Due to needed clean up of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's Galisteo Dam's riprap we have been working to clear the dam face of vegetation. Overgrown Chamisa, Chamiso (Rabbit Brush and Saltbush), tamarix, grasses, tumbleweed and other vegetation had made viewing the rock surface difficult to impossible and rabbits were moving in amongst the safety of the cover. The initial setup of fences and browse of the goats was difficult and required some figuring out. The fence was erected and held up with the help of some rocks, bracing weak spots where little to no soil was available. Jumping the fence on the dam face on the rocks was not much of a problem but the lack of density and tough terrain were hard on the goats.

Once we began feeding the goats on the range locally, by herding on horseback with dog, and only required consumption of dam plants as free choice surplus before and after hours we had something. The herd drifted before and after walks calmly across the dam and whittled their choice feedstuffs down to little stumps. It took the first season of intensive browse like this for the goats to learn to truly enjoy the Rabbitbrush, a shrub previously eaten minimally one week out of the year. Upon returning for the second goat application the Rabbitbrush was suddenly much sought after and now the goats enjoy the steep terrain selecting it's preferred diversity of vegetation through the winter months and into the spring as vitality returns to the short stumps of blue/green brush.

Working the Dam

Working the Rabbitbrush Fall of 2008

Rabbitbrush worked over and budding Spring of 2009 ready for another goat treatment

In 2005 we wrote: "Dear Ms. Hummel, As a producer of organic food and herbs (NMOCC cert. #304) we oppose the use of herbicides in our area (and elsewhere). We would like to see the dam basin revitalized to enhance both grazing (perhaps to the benefit of the Santo Domingo herd of cows)and browsing (perhaps to the benefit of our goats). We will not be able to use this area after any poisoning. We are sure that if the usace puts this up to bid for goat management interest will be shown. We would like to see a complete management plan before any of the project is begun." Answering this, Leslie Barclay, founder of earthworks Institute wrote "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SPEAKING OUT ABOUT THE HERBICIDES. EARTHWORKS IS BEHIND YOU 100%. LET US HOPE THAT SOMEONE IS LISTENING TO GOOD REASON."

When we began this project it was with the understanding that we would not be subjected to herbicides. This herbicide issue was what brought us to the dam in the first place. We have a small, organically certified herb farm (herb as in herbicide) two miles south of the park boundary. But in October of the first year (2007) we were here when three men and a tank of poison were deployed on the dam. On my way out of the dam that day I went up to the sprayers and asked what was being done. I was told by the applicator that it was "Rodeo", the same stuff as Roundup. I have no way to verify the type of herbicide and have no training in differentiating various herbicides. I am chemically sensitive, however, and was too sick to drive before I reached I-25. I called the dam and complained, stating that our goats would be leaving the dam immediately as we did not wish them or us exposed to poisons. We were told by Becky Minor that this poisoning application would be confined to the rip rap and it would not happen again. The next year we were given a contract to denude the dam with our goats.

Chamisa in bloom one month before goats are applied (Oct. 2008)

Goats hit the dam in fall of 2008.

Chamisa on the dam browsed March of 2009 on the left. Chamisa one year later after no goats through the summer.

The contract was negotiated with Craig Lykins. We stated that we could not just go in and remove all the rabbit brush on the rip rap and that it would take years to control. We were told that the herbicide applicator had said much the same thing and that it would take him 5 Octobers to complete the project. I bid the dam at the rate that I figured the poisoners where probably charging, given the manpower and weeks of effort, at a lower rate than in the basin but worth it to us as otherwise we had to leave altogether. We mounted the dam in October and then again in the spring. We reduced the vegetation. The next year (2009) I could not get a Major Fitzgerald to whom I was directed as the new contract contact to even return our phone calls. For months. So we did not get the contract to continue what we believed was a 5 year project. That year the vegetation on the dam grew like wildfire, responding to our top pruning of the previous season because we were not given the opportunity to continue. Last week we received this email:

Hi dave, per my voice message left on Wednesday morning, about 9:20am, I need to confirm w/ you that we will not be exercising item 0004 of the contract; seeding. This item was bid/awarded in the amount of $11,729.52. This fall we plan to mow the phase 1 area where resprouts are heavy. Our dam safety administrator has informed me that vegetation on the face of the dam needs to be removed by the end of the Fiscal Year. The decision has been made to use an herbicide to eliminate the vegetation. All involved are aware that we have a contract w/ you through July 15 and that ample time needs to be provided you for moving goats from the reservoir basin.

