Bandelier Administrative History

During the 1970s and 1980s, the pressure on Bandelier National Monument from the matrix of interests on the Pajarito Plateau mounted greatly, and park managers found themselves in a difficult situation. The plans of neighbors of the park often threatened the ability of park managers to uphold their mandate. Superintendent John D. Hunter described his position when he addressed a town meeting that evaluated road development in nearby White Rock in June 1985. Bandelier, he told the audience, was "an island besieged by external threats." [1]

By the mid-1980s, Bandelier had become an outpost of preservation threatened by the needs of the world around it. Throughout the twentieth century, the Pajarito Plateau had been the focus of conflicting interests. As each constituent group, Government agency, and private interest laid claim to portions of the region and attempted to implement their programs, the amount of available open space diminished. What had been a snarl of assertions of needs became an impasse that resembled the gridlock of urban traffic. A situation emerged in which the gains of any group were counterbalanced by the losses of another one.

Changing perceptions of American society contributed to more aggressive vigilance on the part of the Park Service. Beginning in the 1960s, the conservation movement in the United States took a more holistic approach to preservation. Its concerns stretched beyond the protection of the park system into the beautification of ordinary landscapes. For the Park Service this translated into a concern for lands beyond the borders of park areas.

By the middle of the 1970s, the National Parks Association [later the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA)] and other groups that supported the park system had expressed concern for the lands surrounding park areas. In 1976, Director Gary E. Everhardt declared that the most severe threats the system faced were external. By 1980, this position had become an integral part of agency policy. Park Service documents such as the State of the Parks 1980 report to Congress focused on external threats such as commercial enterprises and industrial development outside park boundaries with the potential to affect park units. The Park Service began to develop ways to identify and counteract the broadening range of potential threats. The issue became prominent on the agenda of the agency, and individual park units stepped up responses to new threats. [2]

The combination of the new perception of threats and the tremendous pressure upon resources in the region demanded considerable attention from the staff at Bandelier. Protecting Park Service holdings meant more than preserving archeological ruins and wilderness values. Superintendent Hunter and his staff had to track the plans of Federal agencies, private companies, and other interest groups and assess the manner in which their implementation could affect Bandelier. As elsewhere in the park system, encroachment on surrounding scenic vistas, noise pollution, the threat of acid rain, damage from sulfur dioxide emissions, and other similar concerns spurred active response from the administration at Bandelier National Monument.

On the Pajarito Plateau, myriad interests posed problems. The demands of the growing population of Los Alamos meant impingement on the values of the park. The various Federal agencies in the area, most notably the Department of Energy [DOE] and the United States Forest Service [USFS until the late 1970s, when it changed its name to USDA Forest Service], had objectives that often conflicted with those of the Park Service. Native American groups also exerted influence, as did private land owners and industrial concerns that sought to develop the economic potential of natural resources in the area. By the middle of the 1980s, the administration of Bandelier found itself in the vortex of a whirlpool of competing interests, each of which had the ability to affect the future of the resources preserved within park boundaries.

The people who lived in the town of Los Alamos were both the source of many of the threats to the park and the most vocal supporters of preservation efforts. The needs of the community put considerable pressure on the resources of the plateau and the park. But the highly educated, civic-minded citizens of the town also valued the beauty of Bandelier and its environs and consistently sought to protect the aesthetic and cultural values of the area as their community grew.

This internal conflict in Los Alamos often produced paradoxical situations. Los Alamos had a unique timbrè of life, a style all its own. Yet its individuality grew out of conflicting factors. Los Alamos was an enclave of scientific America located in a more traditional world. The average level of education in the community was unusually high. The relative inaccessibility of the town and its outdoor-oriented culture contributed to the dissatisfaction many residents felt about the comparatively few cultural amenities available in Los Alamos County. The long commuting time between "the Hill" and Santa Fe also frustrated local residents. Social change and development offered the promise of new experience while simultaneously threatening to destroy the insular world of Los Alamos.

Little was new about the nature of this conflict over the use of space. Again, the people of the Pajarito Plateau faced the classic conflict of incommensurable values. They had to weigh the relative merits of the tangible and intangible benefits each change might bring. A number of interest groups had plans for the limited space available on the plateau and deciding which use would take priority involved an intricate tangle of public, private, aesthetic, economic, and quality of life issues.

The question of the development of the old Girl Scout retreat called Camp Evergreen or Westgate, a fifty-acre tract opposite Apache Springs in the Jemez Mountains, at the outset of the 1980s typified the nature of the problems within the community and the threats the growth of Los Alamos presented to Bandelier National Monument. As the population of the Pajarito Plateau grew, so did the demands upon the limited space of the region. New residents needed housing, utilities, sewerage, and other services. As the area available for development in and around Los Alamos diminished, remaining sections attracted the attention of everyone on the plateau—from potential developers to the Park Service and the Forest Service.

Camp Evergreen had a history of recreational use. In 1967, the Sangre de Cristo Girl Scout Council acquired the tract from the AEC and used the two structures on the property as the basis for a summer camp and retreat. In the ensuing decade, vandalism increased considerably. Buildings on the property were burglarized, vandals destroyed fences and latrines, and the leaders of the Girl Scouts worried about the safety of their charges. They made plans to sell the tract, surmising that it held promise for small-scale development. [3]

A prime piece of land on the Pajarito Plateau rarely appeared on the market. Just as the Park Service became aware that the land was for sale, a buyer purchased it. In October 1980, John Umbarger, a LANL employee, and his wife Kathy, Dennis and Linda Perry, and Larry and Sandy Luck delivered a down payment of $25,000 out of a total selling price of $275,000. Calling themselves Westgate Families, the partners planned a high-density development in the area. They sought to rezone the tract to accommodate their desires. [4]

The Park Service responded quickly to the challenge of a new "Bandelier Acres" subdevelopment. The regional office devised a strategy that included contact with the national offices of Girl Scouts of America and efforts to work with state and local Government to restrict uses of the land. The suggestion that the Park Service purchase the land with donated funds also arose. On December 22, 1980, Superintendent Hunter met with Umbarger, who had become the spokesman for Westgate Families, to review the plans to develop the Camp Evergreen property. Hunter expressed his concerns, which included the impact of more intensive use of an area of the monument that had previously received little visitation, increased threat of fire that a larger number of visitors posed, the interruption of the existing fire management plan, problems resulting from utility service, and noise and visual pollution brought on by the development. Despite the number of concerns, however, Hunter told Umbarger that the Park Service "had no real grounds to oppose [either] the rezoning or the project." Since the land fell outside of park boundaries, Hunter believed that agency policy prevented vigorous opposition. [5]

Umbarger and his partners carried their project forward. On January 14, 1981, they asked the Los Alamos County Planning and Zoning Commission to rezone the fifty-acre tract from W-2, wilderness and recreation status, to 13.2 acres of residential and agricultural, and 36.6 acres of planned development at 3.5 units per acre. The county commission scheduled public hearings on the issue.

