April Reese, E&E reporter

The site of an old dairy farm along an urbanized stretch of the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, N.M., will become the newest addition to the national wildlife refuge system, Interior Department officials announced today.

At a press conference at the Price Dairy site this afternoon, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the department has officially greenlighted the refuge, clearing the way for the Fish and Wildlife Service to purchase the land and establish what will become the Middle Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge.

“With the support of Bernalillo County, the Trust for Public Land, New Mexico’s Congressional delegation, and many partners, New Mexico will gain its first urban national wildlife refuge,” Salazar said in a statement. “Once complete, this refuge, which is within a half hour drive of nearly half of New Mexico’s population, will be a place for people to connect with and learn about the natural world and will provide valuable habitat for wildlife, including the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher.”

Only a handful of refuges have been created under FWS’s 13-year-old urban wildlife refuge program.

An aerial view of the 570-acre Price Dairy property along the Rio Grande. The site will soon become part of the national wildlife refuge system. Photo courtesy of USGS.

Salazar was joined by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who have worked with Interior and local officials to establish the refuge for the past year, as well as Bernalillo County Commissioner Art De La Cruz.

Other backers include the Trust for Public Land, which has advocated for establishing a refuge on the Price Dairy site for years, state park officials and local residents.

The 570-acre parcel, which lies on the east side of the river and is abutted by houses and a string of automobile salvage yards, was cleared of its native bosque woodland habitat decades ago to make way for agricultural uses.

Now the lands will be restored to support a menagerie of native species, including southwestern willow flycatchers, sandhill cranes and other migratory birds, as well as foxes, coyotes and beavers. Some of the existing cropland on the farm may remain intact, both to provide grain for birds and to demonstrate the land’s historical uses to visitors (Land Letter, Feb. 10).

The parcel — the largest remaining agricultural tract in the Albuquerque area — also comes with senior water rights, which is a necessity for restoring riparian ecosystems in the arid Southwest, FWS officials said.

The refuge will also greatly expand the open space network in Bernalillo County. FWS plans to connect the new refuge to existing trails on a strip of adjacent state park land along the river’s banks.

Salazar said the refuge’s urban location will allow easy access for the metropolitan area’s million or so residents, helping advance the goals of President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative, which calls for reconnecting people — especially youth — to the natural world.

FWS officials said the agency first received a sale offer from the farm’s owners in 1996 but lacked the resources for new acquisitions at the time.

While some residents had expressed concern that the site could be contaminated from its long use as a dairy farm, an assessment by the Trust for Public Land concluded that the area is clean.

Economic benefits

Besides preserving an the ecologically important site in the middle of a growing urban area, the new refuge also will bring economic benefits to Albuquerque, Salazar said.

“Establishment of a refuge not only will improve the quality of life of the citizens of Albuquerque but also help create new jobs by attracting visitors,” he said. “One in 20 U.S. jobs are in the recreation economy — more than there are doctors, lawyers, or teachers — and places like this new refuge could help support more than 3 million new jobs across the nation in the next decade.”

Recreation in refuges, national parks and other public lands generated about $55 billion in economic benefits and accounted for 440,000 jobs in 2009, according to Interior estimates. National wildlife refuges alone support an estimated 35,234 jobs, Salazar said.

Now that Interior has approved the refuge, FWS and its partner groups will focus on securing the funding necessary to establish it. The Bernalillo County Commission has already set aside $5 million toward the site’s $20 million price tag. Much of the remaining funding will come from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is fed by interest earned on royalties from oil and gas development, FWS officials said.

The fund’s coffers, however, are rarely full: Since LWCF was created in 1964, Congress has only twice appropriated the full $900 million it is authorized to provide to the fund.

Once complete, the Middle Rio Grande refuge will join a dozen or so other urban refuges established across the country since 1998. They include the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge in New Orleans, Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge near Detroit, Great Meadows NWR near Boston, Minnesota Valley NWR near Minneapolis-St. Paul, Tijuana Slough NWR near San Diego, John Heinz NWR at Tinicum in Philadelphia and the new Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR in Commerce City, Colo.

Reese writes from Santa Fe, N.M.