Restoration Work in Dalton Canyon to Begin Sept. 27

By SFNF

Sept. 20, 2021 – Dalton Canyon, a popular recreation site on the Pecos/Las Vegas Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF), has suffered serious damage over the years, including the 2002 Dalton Canyon Fire, a “100-year flood” event in 2013, and decades of wear and tear from recreational overuse.

On Sept. 27, 2021, the SFNF and the Upper Pecos Watershed Association (UPWA) will begin implementation of a plan to repair and mitigate the accumulated damage by restoring a 2.5-mile stretch of Dalton Creek along Forest Road (FR) 123 northwest of the intersection of NM State Road 63.

Restoration work will include repairing ponds, reestablishing wetlands destroyed by the 2013 flood and planting native riparian species, including willows, rushes and sedges. Rock and log structures and earthen berms will be installed to anchor the restored stream channel and prevent future erosion. A restoration technique called “pond-and-plug” in conjunction with beaver dam analogs will help restore a historic beaver-created wetland at the upper end of the project area. The project also includes measures to improve user-created campsites and mitigate runoff issues that have damaged the floodplain and degraded water quality.

Always popular for camping, hiking and fishing, the Dalton Canyon area was hit particularly hard by COVID-related recreational use in summer 2020, with mounds of trash left behind, severe soil compaction, human waste on the ground and an oil spill in the creek.

To protect public health and safety and facilitate implementation, the SFNF will limit dispersed camping and off-highway vehicle (OHV) use in the restoration project area along Dalton Creek. Signs will be posted to notify the public of the work underway. The majority of the restoration work is expected to be completed by November. Until then, visitors are asked to avoid the project area.

The SFNF will enforce current travel management rules on FR 123 to minimize vehicular traffic and will place boulders and other barriers to create setbacks from the creek. While FR 123 will remain open to traffic, the permanent setbacks will give the riparian area an opportunity to recover from decades of overuse and the especially heavy hit in 2020.

The Dalton Creek project is designed to:

• Improve water quality in Dalton Creek
• Protect the road in Dalton Canyon from additional erosion
• Improve the riparian habitat around the creek
• Restore hydrological function of the floodplain around the creek
• Improve fish habitat, and protect the creek and its fish population from drought
• Minimize the potential for further damage to the creek in the event of wildfire

The project is funded through the Environmental Protection Agency’s non-point source pollution grant program and administered by the Surface Water Quality Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department.