The people of Los Alamos were upset by the idea of the development. Although Linda Perry remarked that the owners wanted to "preserve the integrity of the area," local residents were suspicious of their plans. The sale of the Camp Evergreen property also affected the plans of the Los Alamos Ski Club to engineer an exchange of land with the Forest Service to expand its ski runs. At the suggestion of the USFS, the skiers had purchased a 40-acre tract of wilderness along the Jemez River in the hopes that its value would equal that of a 150-acre parcel of national forest land the skiers coveted. But the $275,000 price of Camp Evergreen had driven up the value of land on the plateau, and a new appraisal of the relative worth of the two tracts left the skiers with a shortfall of approximately $350,000 in the proposed swap. This inadvertent complication by the Westgate Families in a matter of considerable local interest inspired antipathy towards the development, and the editorial page of the Los Alamos Monitor filled with anti-Westgate letters. [6]

The staff at Bandelier viewed the developments with interest and concern. Hunter reported that the "issue [was] heating up" and that people from Los Alamos requested more visible involvement on the part of the Park Service. "Some," he wrote regional director Robert Kerr, "are quite perplexed by our lack of involvement." Even Hunter's public articulation of the stance of the Park Service did not stem the requests for more action.

The issue aroused much interest in Los Alamos, and local people took the lead in opposing the project. At a time when the leadership of the Department of the Interior unequivocably favored the development of public land in the West, Hunter and the regional office kept a low profile as Westgate became the most important local development issue of 1981. After considerable public scuffling and a number of legal challenges to the process by Westgate Families, the rezoning issue landed on a referendum ballot.

On June 30, 1981, the public turned back the zoning changes for the Westgate tract. Each of the three ballot issues failed by an average of about four percent of a total of 5,200 votes. The vote effectively terminated the development planned by Westgate Families. [7] During the following years, the community of Los Alamos battled over the development. The staff at Bandelier monitored it closely, but little fell within the realm of agency actions.

Westgate continued to pose a threat to the park. Westgate Families continued to press its case, and over time, won concessions from both the city and the county. In August 1984, the tract cleared the final zoning hurdle, and the county permitted a density of 3.5 units per acre over the entire fifty- acre tract. The owners announced that they would initiate studies to determine the most appropriate use of the land, and hoped to begin construction during the following building season, the spring of 1985. But after they received final clearance for utilities on the tract, Westgate Families sold the tract to Paul Parker, a local developer. The Forest Service sought to acquire the tract by an exchange of land, and Parker held up his plans to see what the foresters would offer. Throughout 1986, the USDA Forest Service searched for an appropriate tract to exchange, but found none. Parker remained patient. By late 1986, he had not begun to build. [8]

Yet the primary issue, reconciling the needs of the Los Alamos community with those of its neighbors on the plateau, remained. Los Alamos County would grow, and to a certain degree, the Park Service remained defenseless against such growth. In the 1980s, its best defense against impingement was to ensure use of the park by the local community. With Bandelier as a visible asset to the unique lifestyle of Los Alamos, the Park Service could rely on local people to point out the sensitivity of the values of the park and resist efforts that threatened to destroy the unique character of the region.

Interest in a new road from Santa Fe to the plateau area also pitted progress against protection of the region. New Mexico Highway 4 provided the only access from Santa Fe to the plateau. From Pojoaque to the Rio Grande, the road was only two lanes; from the river to the Los Alamos "Y", only three. As commuting to Los Alamos became standard for many of the employees of the various facilities there, congestion on the road increased. The thirteen-mile trip from the "Y" to the four-lane U.S. 84/285 often turned into thirty-five minutes of "stop-and-go" traffic. Local wags who worked on the hill referred to their trek as the "Frijoles 500." Particularly in the evenings, bumper-to-bumper traffic down to the valleys became the rule. For the people who sought easier travel to the Pajarito Plateau, a new and shorter road had considerable allure.

The idea of a direct route from Santa Fe to the plateau was not an innovation. Earlier roads to the region were the result of specific enterprises. Most were built without the benefit of road grading equipment and other technological innovations of the twentieth century. They were often roundabout routes that went from one specific feature to another. From before the arrival of the Park Service at Bandelier, advocates clamored for a direct road from Santa Fe.

The original modern road to the plateau that Harry Buckman built to facilitate his timber cutting wound up White Rock Canyon. It stretched from the town of Buckman on the east side of the Rio' Grande in Cañada Ancha to the Buckman sawmills in Water Canyon. Early travelers to the monument followed its course. In 1912, the road was extended from Water Canyon to the north rim of Frijoles Canyon. After the demise of the post office in the town of Buckman during the early 1920s, the Los Alamos Ranch School received its mail at Otowi Crossing, and the emphasis shifted away from the trail that Buckman constructed. The school received an easement from the Forest Service to build a road between the crossing and the school, and soon there were two ways to take an automobile to the Pajarito Plateau. The Ranch School road was the antecedent of New Mexico Highway 4 that began in Pojoaque and finished at the Ranch School. Yet both roads were unpaved, cumbersome, and rutted, and often discouraged travel to the region. [9]

When the Park Service made efforts to acquire Bandelier National Monument from the Forest Service during the late 1920s, NPS officials perceived that new road facilities would increase the number of visitors to the monument. The roundabout trip across the Otowi Bridge encouraged sentiment for a shorter route between Santa Fe and the plateau. During the early 1930s, Jesse Nusbaum reported that the construction of a direct road from Santa Fe to the vicinity of Bandelier had become a strong likelihood. Nusbaum suggested that its path might follow the old Buckman road, eliminating a number of miles from the Otowi Crossing-Ranch School route and shortening the trip to Frijoles Canyon. Persistent rumors were all that ever came of this effort. [10]

The creation of Los Alamos also affected the chances of a road. The military cut its own road, which became known as the Los Alamos spur or truck road, through the Otowi section. While the coming of the Los Alamos facility brought substantial capital development to the plateau, the secrecy associated with it considerably dimmed prospects for a public road. During and after the Second World War, the Los Alamos facilities were top secret, with a manned security gate. Officials wanted to make access to the area as difficult as possible. The 54,000+ acres that Los Alamos controlled limited the range of possible locations for any additional roads. But as traffic congestion on New Mexico Highway 4 increased during the 1960s and 1970s, so did rumors of the imminent construction of a new road.