Item 4 is hand seeding which we decided was a waste of money as the grasses were filling in just fine without seeding. We confirmed this with biologist Hummel. We were hoping to move this money into another contract which would see us continuing here after the monsoons when things really boogy in late summer. Instead it is apparently to be used to reinvigorate the thickest tamarix areas by top pruning with no follow up pruning to keep the tamarix from coming back stronger than ever.

Tamarix above left shows the trees in the sample plantings which goats were kept out of last year are coming out sooner than the goat project area behind, beside and in the picture at right. Below is a mechanically extracted tree which has not been fenced for goats throughout the project which is leafing out more than anything except where the goats have browsed it passing by. They appreciate the green tree amongst all the rest still red.

Our battle with the tamarix is a war of attrition. The roots send up to the tops the juice which lets the tops send juice to the roots. We have for years been damaging these tops (stems), making it increasingly difficult for the plant to start in the spring as we have been stealing nutrition from the roots by damaging the stems, making it harder and harder to supply nutrient to the buds.

Tamarix girdled by goats. Resprouts are dying back and lacking in vitality with each season of harvest by goats.

By removing the tops through mowing, there is an imbalance created which enables the roots to send up shoots which can immediately feed the roots, basically bringing the whole project back to square one. In the huge snow of 2006, the extractors got the wood and dirt and snow all mixed together and ended up planting more tamarix in that area than had been there to start with, and we have been chipping away at it ever since.

Poorly extracted Tamarix in the NW corner of phase 1 now proposed to be mowed. Much of this area was removed in the snow and mud allowing branches to be buried in the ground essentially planting cuttings. Many trees were missed, such as these above, their retained stumps creating revitalized trees.

All the work we have done in that area will be for not. The corps will be erasing the work of thousands of dollars. If they had interest, to mow half of it and leave the other half unmowed and continue to push our goats on it, we would learn something. But there has been practically no supervision of our work until this spring, and the corps has not been interested in what effect the goats are having in the basin. for the first time, this spring, we have had conversation with a USACE biologist who stated that he would be coming out to check on the dam monthly and hoped to increase the monitoring of groundwater, also. But too late to observe the effect of goats on invasive species, as we will be gone and the regrowth after the monsoons will erase all our efforts and require the use of herbicides, as originally scheduled.

This project is still in phase two. Phase three has yet to be implemented. There was over $500,000 allocated to this location by Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States for 2010. When I asked what projects would be going on here that would take that kind of money I was informed that the corps intended to use that money for support salaries. The area north of the river, which has not been mechanically deforested, is still a refuge for cows and coyotes. The cows have wandered into the park from the range to the north almost continually since we have been here. They drink the water which we would like to have used for our goats and they eat the forbs which the goats blend into their diet to make the tamarix palatable.

Too many cows on land for too long. As the water dissapeared the 50+ cows congregated in the fragile wetland areas such as here where grasses and sedges were overgrazed and pulverized.

