I contributed some of the video footage and photos used in the film and know many of the people who are featured and interviewed, including Antonio “Ike” DeVargas, about whom I wrote a book. Hopefully that adds to, rather than detracts from, the review.

This film rests on the shoulders of the narrators Bachelder chose to tell the story. It begins in 2022, when the fires erupted, and ends in 2025, when Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)money finally compensates many of those who lost their homes and livelihoods.

Here are the protagonists:

• Ernie is a handsome cattle rancher and acequia mayordomo who simmers with anger over the impacts of the fire and the negligence of the Forest Service.
• Martin, a gentle man, works to rebuild his grandparents’ house and fence his cows (whom he names), waiting for FEMA reimbursements while he goes into debt.
• Dennis is the Santa Fe National Forest Fire Ecologist who takes responsibility for the fire but is adamant that fire will always be part of the landscape and needs to be managed
• Angie is the District Ranger at Canjilon and works with the people of Rio Arriba County to integrate thinning and prescribed fire into the community after the fire
• Antonia is an Albuquerque lawyer who comes back to her el norte home to help everyone file their claims with FEMA for compensation
• Moises is a Rio Arriba County Commissioner who opposes the proposed thinning and prescribed burning on the land near his home in Canjilon
• Ike is the longtime activist who founded La Raza Unida Party in Rio Arriba County and the small logging company La Companía de Ocho.

These people take us through story as the fire erupts and spreads to the communities. The film’s footage of the blaze is unsettling, as acres and acres of trees are scorched and homes burned to the ground. The Forest Service is omnipresent, holding uncomfortable meetings with community members. At one of those on the Pecos/Las Vegas Ranger District the district ranger says, “We take full responsibility” for the fires and when Dennis apologizes, he’s asked why anyone should trust the Forest Service. He answers, “Because the alternatives aren’t very good.” At a meeting on my district, the Camino Real, the district ranger is confronted by a hostile audience, one of whom says, “We don’t want fire and we don’t agree with our government.” The ranger tells her the Forest Service is obligated to do what is needed to protect her community.

Three months after the fire, 90 percent contained, Antonia Roybal Mack enters the narrative, evacuating her grandmother’s house for fear of flooding as the rains have arrived and the floods caused by the burn scar begin. The film shows water rising to the doorstep of homes, roads washed away, and acequias filled with mud and debris. Antonia becomes a stabilizing figure in the film with her lawyerly competence and understanding of the emotions of those who have lost so much. The US Senate appropriates the FEMA budget to support the fire victims. Antonia: “It’s my job to represent people against FEMA. There is an enormous amount of distrust of the federal government.”

Five months after the fire started it’s 100 percent contained. Dennis is profiled as a lifelong fire fighter who works his way up into fuels and fire ecology to dismantle the Smokey Bear mythology that all forest fires need to be extinguished. One hundred years of this policy is what has left the forests overgrown, diseased, and prone to massive fires. Dennis is one of my favorite figures in the film: obviously very sincere in his acceptance of responsibility but also a little pugnacious in his determination to pursue policy that he believes is essential to forest management. His language is blunt and his hurt is heavy.

Ernie’s hurt is also a large component of the film. The shots of him at his acequia meeting—held outside—are painful as he fields questions from his fellow parciantes trying to parse FEMA regulations. They ask about what will happen when the acequias flood next year and the year after that during the monsoons. Will FEMA be back to help them then? It’s a revealing moment when a FEMA representative shows up to try to explain how to log on to the portal to begin the process and Bachelder films only his back. It’s also telling that there is only one parciante younger than Ernie (who looks to be in his thirties or early forties) who takes over Ernie’s mayordomo position.

One year after the fire Martin is living in a FEMA trailer with a generator his only source of heat, at $30 a night for gas. He’s selling wood to made a little money while waiting for FEMA to reimburse him for all the money he’s spent fixing the house and his road. He ends up having to sell his cows as he can’t afford to borrow any more. Although his life is more difficult than Ernie’s, he seems less angry, maybe just more resigned, in the quotidian grind of the life he’s been dealt.