In the early 1980s, the New Mexico State Highway Department studied the issue and found three routes from Santa Fe to the Los Alamos area that merited additional study. The southernmost of these, called the Montoso Peak route, proposed a 2,900-foot bridge across the Rio' Grande that would join the existing Highway 4 at Los Alamos Technical Area-33 [TA-33], adjacent to the northeast boundary of the monument. The middle route, the Potrillo alternate, would meet the existing Highway 4 loop south of the town of White Rock, while the northernmost route, titled the Buckman road, roughly followed its namesake from the turn of the century and passed between the detached Tsankawi section of the monument and the town of White Rock.

From the point of view of the highway department, the shorter distance of any of the three routes offered the major advantage. From the intersection of Diamond and Trinity Drive in Los Alamos to the Cerillos-Airport Road interchange in Santa Fe, the existing Highway 4 route covered thirty-nine miles. The Montoso Peak alternative cut that to thirty-two miles, while both the Potrillo and Buckman Road proposals measured twenty- seven miles.

The proposals offered other benefits besides decreased distance. The New Mexico Highway Department suggested that any of the options would provide easier access to recreational areas like Bandelier and that the reduction of traffic congestion would make both the new road and its predecessor more safe. The new options also allowed the Los Alamos facility to avoid a number of winding roads in populated areas while it transported hazardous waste. Yet the project seemed likely to divert business from concerns along Highway 84/285, and the question of air, noise, and sight pollution merited consideration. [11]

Two of the three routes posed difficulties for the staff at Bandelier National Monument. The proximity of the Montoso Peak route to the main section of Bandelier presented a major threat to the resources of the park. TA-33 adjoined the monument. From any high point in the monument, a visitor could easily see the planned 2,900-foot bridge. The noise and pollution from automobile traffic would make portions of Bandelier into a freeway rather than a park, an impression enhanced by a proposed widening of the part of the Highway 4 loop that crossed Bandelier. The construction of the Montoso Peak road also indicated an increase in visitation at the already overcrowded Frijoles Canyon. Superintendent Hunter viewed the proposal "with some alarm." [12]

The Buckman Road proposal also made the Park Service wary. It passed close to the detached Tsankawi section, already an island amid the noise of the modern world, and Hunter feared that a road that close to the area with the anticipated volume of traffic "would destroy all the park values and reduce the area to (little more than) a significant archeological site for scientific study." [13]

Nor did the Park Service offer the only opinion on the question of the new road. The Forest Service expressed its concern about the location of the Montoso Peak route. The proposal divided national forest lands into two distinct parcels, a situation that did not suit Santa Fe National Forest Supervisor Maynard T. Rost. It also passed directly through the Caja [Del Rio Grant] Wild Horse Territory, separating approximately 1000 acres from the remainder of the designated area. Rost worried that the road would encourage people to use an area largely reserved for feral animals and that some kinds of new use might not be appropriate. [14]

Residents of White Rock held a different view. The one alternative that the Park and Forest Services did not protest, the Potrillo route, did not please townspeople. Many thought it would bring too much traffic into their small community, adding a variety of hazards to their lives. Most agreed that the new road was a necessity, but from the local point of view, a route north of White Rock offered the best alternative. [15]

The interests of the Park Service, the Forest Service, and many of the people of White Rock were at odds. The Park Service sought to protect the values of the monument, and a road that impinged on either the main portion or the detached Tsankawi section was unacceptable. The foresters also had obligations to fulfill. The people of White Rock wanted the advantages of shorter travel time to Santa Fe, but did not want their community turned into a freeway exit. Resolution of the differing points of view would require compromise and in all likelihood, a degree of dissatisfaction on all sides.

During the fall and winter of 1985-86, public support for the road grew in Los Alamos County. Petitions in favor of the road circulated, and some businesses, including the Los Alamos Credit Union, allowed advocates of the road to place their petitions on the premises. Local residents overwhelmingly believed that in the near future they would need the road. Although the issue had not been resolved by the end of 1986, the prospect of a new road loomed large.

Many advocates did not appear to have considered the long- term consequences of an additional route to Los Alamos. Seduced by the convenience of a shorter road to Santa Fe, they failed to see that the new road could have a profound effect on life on "the Hill." The culture of Los Alamos was predicated upon its isolation. With only one viable way both in to and out of the community, it remained a sheltered, isolated place. Those who valued the quality of life above all else suggested that the shorter travel distance would affect that reality. The tight- knit feeling of community that characterized Los Alamos was a likely casualty. The desirability of real estate in Los Alamos County would decrease, as a result, increases in property values would presumably slow. The social problems that were endemic throughout the nation seemed likely to become more evident in Los Alamos. "They don't know what they have up there," one long-time resident of the plateau growled, "but they sure won't like it when it changes."

The plans of other Federal agencies often posed threats to Bandelier National Monument. The Park Service shared the Pajarito Plateau with the U.S. Department of Energy and the USDA Forest Service. The plans of these agencies created issues that threatened the park. The Department of Energy (DOE) was the most powerful of the three. While generally a model neighbor, the DOE sometimes acted as if it was the only entity on the Pajarito Plateau. As the agency responsible for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the DOE wielded tremendous power in the region.

In the late 1970s, one of its many projects, a joint venture with Public Service Company of New Mexico [PNM] and Union Geothermal Company of New Mexico, presented a complicated matrix of problems for the Park Service. The three entities agreed to develop a 50-megawatt demonstration geothermal plant in order to illustrate "the reliability, economic feasibility, and environmental acceptability of generating electricity from a hot water source." Union Oil of California, the parent company of Union Geothermal, already held a lease for the geothermal rights to the Baca Location, and the companies decided to locate the project near Redondo Creek in the southwestern corner of the Baca, about twenty miles from Los Alamos and sixty from Albuquerque. [16]

The administration at Bandelier responded to the threat. The construction of the plant presented traditional problems: the Park Service recognized that noise, increased traffic, and other similar effects were likely results. The three sponsoring entities wielded significant power in New Mexico, and NPS officials wondered how sensitive they would be to the concerns of the agency. On private land, the companies faced fewer strictures than they did on Government land, and the DOE had a track record that dated from the 1940s of paying only lip service to NPS complaints. The Park Service could only request that the planners respect park values; it had little power to compel either James P. (Pat) Dunigan, the owner of the Baca Location, or the DOE, PNM, and Union Geothermal. A third major concern, the possibility of emissions of sulfur dioxide and the resultant potential for acid rain, also concerned the NPS. The transmission of power from the plant posed another kind of threat to Bandelier. The power from the proposed plant was to be transported to Technical Area-3 [TA-3] in Los Alamos, about two miles north of the Ponderosa campground. PNM and the DOE surveyed a number of possible routes from Redondo Creek to TA-3, but with strictures imposed by Pat Dunigan, they focused on routes that approached Los Alamos from the southwest.