We have asked the corps to fix the perimeter fences here, because in most years we have had to re-stand and repair our electric goat fences on a daily basis after the cows walk through them at night. The corps told us that we can not fix the perimeter fences ourselves even for free because of liability issues. Last autumn the cow weight here just got too great, with over 50 mixed bovines leaching off the federal land. What made it too ugly was that this "rancher" was putting limousine bulls on small cows, in one case repeatedly knocking her to the ground with attempted matings. More than one cow fed the coyotes in here last year, possibly due to birthing problems. We had been trying to reduce cockle burrs in the basin and had had no luck. Then I read in a copy of the Stockman Grassfarmer that you have to support the grass, leaving it some strength in the roots by not grazing it to the ground in the fall to let the grass crowd out the burs. As there was little graze left by this time and no water in the park, we were able to remove the cows for the winter. But some are back. There are presently almost 2 dozen cows in the Galisteo Dam Park and with cut fences they can not be persuaded to leave the only good grass for miles around. (There are no SD cattle in the park.) The cows not only outcompete our goatherd for feed and water but they are also continuing to degrade the river banks and riparian areas. But we are not authorized to fix the fences and the corps has refused to be responsible to us. Actually, there is a problem with crossfencing which was contracted for inside the basin. It was done with 4 strands of barbless wire with no stays and long distances between posts: illegal fences. The cows rendered them ineffective almost immediately. But they do cause us to have to go way around on horses to keep with our goats which can move through them with impunity as can the cows. (At the scoping meeting for this project in 2003, where it was first suggested that goats be utilized over poisons by Ms. Louise Pape, Mr Doug Bailey stated: "So if people can help us out, and let us know if they see cattle in the basin...we would very much like to undertake a stringent spotting and removal of livestock up there because right now there really isn't the vegetation for livestock and they are doing their own damage up there..."

but Doug is in Albuquerque now and there has been a revolving door in the management at Cochiti, which runs this place. The one thing all the managers at Cochiti have in common is that none of them has spoken to us about this project (with the exception of Becky Minor when she asked us not to leave and she set in motion our replacing the poisoners on the dam). The coyotes have been a smaller problem than the cows. We have increased our protection dogs with the use of Maremmas and have pretty much eliminated coyote predation on our herd. But the large coyote population is lurking, a detriment to this area serving as a wildlife corridor.

When we were first introduced to this project in the early spring of 2007 there was nothing growing in the areas where tamarix had been pulled out. There were so many holes covered with tamarix trash the it was nearly impossible to walk through parts of the basin let alone take a horse into it. All the grass which had been growing under the tamarix was destroyed. After much of this dead wood washed into the Galisteo River, we seeded 96 acres with a mixture of possible grasses in 2008. We lay the seed down in front of confining the goats in their pens as they ate the weeds. We got some filling in last year, but this year the grass is growing thickly in some places and beginning to fill others.

Last winter was the first time since we have been involved with this land that it hosted pronghorn antelope on at least two occasions. There have been species of flycatcher here from the beginning. There were thousands of dove in here the second year feasting on lambsquarter seed. There are red wing blackbirds which winter over at the cow pond, scavenging throughout the basin during the day. There are magpie here and many buntings and a small handful of raptors. There is an annual migration of flickers. Ducks have raised young in the "east wetland" north of the river (not this year; the water is present, a beautiful rising of the groundwater, but there are shotgun shells on the edges). Two of our four years here have seen a blue heron in the east water. For two years there was a large cat here. There are bobcat here. There are raccoon. There are some rabbit. We have been here for parts of three years at this point and controlling the weeds to eliminate wildfire threat (very real as we have reduced 7 foot vibrant kochia to less than 2 foot barren stems), and keep the tamarix from taking back over, but a more important side effect has been tilth. We have worked on land which was basically bereft of nutrition. Every day we are in the basin we apply 1000 pounds of fertilizer (250 goats times 4 pounds manure per day per critter--a conservative estimate). We have a very happy ground as evidenced by not only the grass but also by the many kinds of native (edible) mushrooms which sprout throughout the year.

So.

Now approaching spring of 2011 we have learned that over $900,000.00 has been appropriated for the Galisteo Dam property. The Corps however have been claiming a lack of available funds for the project, but will not account for how these many thousands of $$$ will be used. We have been told that there will be no money for any Environmental remediation. Priorities may be out of order with these folk who have little to do with the Galisteo Dam, yet where actually does this money go? Previous to the removal of invasives here the maintenance budget was $19,000 which included a periodic sheriff patrol. After the goats were implemented this security was discontinued and, with our presence, the late night partying also stopped. Please encourage the USACE to go Green again and utilize the goat in restoring the dam basin ecosystem. Stop the poison.