Project Mgr. Gretchen Greene Presents Strategic Business Plan for Valles Caldera National Preserve
Cardno ENTRIX Project Manager Gretchen Greene and staff recently??presented a strategic business plan detailing revenue-enhancing projects for the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The 89,000-acre preserve, located in the Jemez Mountains, was purchased by the federal government from ranching interests in 2000. It was??established as an "experiment in land management" therefore it is up to a board of trustees, not a federal agency, to ensure the preserve becomes self-suppporting by the year 2015. Congress mandated public access to the preserve and the protection of natural resources.
Since the business plan's release, reporters were individually called into a Sante Fe office for a long-distance computer presentation by Cardno ENTRIX's project leaders. Many articles are now being published in newspapers and publications highlighting the challenges of the Valles Caldera National Preserve and possible activities and revenue-generating options that Cardno ENTRIX has proposed.
Article 1: Read full article online??at the Los Alamos Monitor.
Article 2: Read full article online at Sante Fe + New Mexican.com.
Article 3: Highlights below were taken from an article published in the Albuquerque Journal on 4-6-09.
Managers of the Valles Caldera National Preserve are considering introducing a number of money-making ventures from horseback rides and safari-style camps to new lodges, including one with high-end luxury rooms in an effort to meet a fast-approaching deadline to become financially self-sufficient.
A study set to be released today concludes that millions of dollars worth of infrastructure improvements and new services will likely be needed if the preserve is going to pay its future bills without the help of Washington. Congress currently provides about $3.5 million in funding annually, but that number is expected to fall to zero by 2015. As a result, the Trust is hurrying to get a long-term business plan in place. "We've been paddling pretty hard," board member Ed Tinsley said last week.
Experiment
From its inception, the Valles Caldera has been viewed as an experiment in public lands management. The federal government purchased the former Baca Ranch for $101 million in 2000. The ranch wasn't brought in as a national park or as part of one of the government's other land-holding divisions, in part to deal with ant-federal-lands sentiment in Congress. It's been up to a board of trustees not a federal agency to ensure that the preserve becomes self-supporting and continue as a "working ranch."
The report being released today was written by Cardno ENTRIX, Inc., an environmental consulting firm based in Vancouver, WA
One of the report's main findings is that the preserve likely won't turn a profit until it vastly improves its infrastructure to accommodate larger crowds, overnight guests and more services.
"Over the past six years, there have been interim programs introduced on the preserve at an aggressive pace," the report states. "Yet infrastructure development and maintenance is still desperately needed."
The report describes two alternative blueprints for the preserve to become self-sufficient in 2015.Trust spokesman Terry McDermott said the report outlines a number of "revenue opportunities" that could be incorporated into a future business plan. But nothing's final yet.
The report estimates that some $22.5 million in congressional appropriations and private donations would be required over the next 10 years for the facilities and other improvements to be completed under the first alternative. The other alternative requires about $17.5 million and focuses more on enhancing recreational opportunities, as well as new services and fundraising.
The preserve is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement detailing what sorts of activities, public access and facilities could be developed on the property. Officials say the review will hopefully put them well down the road towards breaking ground on various projects.The report being released today concludes that the preserve can meet the 2015 deadline to break even if the trust can get many of the new enterprises off the ground.
View Cardno ENTRIX's strategic business plan at
http://www.vallescaldera.gov/about/trust/docs/VCTRevenuePlan20090327.pdf??