Moises and Ike appear in the film in juxtaposition. While their values aligned for many years, they were estranged by the time the film was made. They both speak about the loss of the land grants to unscrupulous speculators like attorney Thomas Catron and eventually the government, who Ike says his grandfather referred to as “Los Americanos.” They both were in the front lines in the 1960s and 70s Chicano movement. Moises participated in the raid by Reies Lopez Tijerina on the Rio Arriba County Courthouse and was, with Ike, an active member of La Raza Unida that brought down Emilio Naranjo, the despotic ruler of Rio Arriba County. Bachelder includes footage of Ike from the Danny Lyon film “Little Boy” in La Raza protests and at home in Servilleta Plaza with his young son, Antonio. Ike was the founder of La Companía de Ocho, a small logging company, and fought many battles with the Forest Service, that favored corporate logging, and urban environmentalists, who were opposed to any logging on public lands. Sam Hitt, founder of Forest Guardians, who went head-to-head with Ike throughout the 1990s, is filmed opposing a 2024 Santa Fe Watershed restoration project in a meeting where Dennis has this to say: “We know what works but none of that shit matters without public buy in.”

Ike and Moises’s assessments of the fire and its aftermath reveal their divergent paths, however. Moises thinks the thinning project near Canjion cut too many trees and he doesn’t want to see any prescribed burning. Angie, the district ranger, whose lovely green eyes are captured by the camera’s closeups, hopes to change his mind. She’s trying to implement new policies, like the leñero mayordomo projects from the east side of the Carson that have successfully recruited community people as sawyers to cut their own small allotments in restoration projects. But Moises pushes the Rio Arriba County Commission to block her efforts. He bluntly says, “I think all them people who started these fires should be accused of crimes.” Filmed at home, Angie agonizes over what happened during the fire but stays true to the science she knows is needed to protect the forests in the future. “Were we broken before, yeah, we were broken before, but perhaps in this new world we’re in there will be a remaking.”

It takes me a minute to realize it’s my voice asking Ike a question back in the 1990s after the environmentalists’ lawsuits shut down his logging company: “Do you still think the Forest Service is primarily responsible for mismanagement of the forests in northern New Mexico.” He answers in the affirmative. But the film then fast forwards to an interview just before he died in 2024 where he provides a measured analysis of the relationship between the communities and the Forest Service today: the land grants are not going to be given back to the people and the Forest Service has the ability to manage the forests with the communities foremost in mind.

The movie ends three years after the fire, but I won’t write a wrap-up and spoil it for those who haven’t seen the film. What I can say is that Bachelder has beautifully crafted it to reflect the emotional and moral complexity of this amazing film. I haven’t used the term beautiful before, but that word describes both the aesthetics of the film—the way Bachelder zooms in with facial close-ups to emphasize emotionally charged moments—and the grace with which every opinion, argument, and complaint is granted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editor’s Note: I’m reposting this article, with permission, from New Mexico Water Advocates by Gillian Gonda, a board member of the Advocates. She tells the sad story of the water situation in Placitas, where she grew up. I’ve known Gillian since she was a kid: I lived in Placitas for 20 years, as an irrigator in the village and then as a well owner in the Tunnel Springs area where we had one well go dry. We’re experiencing this crisis all over New Mexico. La Jicarita will soon publish an article about the situation in the Upper, Middle, and Lower Rio Grande by Water Advocates Director Norm Gaume. 

The Double Life of Las Acequias de Placitas

October 7, 2026 Gillian GondaClimate Impact, Culture and Community

Irrigation season has long ended in the small village of Placitas, New Mexico, cut prematurely due to lack of water. Now its residents think about what might happen this winter—and what will happen next summer.

In Placitas, that question carries a distinct weight because the Placitas acequia leads an unusual double life. 

I grew up in Placitas and used to help irrigate as a child, watering the many fruit trees on our property using the village acequia system. Obviously much more than a ditch, an acequia is a communal water sharing system that binds a community, generates goodwill, communication among neighbors, and care of the whole. As a young girl, I didn’t really know anything about that, but I loved watching the water come down the ditches—sometimes I’d race it, watch it pool into the trees, and divert it from this ditch to that one. I ran around chasing water and eating whatever fresh fruit I could find. I also didn’t know that this water was doing more than giving me all the apricots I could eat.

Las Acequias de Placitas is one of only two or three hybrid acequia/domestic water systems in the state. It is fed by springs from the Sandia Mountains and is primarily an acequia for irrigation, but roughly 175 homes in the village also rely directly on the same springs and a piping network for their household water.