The alternative they preferred crossed Bandelier National Monument, leaving the Park Service in a difficult position. Dunigan favored a route that went south from Redondo Creek across the Santa Fe National Forest and the monument and approached TA-3 from the southwest. He wanted to protect both the aesthetic value of his land and its grazing capabilities. From the perspective of PNM, the southern route had additional advantages. Much of the geothermal capability of the Jemez region centered around the Redondo Creek area. PNM officials believed that when new sources of power generation materialized, the route through Bandelier would prove safest and most economical. The cost of power line averaged $100,000 per mile, and the eighteen-mile route through Bandelier offered the shortest alternative. Beginning in November 1978, PNM explored the possibility of a right-of-way through Bandelier. [17]

From the point of view of the Park Service, the reasoning of PNM was specious. Although PNM claimed to have tried to "avoid as much environmental and visual impact as possible" when they considered routing alternatives, NPS officials felt that PNM ignored their concerns. The Park Service termed the proposed route the most environmentally damaging of the options. PNM's idea of significant values differed from that of the Park Service; among the advantages of the Bandelier route that PNM cited was that "the sensitive Pajarito Mountain Ski Area and the City of Los Alamos" could not see the transmission lines. [18] Park Service people sensed that PNM sought the path of least resistance, recommending routes based on a principle of inverted opposition. The most desirable routes to PNM were those that imposed on the least powerful constituencies. From PNM's point of view, the NPS and the USDA Forest Service were the least powerful entities on the Pajarito Plateau.

Park Service officials sought to counter this direct threat to the monument. Domestic energy sources were a primary national concern in the mid 1970s, and geothermal power offered a "clean," non-polluting alternative. Most environmental groups supported the principle of power sources that did not pollute the environment and could not protest too vociferously without risking a label of extremism. This limited the effectiveness of the usual cadre of NPS supporters. Park Service officials also worried about resisting; they feared that Congress and others would perceive the NPS position as obstructionist. Yet the agency needed a clearly defined position as soon as possible. Regional officials feared that if they delayed, the DOE and PNM would go over their heads to the Department of the Interior, and the Park Service would have little say in the final citing of the transmission line. [19]

If it chose to oppose the corridor, the Park Service had sixty-five years of congressionally established mandate to support its decision. Denying permission was "consistent with the mission of the Service as it relates to the protection of park lands and associated resources," an NPS briefing document on the question noted. Park Service policy also supported a decision to deny permission, as did its stated rationale for acquiring the headwaters section in 1976. The suggestion of multiple power lines across the monument in the future posed an even greater long-term threat to protection of the monument. In 1915, the president reserved the land within Bandelier National Monument for specific purposes, and conveying electrical power was not one of them. Even more importantly, capitulation on the Pajarito Plateau might weaken the resistance of the Park Service in similar cases at other park areas.

In the view of the Southwest Regional Office, PNM seemed "reluctant to fully explore" other possibilities. The Park Service viewed the Environmental Impact Statement for the project as an incomplete document that did not accurately reflect the impact of the transmission lines or the range of alternatives available to PNM. The Jemez Valley offered a solid option, but PNM expressed little interest. When PNM announced that the visual impact of the transmission line in the valley offered one reason for the recommendation of the other route, Park Service officials suspected that opposition by owners of summer homes in the area and the fact that the Jemez route crossed land belonging to Native Americans accounted for the sudden sensitivity of PNM. [20]

The Park Service held its ground against the proposed transmission line. After the agency reviewed the preliminary environmental analysis of the project, Wayne B. Cone, the Acting Regional Director of the Southwest Region, informed Ray Brechbill of the Department of Energy that "the proposed transmission line fails to meet any of the required conditions that would allow [the NPS] to grant a right-of-way for a corridor in an area of the National Park Service." [21] The highest echelons of the National Park Service supported the decision of the regional office.

The Park Service also recommended against building the power transmission line across the Valles Caldera, the central valley area of the Baca Location. The area had become a national natural landmark in 1962, and the Park Service hoped to purchase the entire location and convert Bandelier National Monument and the additional area into a national park. Ira J. Hutchison, Deputy Director and the Acting Director of the National Park Service, informed Union Oil of the objections of the Park Service. Hutchison recommended to the Department of the Interior that it suggest that the Department of Energy not support development of geothermal energy on the Baca Location. [22]

The project died for reasons other than the resistance of the NPS. The geothermal reserves of Redondo Creek simply did not generate enough power to make the project economically feasible. In the face of NPS resistance and marginal production potential, PNM and the DOE relented. They capped the well at Redondo Creek and terminated the project.

But at Fenton Hill, about twenty miles west of Los Alamos in the Jemez Mountains, the DOE initiated another test site. Instead of trying to harness naturally produced steam, the DOE drilled deep holes to hot dry rock formations deep below the surface. Under pressure, cold water was pumped into the holes, creating steam as it came in contact with the rock. A pressure system forced the steam up another hole, where it drove a turbine. In 1986, the plant produced a portion of the power the communities of the Jemez required, and Fenton Hill remained the extent of DOE involvement in geothermal excavation in the vicinity of Bandelier. [23]

But the Redondo Creek plant had a long-term ramification. The final Environmental Impact Statement for the Geothermal Demonstration program in the Baca included provisions for the construction of a new 345-kilovolt powerline to Los Alamos. When the program died, PNM looked at other alternatives for power transmission corridors. In 1985, the Ojo Line Extension program became another in a seemingly endless series of threats to Bandelier National Monument.

PNM had other reasons for interest in the line extension. Early in the 1970s, PNM and Plains Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative (PG&T) determined that they needed to expand the 345-kilovolt transmission system to meet the increasing demand of northern New Mexico. Originally, the two companies planned a line from the Ojo Caliente Station to Norton Station, between Santa Fe and Los Alamos, and on to the Bernalillo-Algodones Station outside of Albuquerque. The prospect of a geothermal plant whetted the appetite of the two power companies. By the early 1980s, they believed that they could wait no longer to begin the new transmission line and installed a 345-kilovolt line between the Bernaliilo-Algodones and Norton locations. To serve the needs of northern New Mexico including Los Alamos County, the companies believed they needed an additional line. [24]

Two possible routes for the extension of the Ojo line existed. One followed the path of the earlier line through the Española Valley to the Norton Station and bent back north toward Los Alamos at a forty-five degree angle. The other bypassed the Ojo Station, departing from Coyote directly across the Jemez Mountains toward Los Alamos. From there it would continue to the Norton Station in a direct line that grazed the southern tip of White Rock.

