Figuring Out Open Space

Santa Fe County to spend $150,000 on one firm to manage its open space problems

Santa Fe County is looking for a good company to figure out a long-term management plan for three of its open space properties, and it's willing to spend as much as $150,000 to get it all squared away by April next year.

Maria Lohman, the county's program manager for open space, tells SFR that request for proposals for bids have already gone out and that the county hopes to hire one firm to find a balance that makes the open space safe amid a natural backdrop that includes flooding and abandoned mines.

The three open spaces at issue are the Ortiz Mountains Educational Preserve and properties in Lamy and Madrid, just a fraction of land the county holds in its inventory. The Ortiz preserve, once managed by the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens, is now back in the county's hands and is probably the most difficult to manage because of the very rocky road that leads to the top of the 1,300-acre preserve.

It's often accessed by four-wheel-drive vehicles, a fact that led the Botanical Gardens, after seven years of giving tours there, to hand it back to the county over a fear of liability. It was move that has since left the county in somewhat of a bind, having to shutter the outdoor mining museum and only offer occasional tours up there.

The other pair of open spaces, with a combined 147 acres, aren't nearly as perilous, and yet the network of trails that crisscross through the town of Madrid on three different county properties raises concerns because the entire region is prone to flash flooding, not to mention the abandoned mines that are scattered throughout.

"Just a few years ago, we had a flooding event there," says Lohman. "The problem is the trails are social trails. They're used by the public, but some of them are not developed, so we've got to come up with a plan on how to maintain them as best we can."

Lohman says there are several companies that the county has worked with in the past on similar issues, although she could not say whether they would be the ones in the running for the job. They include Design Office, Ecotone, Conservation by Design and Surroundings.

"We're looking for whoever submits the best proposal," Lohman says, adding that the management plans, if all goes well, should be up and running by April, at which time it is hoped that the Ortiz Mountains Educational Preserve will be open to the public in some form and that everybody will get to hike amid the mining ruins.

Meantime, a pair of hikes of the preserve are already booked up for this Saturday and the following Friday. They're so popular that Lohman didn't even want to list the times for fear that people might just show up on their own.

She also thanked the dozens of docents who were disappointed in late spring when the Botanical Gardens stopped managing the property, leaving the site in limbo.

"Without the volunteer work of the docents," she says, "we never could have pulled these hikes off."

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