Enchantment State News

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) are welcoming the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) announced plans to invest $161 million from the Inflation Reduction Act in ecosystem restoration and resilience work on 21 “Restoration Landscapes” across 11 western states, including $7.6 million to restore the lower Pecos River watershed in southeastern New Mexico.

“The Pecos River provides irrigation water to communities in southeastern New Mexico and a home to plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth,” said Heinrich. “I’m proud to welcome these major investments from the BLM to restore healthy soils, grasslands, wildlife habitat, and improved outdoor recreation access on the Lower Pecos.”

“The Pecos River is a vital resource to our communities,” said Luján. “That’s why I’m proud to welcome these federal funds from the Bureau of Land Management to invest in the well-being and restoration of the Lower Pecos River watershed. The health of our public lands and water is a priority to preserve these resources for generations to come.”

According to the BLM, the $7.6 million investment in the Pecos Watershed will support landscape-scale treatments to protect fragile soils, increase native grasses, reverse fragmentation, improve water filtration and groundwater recharge, reduce sediment loads in the Pecos and its tributaries. Restoring the landscape will enhance free public land recreation and hunting opportunities for rural communities in southeastern New Mexico and west Texas.

This work will also restore habitat for a multitude of plant and wildlife species – pronghorn, lesser prairie chicken, bluntnose shiner, gambusia, aplomado falcon, Pecos sunflower, Noel’s amphipod, wild buckwheat, Texas hornshell mussel, Kuenzler’s hedgehog cactus and dunes sagebrush lizard.

The effort will complement $1.35 million of funding already delivered to Pecos Watershed restoration work under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Original source can be found here.