Each proposal had advocates and detractors, and a power struggle ensued. Initially the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Park Service, the Forest Service, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, the Sierra Club, and a local environmental group, Save the Jemez, all favored the valley route. The DOE, LANL, and Los Alamos County favored the mountain route. The two sides quickly became polarized. [25]

Concerns about the mountain route focused on the environmental impact of the transmission line. The project included power transmission structures that were the equivalent of thirteen stories high, a serious threat to the aesthetic values of the Jemez Mountains. The line would also affect archeological sites and the "ecological coherence" of the mountains and would perhaps infringe upon the rights of Native Americans to visit religious shrines in the Jemez. The valley already had one high voltage power line argued activists such as Tom Ribe, a local freelance writer who also volunteered at the monument. Combining the lines would spare thousands of acres of mountain wildland. The Park Service concurred, suggesting that the Coyote-Los Alamos route would require the clearing of too much vegetation and would present a threat to the extensive concentrations of archeological sites along the corridor. [26]

In contrast, the DOE, LANL, and Los Alamos County presented economic and technical reasons for favoring the mountain route. The shorter distance between Coyote and Los Alamos made that route a desirable option for Los Alamos. Although their reasons for the mountain route were less compelling than those of their opponents, the DOE and LANL wielded considerable power. Some thought that they would prevail no matter what kind of resistance arose.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the project aroused the opponents of the mountain route. The Park and Forest Services took the lead, with James Overbay, the acting regional forester, informing BIA that the studies of PNM lacked objectivity. The Park Service echoed many of the concerns of the USDA Forest Service, while environmental groups wondered if the project was really necessary. Some contended that the DEIS rejected viable alternatives for no reason. Others believed that the entire proposal was the result of faulty strategy on the part of PNM. Everyone expected that the final EIS would offer a more balanced perspective. [27]

When the final EIS appeared in August 1986, critics of the mountain route were outraged. The final copy barely addressed the concerns of the opponents. Superintendent John Hunter labeled it "an absolute disaster," and other opponents of the project loudly expressed their disapproval. After an interlude, the State of New Mexico filed a suit against the mountain route. Early in 1987, opponents were optimistic about their chances to defeat the proposal. "I think it's going to be beat," one remarked in February of that year. [28]

The DOE and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) projects also threatened the monument. Since the 1940s, the needs of Los Alamos had dominated the Pajarito Plateau. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the subsequent initiation of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, the defensive missile shield proposal of the 1980s, made LANL even more significant, for Federal scientific organizations were expected to handle much of the research in the so-called "Star Wars" program. Its importance and power made the DOE less sensitive to the concerns of other agencies in the region, and during the middle of the 1980s, the department planned a number of projects that would have serious consequences for Bandelier National Monument.

The two most evident of these were the Overblast Program, designed to test the effect of artillery on human hearing, and a proposed firing range near Tsankawi in Los Alamos Canyon. These two cases revealed the difficulty of maintaining preservation values in proximity to a powerful entity that often saw its objectives as the only valid ones in the area. Both the projects were well into the planning stages when DOE officials first contacted the park. In May and June, 1985, the DOE area office in Los Alamos briefed Superintendent John D. Hunter and Chief Ranger Kevin McKibbin on the two projects. Hunter and McKibbin again explained the position of the Park Service and requested documents that explained the environmental impact of the project. [29]

The implications of the two projects were vast. The Overblast Project was scheduled for Technical Area-49, located on the northern boundary of the monument about two miles east of the Ponderosa campground in the Upper Canyon area. The program would include between thirty and one hundred explosive blasts during regular work hours each weekday for a period of up to three years. The DOE hoped to initiate the program by August 1985. Its proximity to the park meant that the noise from repeated explosions would be audible across Frijoles Mesa, at the Ponderosa campground, and most likely in Frijoles Canyon. The proposed firing range in Los Alamos Canyon would be visible from Tsankawi Mesa, and even though the shooting would be directed away from the detached area, anyone on the mesa would hear the sound of gunfire.

From the point of view of the Bandelier administration, the projects threatened the values of the park, but Los Alamos officials did not seem to understand their concern. The DOE and the Park Service brought different value systems to the question, and communicating the perspective of the Park Service became difficult. Engineers could not quantify intangible values. Without a clear understanding of such ideas, DOE tended to ignore the merits of the position of the Park Service. "How do you explain what a tranquil setting is in scientific terms?" a weary John Hunter asked Robert Kerr, the Regional Director of the Southwest Region, as he explained the difficulties in communicating with Los Alamos personnel. [30]

Despite persistent efforts by the Park Service to influence its procedure, the DOE continued with little concern for park values. Although park and regional office staff members repeatedly offered to cooperate to ensure an equitable solution, the DOE ignored them. When Park Service evidence showed that the noise would be audible on Frijoles Mesa, where the majority of monument employees lived, Harold Valencia, the Area Manager for the DOE at Los Alamos, informed Kerr that he was "confident that there will be no health and safety hazards at Bandelier from noise associated with the . . . project." The Park Service had suggested a number of alternative locations; Valencia categorically ruled out other possible locales. [31]

The two organizations were locked in a conflict of incommensurable values. To a degree, their perspectives were mutually exclusive. The Park Service showed the aesthetic merits of the peace and serenity of Bandelier; the cold logic of the DOE could not figure such intangible concepts into its quantitative analysis. DOE officials measured the noise within the park and found that it fell within the range their graphs designated as acceptable. Yet to the Park Service, levels acceptable to the DOE presented a clear nuisance. The DOE simply ignored challenges to its position and proceeded. A power struggle emerged. Because of its vast influence, the DOE looked like an easy victor. [32]

But the DOE had not considered the effects of public opinion. In November 1985, Tom Ribe, who had challenged the mountain route of the Ojo Line Extension, published similar articles detailing the struggle between Bandelier and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in both the High Country News and Santa Fe New Mexican. LANL officials made a number of insensitive comments to Ribe. When referring to the noise levels of the project, one official, Don Peterson remarked that "most of our critics wouldn't know a decibel if they tripped over one." This callous attitude awakened preservationist sentiment in Los Alamos and Santa Fe, prompting an editorial against the project in the New Mexican. Sandi Doughton-Evans of the local newspaper, the Los Alamos Monitor, also began to pursue the story. On November 14, 1985, Hunter reported that conservation groups had begun to respond to the threat and "things (were) heating up." When NPS Director William Penn Mott came to Bandelier that month, he added his voice to the opposition to both projects. [33]

Over the ensuing months, the issue generated so much interest that the DOE changed its plans. By February 1986, LANL had aborted both the Overblast Project and the firing range near Tsankawi. Park Service people rejoiced. "We did it," trumpeted a memo from Janet E. Schmitt, an Environmental Specialist in the Division of Environmental Coordination who played an important part in shaping the response of the agency, to Bandelier Superintendent John Hunter. Russell D. Butcher, the Southwestern and California representative for the National Parks and Conservation Association, found the success "amazing! We are thrilled," he wrote Hunter at the monument. [34] Indeed, carrying a policy debate to the public offered the Park Service a powerful weapon with which to resist the occasional insensitivity of the DOE.

