Regarding Los Alamos open space

Los Alamos has hired some trail consultants to produce a trails master plan. I attended a working group meeting in early December to discuss the matter. This post outlines some ideas on Los Alamos open space and what I think we ought to do. (My previous post on the topic addressed a specific proposal for a bike park.)

I’ll open with some of my observations about the state of open space in Los Alamos, and then propose some guiding principles based on those. Finally, I offer a smorgasbord of specific policy recommendations.

Observations

I grew up in Los Alamos, left for 12 years when I graduated from high school, and returned a year ago. I love the outdoors and spend as much time outside as I can. Given that context, here’s what I’ve noticed:

• We have extraordinary and unique open space. Los Alamos County has 11,000-foot mountains, large and small tuff canyons, large and small basalt canyons, ponderosa forests, spruce/fir forests, piñon-juniper forests, meadows, mountain and canyon streams, mesas, the Rio Grande, a national monument, tremendous views, and much much more. What I find most amazing is how intimately Los Alamos proper is embedded in this open space: the canyons in the middle of town mean that most anyone has access within a few minutes walk to places that may be a stone’s throw from someone’s back yard but feel like they’re in the middle of nowhere. Few, if any, other towns in the world have what we have.
• Our open space is at risk. For example, in my own memory, large blocks of county forest that I spent considerable time in were lost to development (Ponderosa Estates and Quemazon), and there are continual pressures for development such as the recent golf course flap. Forest Service land abutting the town has no particular protections, and there’s precedent for transferring it to others. LANL can develop its open space as it wishes.
• We have an access problem. While there’s quite a lot of nearby open space we have great access to, it turns out there’s also a lot we don’t, for various reasons. For example, DOE land, pueblo land, and the Valle Grande are wholly or partially off limits. When a home turns over or new homes are built, traditional access to the woods through the private land can be lost. Also, trails on DOE land are frequently closed; as a scientific and security institution with various amusing political pressures, LANL is understandably not all that interested in managing for recreation.
• Our town is too dependent on the lab. Los Alamos is a one-company town, and its economic health is tightly entangled with LANL and the vagaries of its federal funding stream. In trying to move past that and seek economic stability, we should find our competitive advantage: what can we offer that others can’t? Retail development that excludes local business certainly isn’t the answer; maybe an outdoor-focused economy is.

The point being: our open space has tremendous value, and community policy should reflect that.

Principles

Any robust policy or plan needs to have a small number of guiding principles. In the case of Los Alamos County open space policy, I propose these three:

1. Preservation. Open Space should be preserved in its natural state, and existing impacts should be mitigated.
2. Access. Human access for non-motorized recreation should be provided to the maximum reasonable extent. Any limitations on access or activities, whether based on ecology, security, politics, or otherwise, should be as focused as possible.
3. Collaboration. Los Alamos County should work with nearby land owners, large and small, to build an integrated ecosystem of open space that works towards the above two principles.

As an aside, these highlight a key flaw in the focus of the meeting I attended: any master plan should not be about trails. It should be about open space. Trail planning is only part of that.

Some recommendations

Given the above principles, here are some things that I believe we as a community ought to do. To start, we need some policy changes:

• Add to the county’s strategic plan a specific acknowledgement of the value of Los Alamos open space and the above principles.
• Rezone unbuilt county land in a way that preserves its natural character in perpetuity.
• Compute and publish open space metrics to compare our access to open space to other communities. For example, a common metric is something like “miles of trail within N minutes’ walk of the average home”; I don’t care for this one because I believe the focus on trails is wrong, as I’ve noted above. Rather, how about something like “acres of open space within 1 mile of the average home”?

Also, the county should initiate collaboration efforts with nearby landowners and other interests; for example:

• Seek federal protections for Forest Service land adjacent to town. Wilderness designation is one option, though perhaps not appropriate here because it prohibits mountain bikes. But there must be something that protects Forest Service land from development and the impact of motorized access.
• Work with DOE to secure non-motorized recreational access to DOE land (e.g., in Los Alamos Canyon). This could include targeted land transfer requests, or perhaps the county could take over trail management and the corresponding liability for targeted lands, leaving security responsibilities with LANL. (This would better align institutional incentives with open space access.)
• Seek easements through yards to access open space. For example, at Arizona Ave. & Club Road and the terminus of San Ildefonso Road on North Mesa. This should be low pressure — if a given homeowner isn’t interested, that’s fine, and the county should not continue to bother him or her. Nearby properties may also be options. However, the county should also maintain a list of desired access points and approach new owners when targeted properties turn over.

