Valles Caldera National Preserve

On October 15th in Valles Caldera National Preserve, a crew of 4 men from Jemez Pueblo YCC dug a "flow splitter" to re-irrigate a 30+ acre wet meadow that had been drained for agriculture over 80 years ago. This work was done under the design and direction of Stream Dynamics; the client was Wild Earth Guardians.

Here is a LIDAR image of the anthropogenic gullies on an historic alluvial fan in the Valles Caldera National Preserve near Los Alamos, NM. Below is the same image overprinted with labels showing where the work was done. Approximately 38 acres of wet meadow was restored by this work.

Observe that there is a lot more area that could be converted to sheet flow in a future project. Here is the hand dug flow splitter, sending 75% of the base flow to an historic flow path. 

This Gully will now receive only 25% of the flow. A future phase of the project will be to create a series of ponds and meadows here using the Plug 'N Pond technique.

Below is part of the large area that is now becoming saturated as dispersed flow soaks into the ground. 

Client: Wild Earth Guardians   
Landowner: Valles Caldera National Preserve   
Crew: Jemez Pueblo YCC