Other Federal agencies in the region also initiated programs that affected Bandelier, and the USDA Forest Service often collided with the NPS. The roots of conflict between the two agencies dated back to the founding of the Park Service in 1916, and relations on the Pajarito Plateau could rarely have been characterized as friendly. The Park Service regularly sought Forest Service land to expand, and the foresters consistently opposed NPS efforts. After 1960, however, relations became cordial, and the two agencies cooperated with some regularity as they pursued often antithetical missions. The values and cultures of the two agencies dramatically differed, and each side viewed the other with considerable mistrust.

The Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE I & II) processes of the 1970s clearly revealed the difference in perspective between the Park and Forest Services. RARE I, the initial stage in evaluating national forest land for inclusion in the national wilderness system under the terms of the Wilderness Act of 1964, began in 1973, but it was an incomplete, slow process that frustrated both preservation advocates and those who wanted to develop national forest land. In 1977, the Forest Service came out with the RARE II proposal, designed to speed up the review process and include all national forest land in the U.S. [35]

Although a solid idea in principle, the implementation of RARE II offended wilderness advocates in the West. The emphasis of the Forest Service on multiple-use—the doctrine of balancing a number of different kinds of uses of national forest land— angered the wilderness community, as did the quantitative nature of the assessment of roadless areas. The Forest Service proposed a formula that assigned numeric values in each of four categories to each roadless tract of more than 5,000 acres. On that basis, the Forest Service compared the areas and placed them in one of three categories: instant wilderness, further review, or unsuited for wilderness designation.

Despite the efforts of the Forest Service to involve the public, wilderness advocates found the process unsatisfactory. From the perspective of organizations like the New Mexico Wilderness Study Committee, the term "multiple-use" was a euphemism for development. Environmentalists believed that the RARE II process was designed to move quickly in order to placate development interests, and the quantitative measurement system was a threat to any equitable assessment of the aesthetic value of wild land. [36]

The Park Service favored the goals of RARE II, but believed that the selection process was cumbersome and ineffective. Additional wilderness areas fit the objectives of the Park Service. But in the Southwest, where relations remained rancorous, numerous problems grew out of the evaluation process. The two agencies perceived differing qualities of the same tracts of land. [37]

The Forest Service reviewed two areas of the Santa Fe National Forest adjacent to Bandelier—the St. Peter's Dome area west of the Bandelier wilderness and the Caja del Rio area, east of the Rio' Grande—for possible inclusion in the national wilderness system. From the point of view of the Park Service and the pro-wilderness community, the areas offered important additions to the wilderness area already enclosed in the monument. The New Mexico Wilderness Committee strongly advocated a recommendation of instant wilderness for both.

In contrast, the wilderness values of the areas did not impress the Forest Service. "Wood-hauler rut roads" crisscrossed the Caja del Rio section, and the "high water level" of Cochiti Dam separated it from the Bandelier wilderness. The Forest Service valued the wild character of the Dome section even less. Of the fourteen areas within the Santa Fe National Forest assessed by the quantitative formula, the Dome section rated the lowest. [38]

Again the values of the two agencies differed. While the aesthetic qualities of the two areas did not meet the criteria of the Forest Service, the Park Service saw these two areas as logical extensions of the established wilderness within the monument. The designation of the area surrounding the park as wilderness had the added benefit of offering additional protection for the area within park boundaries. It guaranteed that the wilderness area within the monument would not be damaged by the development of its watershed.

In June 1978, the Park Service received the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for RARE II from the Forest Service, and made its comments. Despite the negative appraisals, the draft document included two areas adjacent to Bandelier: the 15,000-acre Dome tract and the 9,000-acre Caja area. John Hunter indicated that the inclusion of both tracts in designated wilderness areas would benefit the wilderness within the monument. [39]

When the final Forest Service RARE II plan emerged in early 1979, the regional office of the Park Service and the administration at Bandelier were both unhappy with the results. The Forest Service proposed the designation of only 6,000 acres of the Dome area as wilderness, slicing seventy-five percent of the total wilderness acreage near Bandelier recommended in the draft proposal. The decision of the Forest Service did little to reconcile the differences between Federal agencies on the Pajarito Plateau.

RARE II also displeased the environmental movement and its followers. Earlier in the process, a coalition of the most important conservation and environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the National Audubon Society recommended wilderness designation for thirty-six million of the sixty-two million acres reviewed by the Forest Service. The final proposal of the USDA Forest Service included the designation of slightly more than fifteen million acres, less than one fourth of the acreage reviewed. The coalition pronounced the proposal "an acute disappointment." [40]

The question of timber sales on land adjacent to Bandelier offered another classic forum for conflict between the Park and Forest Services. RARE II complicated the relationship between the two agencies on the Pajarito Plateau; the suggestion that the Forest Service convert areas adjacent to the monument into designated wilderness made foresters wary of what they perceived as the policy of incremental additions practiced by the Park Service. This issue played an integral part in the long-standing tension between the two agencies. The NPS regarded development of adjacent roadless lands as part of a plot by the Forest Service to disqualify the areas from future consideration as wilderness. A polarization of relations between the two agencies resulted.

The La Mesa fire of 1977 served as a catalyst for renewed discord over the issue of timber cutting on land adjacent to the monument. The fire damaged more than 15,000 acres of land, including portions of the monument, the national forest, and Department of Energy land. Immediately following the fire, Cristobal Zamora, the Supervisor of the Santa Fe National Forest, held a salvage timber sale of questionable legality for Sawyer Mesa, part of the watersheds of both Alamo and Frijoles canyons. The area to be salvaged was part of the proposed St. Peter's Dome wilderness, and the impacts of the salvage operation made the area unsuitable for wilderness.

