New Mexico Mercury

The Rio Grande Vision plan for “improvements” to the Middle Rio Grande Bosque breaks continuity with the long and illustrious history of citizen activism to preserve riparian habitat and allow residents to refresh themselves in a natural setting and observe wildlife without disturbing it.

Modeling itself on duded up urban rivers in Texas and other places, the Vision seems to have overlooked completely the ideal model right under its nose – the Rio Grande Nature Center, a masterwork of architecture so inconspicuous and respectful of its place that birds and other creatures have no fear of us when we’re visiting.

The Vision plan says it has “a very light footprint, with improvements occupying less than 5% of the (Rio Grande Grande State Park’s) 4900 acres.” That argument sounds suspiciously like what the oil and gas industry says about putting drilling rigs and truck roads on, say, Otero Mesa, destroying the last great virgin grass lands in New Mexico by fragmenting them and ruining the flow of life.

The Rio Grande Vision plan includes boardwalks and trails, boat ramps and access paths, viewing platforms, public art, cafes, and pedestrian bridges. The unfortunate illustrations that accompany the plan on-line make it look pretty much like an over-developed Central Park in the middle of Manhattan.

And all this at a time when the river is barely wet for much of the summer, and the watersheds upon which it depends are suffering from long term drought, and drastic overuse by others up stream and in other states.

I’ve been worried about this kind of plan for “improvements” creeping into the public discourse since I started writing about Albuquerque and the Bosque in l971. I feared that well-meaning intelligent people would come up with a ways to “improve” the Rio Grande and its Bosque in the name of economic development and greater “access.”  I worried that instead of protecting it as a wild place to be visited with delicacy and respect, a future plan would morph the Bosque habitat into a playground, and a swank and stylish amusement park.

Some folks would pave a trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and put a four lane highway into Chaco Canyon if they had their druthers.  Great for access, but what’s left when you get there?

And what would there be left to see in the Bosque, and what kind of peace and quiet could be had if it became an “amenity” and not a habitat? What kind of bio diversity would be left?

Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry’s Rio Grande Vision Plan is a complete contradiction of the long range vision of the people who battled and struggled for decades to preserve the Bosque as a wild place in the middle of the city that could teach us all that we live in a fragile natural world that needs to be cared for and conserved, rather than exploited as a resource.

That battle was part of the Open Space movement that preserved our volcanoes, most of the Sandias, and many wonderful spaces like the Ellena Gallegos Open Space. No one would dare suggest viewing platforms, cafes, and the like in such pristine spaces. The Bosque, for all its human presence, is the same kind of place.

The symbol of that founding open space vision of the Bosque is one of Albuquerque’s great works of architecture -- the much praised and awarded Rio Grande Nature Center, designed by Albuquerque’s Antoine Predock, FAIA, and completed in l982.

The Nature Center is “the epitome of adaptive architecture guided by an ecological aesthetic. It is, indeed, a building designed with nature,” not against it. “Almost invisible, it acts as a blind within which visitors can unobtrusively observe a wildlife habitat that would otherwise be disturbed by their physical presence.” I wrote those words in l992 in my book “Albuquerque: A City at the End of the World.”
I still think they are true.

Mayor Berry’s plan for the Bosque, so far, is obtrusive, disturbing, and designed against nature, not with it.  I can’t imagine any of the myriad of species that call the Bosque home would feel welcome there anymore if the plan is implemented in its current state.

The Bosque doesn’t need improvement. It needs love, respect, and attentive care. It’s stressed enough by climate change as it is. It’s doesn’t need us to burden it further.

Other parts of Mayor Berry’s “ABQ the Plan” have some merit – the Bus Rapid Transit system on Central, a “Faceleft” on the Convention Center, and a Route 66 Action Plan. They deserve more discussion.

And I’m somewhat buoyed by the city’s assertion that “The Rio Grande Vision is a conceptual plan” with further discussion and refinement ahead.  As it stands, it is so contradictory to the history and spirit of Bosque preservation since l969 (when water planners wanted to cut down all the trees, and started an environmental uprising instead,) that it should be scrapped. And if a new planning process for the Bosque is in order, it should begin by foregoing the notion of  “improvements” and embracing the venerable ideas and values of stewardship instead.