Leading a double life means carrying double the burden when drought strikes.

Due to a dry 2025-26 winter and very little snowpack—affecting all of the state, because aridification is here—the mountain springs on the north side of the Sandias that feed Las Acequias did not replenish enough. That is why the irrigation season had to end early, and why water had to be turned off daily for the village from 9 PM to 4 AM and again from 1 to 4 PM so the tanks could replenish. No joke. When there’s no water, there’s no water.

Managing a dual-purpose system like this is a LOT. There are only a few people on the board, and they have to track overuse, illegal use, and lack of payment, as well as constant communication during times of restriction. For a small community, it can certainly be a challenge. Learn more about this unique acequia from its current leadership in this video produced by Placitas resident and student Elliott Wessely that captures both the mechanics of the acequia and its vital role as a living tradition built on cooperation, shared responsibility, and community resilience in the face of ongoing drought. 

The author’s mother preparing for irrigation earlier this year.

Rain did finally arrive, bringing a lot of moisture all at once. The deluge arrived a tad too late for most of the fruit trees, but it was appreciated nonetheless. Any drop that touches this dry dirt matters. 

Were we ready?

Did we catch enough of that rainwater in barrels and cisterns to help supplement our watering, so we aren’t putting as much burden on a domestic system already stretched thin? In New Mexico, paying attention to how and when you use water NOW (and reducing your use when possible) will help prepare you for restrictions that aren’t a question of if, but when, as the residents of Placitas well know. Yet relying on individual actions and living year-to-year on the hope of a wet winter is not a solid plan. Hope can support us as we build resiliency, but hope is not water management.

What places like Placitas—and communities across our entire basin—desperately need is real, proactive water planning, focused on mitigating current and growing water scarcity statewide, at both the regional and state levels. We need our state agencies and regional water planning councils (once formed) to have the resources, hydrologic data, and funding in place so communities aren’t left scrambling in the dry years. When a system that feeds both orchards and kitchen sinks runs low, we shouldn’t have to guess what comes next. Having the resources and framework to know how to respond beforehand is how we protect our drinking water, agricultural water, and our culture.

Now, with the ditches still damp from recent rain, Placitas residents turn to the high crest of the Sandias. We wonder what this winter will bring, hoping for the best while knowing all too well what happens if the peaks stay bare. As lawmakers prepare for the upcoming legislative session, that hope turns toward the Roundhouse—that our leaders will finally step up and do the right thing by fully funding our state water planning efforts.

Gillian Gonda is a New Mexico Water Advocates board member and Apricot lover currently living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

 

By KAY MATTHEWS

The Carson National Forest is proposing a huge, forest management project on the Questa and Camino Real Ranger Districts called “Truchas to Upper Costilla Headwaters Active Management Project.” It includes 491,942 acres across all of the Questa district south to the village of Truchas on the south end of the Camino Real. The stated goal of the project is to restore a more natural fire regime to the landscape over a 10-year period.

It appears to be promulgated by two directives: the Enchanted Circle  Priority Landscape on the west side of the Sangre de Cristos that was listed as one of the 10 most threatened forest areas for catastrophic fire in the country; and “April 4, 2025 the Secretary of Agriculture determined that the Forest Service may carry out Authorized Emergency Actions under section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (PL 117-58) on National Forest System lands that are either, (1) rated as very high or high for wildfire risk or (2) experiencing declining forest health, at risk of experiencing substantially increased tree mortality over the next 15 years from insect and disease infestation, or contain hazard trees posing an imminent risk to public health, infrastructure, and safety.” This is the directive that causes worry under Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture for its potential use for more industrial logging in national forests.

Most of the people I’ve spoken with were unaware of the project until the Carson released the Draft Environmental Assessment (EA). Under Public Involvement in the EA it says that the Carson convened a group of stakeholders that “included State and County entities, Pueblos, two watershed-based groups, and the Philmont Scout Ranch.” This was the Enchanted Circle Treatment Mapping Work Group that met to identify shared forest treatment and restoration priorities. They reference the Appendix for more detailed information of the group’s work. Normally, before the Trump administration’s evisceration of the NEPA process (National Environmental Policy Act), the first step in the EA or EIS process is to send out a scoping letter to all its stakeholders with an outline of the proposed project soliciting input. This step seems to have been excluded in for this project. I’m not assailing the Enchanted Circle Treatment Mapping Work Group, that no doubt contributed informed input to the project, just questioning the process.