Superintendent John Hunter viewed the event with consternation. The Forest Service had not consulted the NPS before letting the contract, and its lack of concern for the position of the NPS perturbed Hunter. He wrote Regional Director John Cook that the Park Service spent more than $1,300,000 to purchase the watershed in Upper Frijoles Canyon "to prevent this same event from occurring on private lands and now it is taking place on Federal lands." Hunter wanted the Park Service to attempt to "curtail" the salvage operation and convince the Forest Service that Bandelier needed some kind of buffer zone along the joint boundaries to protect the monument from adverse affects. [41]

Yet Hunter's remarks also revealed the suspicion that characterized the relationship between the two agencies. He noted that the Wilderness Society had suggested the addition of the Dome area to the designated wilderness in Bandelier, and mused that the "entire action may be an action by the [Santa Fe National] Forest to remove [the Dome area] permanently from future consideration." [42]

The two agencies remained at loggerheads. Cook instructed Hunter to open channels of communication with the foresters. Despite the efforts of the Park Service, the Forest Service continued to let salvage timber in the area surrounded Bandelier. The issue became a point of contention between the Santa Fe National Forest and the staff at Bandelier National Monument. The National Parks Conservation Association and other conservation groups recommended that the two agencies work out a cooperative plan for the administration of the area, but they made little progress toward that objective.

Because of a lack of access roads, some tracts could not be leased. One 2,650-acre tract of national forest land on the western edge of Bandelier needed a road that crossed the Headwaters of the Frijoles section of the monument to allow a lessee to remove the timber. In 1979, the Forest Service approached John Hunter to request a right-of-way for a road to facilitate the sale. "On the basis of agency policy and congressional intent," Hunter denied the request. [43]

In 1981, the Forest Service reapplied for a right-of-way for a road across the headwaters section. This time, however, Deputy Regional Forester James C. Overbay circumvented Hunter and took his request to John Cook's successor as regional director, Robert Kerr. Overbay enclosed Forest Service studies that showed of the ten possible road courses the foresters proposed, the route across NPS land offered the only feasible alternative. Economic, environmental, and engineering reasons made the other choices untenable. [44]

The Forest Service had a precedent for a right-of-way across Bandelier. In 1964, the foresters requested a right-of-way for Sanchez Canyon in the far southwestern corner of the monument. The portion of the Santa Fe National Forest to the west of the monument had little access; the Baca Location #1 bordered its north side, the Cañada de Cochiti grant was to the south, Bandelier closed off access from the east, and steep canyons made passage from the west too difficult. While the owners of the Baca and Cañada de Cochiti tracts allowed intermittent access, they sometimes locked the gates and prevented passage by the foresters. In early 1964, the owners of the Baca Location granted the Forest Service a right-of-way, and construction of a road in the national forest near the western boundary of the monument began. This development pleased the administration at Bandelier. Some visitors to the monument wanted to use the Dome road to gain access to backcountry trails. But continuing the road to the south presented intricate problems.

The Forest Service needed access to Sanchez Canyon as a result of the actions of Jim Young, the owner of the Cañada de Cochiti grant. Young offered the USFS a right-of-way across his land, but his stipulations made Sanchez Canyon the only feasible way to complete the route. With the support of U.S. Senator from New Mexico Joseph P. Montoya, the Forest Service began to survey the right-of-way, and pressed the Park Service for an answer.

Although in 1962-63, the Bandelier-Valle Grande National Park proposal and the sale of the Baca Location #1 out from under the Park Service had chilled relations between the Park and Forest Services, Bandelier Superintendent Albert G. Henson had no objections to the proposal. The road would only cross an "isolated tip" of the monument, he wrote the regional office, and it seemed a small price to pay for a chance at meaningful cooperation. The regional office concurred with Henson, and by July 1964, the two agencies reached an agreement. The Forest Service enlarged an old wagon trail through Sanchez Canyon, and used the road until 1971. [45]

In response to the request for a right-of-way in 1981, Robert Kerr organized a meeting that included himself, John Hunter, and James Overbay with the premise that "we can work out something beneficial to both agencies." At the meeting on April 28, 1981, Kerr granted a permit across NPS lands for one year following the date of the timber sale. On August 12, 1981, the Park Service issued the Forest Service a permit for a one- quarter-mile road across park lands. [46]

Despite the seeming insignificance of a small road through the park, the action set dangerous precedents. Under the sympathetic Carter administration and its Secretary of the Interior, Cecil Andrus, Hunter and the park staff had resisted the overtures of the Forest Service. When James Watt became Secretary of the Interior, the agency found itself in a defensive position. Many in the park believed that the Department of the Interior dictated the course of action, revealing interference in a local issue that contradicted the states-rights rhetoric of the "New Federalism." Worse, the precedent meant that in the future, the NPS would have a more difficult time when it insisted on the sanctity of its mandate. Little actions like the timber road across the monument could become pieces of evidence for increasing attempts to make commercial use of the resources of the national park system.

Surrounded to a large extent by national forest land, Bandelier also faced the threat of visual pollution. During the 1980s, the Caja del Rio section of the Santa Fe National Forest, across the Rio Grande from the park, remained largely undeveloped. A large section of the area was designated wild horse and burro territory. Although the USDA Forest Service permitted wood harvesting, the foresters restricted permits for the tract so as not to disturb the wild horses and burros. In 1985, however, officials of the Santa Fe National Forest came under increased pressure to open up the area for more wood cutting. Stands of piñon trees on the tract caught the attention of New Mexicans as the prized wood became harder to find.

Dorothy Hoard, the National Parks and Conservation Association representative for Bandelier, began to stress the protection of the Caja section. The building of roads and the noise of vehicles, she wrote, would be "devastating" to the backcountry. Hoard, a long-time supporter of the park, also communicated with Forest Supervisor Maynard T. Rost of the Santa Fe National Forest. After her intervention, Rost included a statement that recommended protecting the visual quality of areas adjacent to Bandelier in the revised draft of the Environmental Impact Statement for the Santa Fe National Forest. [47]

Other Federal agencies had the ability to affect Bandelier. During the 1980s, the flood easement that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held for the Cochiti Dam presented a substantive threat to the park values of Bandelier. The legislation that established the dam granted the Corps of Engineers the right to flood as much as 361 acres of Bandelier National Monument. Because the easement came from Congress, the Park Service had little recourse. In 1979, runoff backed up into Bandelier; reaching an elevation of 5,388 feet above sea level, within the legal limits set by Congress. The water threatened the Kiva House ruin at the base of Alamo Canyon. Prior to the dam, the elevation of the river was 5323 feet above sea level. [48]

As early as 1958, the Park Service had recognized the potential of damage from the proposed dam. On November 14, 1958, Southwest Regional Director Hugh Miller, members of his staff, and Superintendent Paul Judge of Bandelier met with representatives of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. Miller raised his objections to a portion of the proposal that allowed the dam to impound water to a level of 5,473 feet, backing water up each of the canyons in the monument. Although the engineers did not change the proposal, the Park Service entered its objection in the record.

