A High Stakes Balancing Act at Bluff Springs
The oasis where recreation, ranching, water rights, and a sensitive “living-rock” habitat collide
It is no secret that water is hard to come by in southern New Mexico.
Couple the arid environment with a constant flow of mountain spring water, add a majestic waterfall and a sprinkling of wildflowers, and you have an oasis coveted by people and animals alike.
Bluff Springs is such a place.
“We say it’s loved to death,” says Adam McCullough, a botanist with the Forest Service. A ten-mile drive south on Sunspot Highway from Cloudcroft puts you at the headwaters of the Rio Peñasco. More than eighty springs dot this area, but Bluff Springs is considered the jewel of them all.
It attracts thousands of visitors per year, is home to a handful of endangered and threatened species, and provides water for long-standing cattle operations.
The visual impact of Bluff Springs draws people to it, but its popularity does not come without cost. Visitors leave trash. Campers and hikers ignore signage. All-terrain vehicles tear through sensitive stream beds.
Recent projects by the Forest Service, which oversees the area, aim to tackle some of these problems, while other projects have led to lawsuits from ranchers who feel pushed out of historical grazing grounds. The question is; how do you balance the wants of so many stakeholders in a rich yet fragile environment?
“This one never runs dry,” says Chad Novack, a hydrologist with the Forest Service. He and Adam, the botanist, are at the mouth of Bluff Springs a couple hundred yards above the waterfall. Chad kneels down on the stream bank to collect samples at the water source, a rocky hole crisscrossed by tree roots at the base of a hill.
Today, the spring pushes out water at a steady 18.6 gallons per minute. The flow fluctuates with the amount of snowfall received during winter months. More snow means more flow.
“As a system, it’s important for continuous water for animals and plants. As a single spring, I’d say it’s more of an educational thing for people, the public to look at,” says Chad. “It’s one of many springs adding water to the Rio Peñasco…but it’s not the main source.” Adam chimes in, “It’s just the one we see.”
The waters of the Upper Rio Peñasco area have quenched the thirst of people and livestock for hundreds of years. Native Americans were followed by homesteaders and then loggers. Marcia, the turn-of-the-century railroad camp, stood just west of Bluff Springs until its abandonment during the early 1940s. “The campsite was selected because of abundant water, both from the Rio Peñasco and from springs which feed into it,” reads a manuscript from the Tularosa Basin Historical Society.
A Threatened Habitat
Long before loggers and railroads, the unique ecosystem around these springs nourished a variety of flora and fauna too.
In an emailed statement, Paul Finch, Recreation Management Specialist for the Sacramento Ranger District writes, “Ecologically, they are considered "keystone" ecosystems as they are hotspots of biodiversity such as rare and specialized plants and animals; a refugia during droughts (all too common) for an even wider array of forest plants and animals as a water supply.”
Near the mouth of Bluff Springs, Adam stands next to a gangly, drooping thistle plant that has withered with the onset of fall. It’s nearly as tall as him. “That’s Sacramento Mountain Thistle,” he says. “Endangered thistle, it only exists here.”
Not to be confused with Musk Thistle, an invasive weed native to Eurasia that proliferates in the mountains, the Sacramento Mountain Thistle can only be found near spring outflows like Bluff Springs. “They only grow in tufa…it's a special calcareous mineral that builds up over time,” says Adam.
Minerals stick to moss in the streambed, harden and create a crusty layer of rock where plants like the Sacramento Mountain Thistle take root. The bluff that creates the waterfall and gives Bluff Springs its name is primarily made of the mineral rock tufa. “It’s a living rock,” says Chad.
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The streambanks below the iconic waterfall are designated critical habitat for another federally listed endangered species, the New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse. This small mammal “is found primarily near streams and wetlands in parts of New Mexico, eastern Arizona, and southern Colorado,” according to the Forest Service website. It hibernates nine months out of the year and requires tall vegetation and suitable upland environments where the mice may avoid floodwaters, build nests and birth their young.
The mouse faces extinction due to a variety of threats. Grazing pressure from elk and cattle, drought, vegetation loss due to water management, wildfires, development, and unregulated recreation all influence its habitat, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
A trip to Bluff Springs today takes visitors past new permanent fencing meant to exclude cattle and deter elk from endangered thistle and jumping mouse habitats. It was not uncommon to encounter cattle on the trails immediately around the springs just a few years ago. Coined the “Bluff Springs Exclosure,” this barrier is part of a series of fences that run through Upper Rio Peñasco Canyon, and encloses a potentially critical habitat for the jumping mouse.
According to Forest Service records, no one has sighted a jumping mouse in Upper Rio Peñasco Canyon, which encompasses Bluff Springs. However, the mouse has been documented in nearby Wills Canyon at Mauldin Spring. The Forest Service is required by law to enclose these potential critical habitats as mandated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Endangered Species Act.
Fighting for their Stake to Graze
“They’re fencing off most of our water, our most valuable, reliable water,” says Kelly Goss. She and her husband, Spike Goss, own and manage the Sacramento Grazing Association, a family ranching business with surface rights to graze cattle on a 111,000-acre tract encompassing Bluff Springs and the upper Rio Peñasco.