The EA includes maps that show the proposed areas for treatment. One map color codes them for forest type: mixed conifer, frequent fire; mixed conifer with aspen; montane/subalpine grassland; piñon juniper sage; piñon juniper woodland; ponderosa pine forest; riparian; sagebrush; sparsely vegetated; spruce fur forest. Another map then rates these designated areas with fuels treatment priorities. On the Questa District, with which I’m less familiar, there are several relatively small areas in first priority red, east of the village of Questa in mixed conifer with aspen and south in the piñon juniper sagebrush. On the Camino Real District, first priority is east of Taos near SH 64 in sagebrush scrubland, near Picuris Pueblo, along SH 518, and with most of the first priority in the southern part of the district in ponderosa pine.

Treatments will include a variety of types: hand or mechanical tree felling on slopes less that 40 percent; tree felling mainly by hand, on steep slopes followed by cable yarding; mechanical tree felling that will include harvesters and forwarders or tree-bunchers; hand thinning with material left for fuelwood gathering; and prescribed fire preparation that will include pruning of ladder fuels, tree thinning mastication, chipping, snag mitigation; and brush removal.

Prescribed fire will be used on 112,865 acres utilizing pile burning to remove slash or fuels created by forest thinning; jackpot (vegetative fuels) burning to remove surface fuels; and broadcast burning to apply fire across the broad area of a burn unit. Prescribed fire would continue over a long-time frame of over 10 years to mimick the natural fire intervals in each forest type. Total prescribed fire acres will vary widely year to year based on weather conditions, funding, and other factors.

There is much more in the EA on post-disturbance treatment, the transportation system, i.e., the use of existing roads, temporary roads, and new roads. If you have a special concern you can easily read through the first 30 pages of the EA to find the section that applies. There are community members who are opposed to the thinning and burning projects that have already occurred on the districts, so the thought of commercial logging probably raises some hackles. In one of the Action Alternatives that was rejected, the Forest Service argued that, following the guidelines of the Carson Forest Land Management Plan, most the of the material will be valued as fuelwood, while the larger timber can be milled for lumber or vigas. The value of larger trees can help offset the cost of proposed treatments, allow additional acres to be treated, and provide economic opportunity to local businesses.

The EA notes the forest restoration and wildland/urban interface projects that have already been implemented, many of which we’ve covered in La Jicarita: Las Trampas; Kiowa Sant Cristobal Wildland/Urban Interface; Pueblo Ridge; and McGaffey Ridge.  Community stewardship projects such as the leñero program could continue to achieve the purpose and need of the project. With the knowledge gained by the people who’ve been working in the forest, hopefully the Forest Service will actively seek their participation in on-the-ground decisions as to specific treatment areas and methods. The recently rejuvenated Tres Rios Watershed Coalition, which organized back in 2018 to promote restoration projects within the larger Embudo Valley watershed, recently recommended specific areas of concern in its comments on the EA. Hopefully other organizations or individuals can provide this on-the-ground feedback in the comments. In an article in the Taos News, Carson Forest Planner Peter Rich told the group that had gathered for a Taos Valley Watershed Coalition to discuss the Truchas to Costilla project: ” . . . the proposal is a ‘map of opportunities; it’s not a map of proposed projects.’ He said boundaries could change based on additional wildlife or archaeological surveys, as well as ‘based on who’s available to do the work and what capability people have, and then where we get money.’ The tools used to accomplish the desired outcome could vary, too, but ‘where we’re trying to get to doesn’t change.’”

Announcing our New Mexico premiere!

 

Dear friends,

After learning this weekend that burn, scar took home the “Best Documentary Feature” award at the Kansas City International Film Festival, we’re back with even more good news– burn, scar will have its New Mexico premiere at the Santa Fe International Film Festival on October 15th!

Tickets will go on sale 9/25 here; get yours before they’re gone!

We’ll be releasing a trailer for the film & announcing more local screenings in the next couple of weeks as well– stay tuned!

With deep appreciation and anticipation,

Hillary + the burn, scar team