The tenor of the late 1950s supported wholesale economic development of the Southwest, and Miller recognized the precariousness of the objection of the NPS. Throughout the 1950s, dam projects sprouted along western rivers; the billion- dollar Colorado River Storage Program and the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam typified the era. Nor did the Park Service have compelling grounds to oppose the easement. Regional Archeologist Charlie Steen assessed the prehistoric sites within the area of the easement and pronounced them "not particularly significant." In the late 1950s, the Cochiti Dam also underwent a transformation from flood control dam to "multi-purpose" dam with an emphasis on attracting tourists to northern New Mexico. Miller opined that "our position will be difficult to maintain when the economic benefits of the project to Albuquerque are considered." [49] The Corps of Engineers received its easement, putting a portion of the monument permanently at risk. The flooding in 1979 was only a precursor to a more severe threat.

During the summer of 1985, the Corps of Engineers announced plans to use its easement and flood the lower reaches of Capulin, Alamo, and Frijoles Canyons in Bandelier National Monument. A warm spell in April, causing an unusually high amount of snow melt early in the year, prompted their decision. By early May, Elephant Butte and Caballo reservoirs in southern New Mexico had reached ninety percent of capacity, the highest levels in forty-three years. The Bureau of Reclamation asked the Corps of Engineers to store additional water in the Cochiti and Abiquiu reservoirs. In the opinion of the two Federal agencies, the level of water in the southern reservoirs threatened to flood a portion of the town of Truth or Consequences, five miles from the Elephant Butte Dam. The Corps carried out the request, and water began to back up into Bandelier. [50]

The array of water regulations in the arid Southwest further complicated the situation. The Riò Grande Compact of 1937 set up a commission to regulate water use along the river. Its members—New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas—developed an intricate system to divide the resources of the river. The terms of the compact granted the extra runoff to farmers below Elephant Butte, most of whom were in Texas. But the Rio' Grande Compact Commission could not release the extra water from Cochiti, for the courts had not established the rights of farmers in the Middle Riò Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD), between Cochiti and Elephant Butte. As a result, the commission asked Congress to limit the flow of water through the district between July 1 and November 1 of each year to 1,500 cubic feet of water per second (cfs), the traditional amount tapped by farmers in the middle district. With as much as 8,300 cfs entering the northern reservoirs, and only 5,000 cfs before July 1 and 1,500 after leaving, Cochiti and Abiquiu dams filled beyond capacity, and the portions of Bandelier nearest the Rio' Grande were inundated. [51]

The creeping ascendance of the water throughout May and June posed serious environmental problems. When the water receded, the inundated areas would be, in the words of John Lissoway, an "aesthetic mess." A "bathtub ring" of drowned vegetation would remain. Lissoway thought the natural recovery of the region might take four to five years. Tree species like juniper and ponderosa pine were particularly vulnerable. If inundated for more than several weeks, they were unlikely to recover. Among the ponderosa pines that were threatened were a group of 450- year old trees that provided a winter roost for about twenty- five bald eagles. The park staff wondered whether the eagles would return after the flooding. The area would become "a vegetative wasteland," lamented Terrell Johnson, a contract biologist for the Park Service who studied the eagles. [52]

The date of July 1 loomed especially large for the NPS. Many of the threatened areas could survive inundation for a few weeks. But if the water stored in Cochiti did not go over the dam before July 1, the terms of the compact held it there until November 1, after the end of the irrigation season in central New Mexico. This protected the interests of farmers below the Elephant Butte and Caballo reservoirs, but threatened Bandelier. If the water remained in the Cochiti Reservoir after July 1, there was no chance of saving the inundated flora.

Throughout late May and early June, water backed up into the canyons. By early June, it reached within two vertical feet of the Kiva House ruin, and the hiking trails along the Rio' Grande washed away. The Park Service watched in dismay. "We hate to see it," Chief Ranger Kevin McKibbin told the press, "but there's not much we can do about it. . . . Our hands are tied." John Hunter pointed out that resistance was futile. Congress had made the decision during the 1960s, and as much as he did not like the situation, he had little recourse. [53] The Park Service had nowhere to go with its complaints.

The flooding of Bandelier in 1985 attracted local, regional, and national interest. A vocal portion of the public expressed outrage. In a symbolic gesture of opposition, a bucket brigade went to Cochiti Dam to throw buckets of water over the top of the dam to flow downstream. Phone calls lit up the switchboard at the monument, many asking if the ruins in Frijoles Canyon were underwater. The New York Times ran a feature story on the issue, as did The Denver Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a number of other daily newspapers across the nation. [54] Although some of the excess water was released from the dam, the lower reaches of the monument remained flooded.

Even after 1985, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers retained the easement to fill the lower reaches of Bandelier with water. By June 8, 1987, high water was estimated to reach 5,444 feet above sea level. Despite public outcry at local, regional, and national levels, the law allowed the flooding of the monument. The presence of the dam and its potential to affect the monument presented a major long-term problem for the administrators of the monument. It offered one of the first cases of actual overlap between the groups that managed the Pajarito Plateau.

Yet the flooding was only the first of many similar collisions. The collection of threats to Bandelier offered a microcosm of the problems facing the park system. The limited space on the Pajarito Plateau and the needs of various constituencies created a matrix of conflict. Protecting the park from a variety of threats required constant vigilance, broad public support, and occasional Machiavellian politicking. At Bandelier, the Park Service held its own. But as the Pajarito Plateau became more crowded and more people sought to live, work, and play there, the problems continued to escalate.

The lesson of Bandelier was not its problems per se; the real story was in the exponential increase in the severity of threats to its integrity. The sheer onslaught of threat after threat by powerful individuals, corporations, and Government agencies was unparalleled. They appeared almost simultaneously in a brief period in the history of the park. Nor was there any guarantee that new threats would not arise. The story of Bandelier and its surroundings served as a barometer of problems and responses. As the amount of open space in the U.S. decreased, more and more park areas faced similar levels of pressure and layers of threats. The story of Bandelier will likely be repeated throughout the park system.