One afternoon, Spike, Kelly, their daughter-in-law and a ranch hand drive a small herd of cattle down Upper Rio Peñasco Road, directly in front of Bluff Springs, and on forest land their cattle used to graze but are no longer allowed—except as a throughway.
The ranchers open a series of gates and push cattle through the Bluff Springs Exclosure on horseback. They are allowed temporary access to lead cattle to holding pens so they may be transferred to winter ranges further down the mountains. According to Spike and Kelly, their cattle now have to travel further to find water because of these closures.
The Forest Service constructed water lanes between fenced areas of critical jumping mouse habitat so cows may water, but their access to the stream has greatly diminished. Spike and Kelly claim these water lanes are sometimes dry during droughts. The number of cattle the Goss family is allotted to graze on forest land has also dwindled— from 553 when they purchased grazing rights in 1989 to 150 cattle today.
“They pretty much decimated us. The economic viability of our ranch is basically destroyed,” says Kelly. ”Basically, we manage our ranch for these endangered species.”
Back at the mouth of Bluff Springs, Chad and Adam gather their equipment to go test water in the streambed below the falls.
“You know, out here I would say that recreation has more of an impact than the cows do,” says Adam, “especially Bluff Springs, in particular.”
While neither Adam nor Chad work, as they say, “on the range side of things,” meaning cattle and grazing, Adam adds, “I understand the rancher’s point of view too, because with the recreation having such a great impact I can see that it seems a little unfair…It’s our job to make sure those resources are available for everyone and they’re used sustainably.”
Regulating and Educating Recreation
The impact of recreation at Bluff Springs is most apparent after weekends during the summer months. Recently, the Forest Service has enacted changes to the area to confront the effects of ATV use, off-trail hiking, and littering. This includes labeling Bluff Springs a “day-use only” site.
“The day-use only designation is to limit the overuse and damage caused to the surrounding vegetation and water system. Overnight camping was resulting in some damage to the area, so it is now a day-use only area. Boulders have been placed around the parking area in an attempt to prevent off road vehicle use through the stream, up the adjacent hillsides and meadows, and along the “hiking only” trails,” writes Paul Finch.
Bluff Springs is one of the most patrolled sites in the forest, according to Finch:
“We have a small crew that deep cleans the area every Monday and Friday. During Holiday and prime camping weekends, our Recreation crew works through the weekend and cleans once a day, and collects trash left behind in dispersed areas. In addition to the cleaning crew, we have Fire Prevention patrols that assist in patrolling the Rio Penasco area. These patrols assist in informing visitors, assist in cleaning trash, enforce rules during fire restrictions, and put out abandoned campfires.”
Still, visitors to Bluff Springs far outnumber personnel at the Forest Service. “The limiting factor is the few patrols we have are also responsible for the rest of the Forest, which results in not being able to stay in the Bluff Springs area,” writes Finch.
New signs dot the trails leading up to and above the waterfall. They instruct people to stay on designated paths to prevent soil erosion and damage to plants like the endangered thistle.
But Chad and Adam urge more educational signage to inform people about the hydrology, plant, and animal habitats at the spring. “I think that’s the way to go. We do need more public education about it,” says Adam.
Looking to the Future
When it comes to the future of Bluff Springs and the Upper Rio Peñasco Watershed, the Forest Service predicts more visitors, more drought and more habitat loss for species like the New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse.
“The greatest threat to this species is to the loss of its grassy vegetation near precious water sources…The habitat of these areas has been in decline due to long-term drought conditions and is not expected to be improved in the near future,” states the Lincoln National Forest Plan Assessment Report, a kind of master plan and evaluation of the forest that is set to be implemented in April 2025. The last overarching forest plan was implemented in 1986.
Regarding cattle around the upper Rio Peñasco, the latest forest plan also states, “In the past 30 years, an average 11 percent decline in precipitation has necessitated adaptive management in numbers and timing of livestock. Long-term climate change models show that these risks share feedback loops and are likely to continue.”
That could bring more hurdles for ranchers like the Goss family who have spent years in litigation with the government over water rights and grazing in the pastures surrounding Bluff Springs. “I think this is my 34th or 35th year doing this. I know how to run that ranch, but we cannot run it how it needs to be run…And it takes its toll on you. We’re tired. We’re tired of fighting,” says Spike.
Managing these “keystone ecosystems” presents more challenges than answers, especially in a world where appetites for water and cooler mountain climates will grow. The one constant has been the springs themselves. They have supplied water for thousands of years and will continue to flow so long as snow falls.
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Thank you for a well written and fairly unbiased look at the problems arising at Bluff Springs. An important detail that has been missed by most is that the ranchers who own these grazing allotments have bought and paid for the right to graze their animals here. And continue to pay grazing fees every year, even after the allotment itself is paid off. Yes it’s public land and we welcome the hunters and recreationalists. But the “it’s kinda unfair” outlook is insulting. Ranchers have paid millions of dollars for grazing rights that are being taken by force. Elk populations are out of control and forest misuse is at an all time high. But only ranchers are paying the price.