Finally, here are some things we should build or do:

• Write a comprehensive, long-term master plan for trails. This is apparently in the works — i.e., the county is actually spending money on it — which is great!
• Mark the trails better, to distinguish officially maintained county trails from social trails. Ideas include:
• Classier signs. Right now trails are marked with tacky fiberglass stakes; let’s instead put up nice wooden, metal, or stone ones that reflect the quality of our trail network.
• An official county cairn, perhaps in two variants (main trail and access). We could have a multi-stage public contest to produce robust, easy-to-build, recognizable designs that can be constructed in any local environment.
• Improved printing on trailhead kiosks; currently, all but the newest ones have severe fading problems. Also, kiosks need an easy-to-read locator map with a “you are here” indicator.
• Complete the Perimeter Trail. Currently you can go from roughly the cemetery around the northwest side of town to the ice rink in Los Alamos canyon. The Perimeter Trail should be extended to form a true loop around town: down Los Alamos canyon to the Y, then up and over the mesas to Rendija Canyon and back to the cemetery.
• Complete an extended Perimeter Trail which loops past Bandelier and White Rock.
• Build a road biking loop from town to Bandelier, White Rock, and back up to town. This could follow NM502, NM4, and the truck route with proper shoulder extensions.
• Build quality road bike access from the back gate up into the mountains to the Valle Grande and beyond.
• Create a “Jemez Mountains Grand Loop Trail”. This would be a long trail, on the order of 200 miles, which wound a loop through the Jemez Mountains. The point would be to create a world-class long trail — perhaps a National Scenic Trail — with buy-in from all the communities surrounding the Jemez. Perhaps there could be a variant allowing one to stay in the backcountry for the full 200 miles and a variant where one traveled light from community to community and stayed in hotels or bunkhouses instead of backpacking. (I’m not the first to have ideas like this; in particular, Dorothy Hoard and others have floated the idea of a Valles Caldera loop trail.)

Why forest people should support Option 2 of the golf course improvement/expansion

After several weeks off, the golf course issue is back again — there are a couple of public meetings soon, one on Wednesday for the Parks & Rec Board to consider the proposals, and another for the Capital Improvements Board to consider them (the final step before the County Council).

Anyway, you may recall that my initial position was that we shouldn’t cut down any trees at all to accommodate a golf course project. After being pretty thoroughly involved in the process, and talking with forest people as well as Andy Staples, the golf course architect, and seeing the new options emerge, I’ve changed my mind.

Specifically, I believe that people like myself who care a lot about forests and trails, and who do not care at all about golf, should nevertheless support Option 2. This option gives up a few acres of trees and puts golf on the rim of a canyon which right now is moderately secluded — which I don’t like, but I think supporting this option has more benefits than drawbacks.

Specifically, those benefits are: (a) it would make golfers much happier than Option 1 or leaving the layout unchanged, which means it would be a long-term solution and we won’t be having this same conversation again in 10 years, and (b) it builds political capital that will be valuable in seeking broader open space protections across the county (and conversely, opposing the project destroys political capital that we need). Also, we still get item B even if the plan fails!

You might ask: “Don’t we already have good de facto protection of open space in the county? And isn’t public opposition such that we can be fairly confident of blocking future development proposals?” The answers turn out to be no and no. For example, here are some development proposals from the past 20 years (compiled by Craig Martin, who is awesome; this list is an edited quote from his post in the Los Alamos Trails Facebook group):

1. A proposed “emergency access road” through the middle of open space on the White Rock Canyon Rim in Overlook Park.
2. Housing on the Western Perimeter Tract above 48th Street where the Perimeter Trail traverses LA Mountain.
3. A housing area and commercial uses on transfer lands (from DOE to the County) in Pueblo Canyon below Anderson Overlook.
4. Housing development in lower Bayo Canyon.
5. Expansion of housing into Rendija Canyon following transfer from DOE.
6. A proposal to move the golf course into Rendija Canyon and develop housing at the current golf course.
7. A proposal to move the stables into Rendija Canyon and develop housing at the stable area.
8. Housing development on public land across from Pajarito School on Arizona Avenue.
9. Development of Otowi Mesa, which is now Los Pueblos (the road and housing).
10. The tip of “airport mesa”, now the Pajarito Cliffs Site.
11. A proposed pipeline from the Rio Grande to White Rock through White Rock Canyon below the Overlook.

Each of these required a great deal of effort to oppose, with some successes and some failures. The point being: much of the open space we know and love in Los Alamos has zero legal protection and is at genuine risk of development.

Opposing what is a modest expansion, compared to what golfers would choose if they had their druthers, makes us look selfish and inflexible, given that the golf course is also open space (a lesser form of open space, in my opinion, but open space nonetheless). Previous efforts to build comprehensive open space protection have failed for exactly this reason.

Finally, I don’t have concerns about the cost of the project, especially since Option 2 is not much more expensive than Option 1: if one will fail on a cost basis, both will. We can afford it, quality infrastructure costs money, and it’s really decades of deferred maintenance, not a fancy new facility.

For these reasons, I believe we should support Option 2 and take advantage of the momentum this process has generated to create comprehensive protection for open space in Los Alamos County.

New golf course options and a tour of potentially impacted areas

Update 1/26: Craig learned some more concrete information about the plan details, which makes some of the content below a little misleading. I’ve added a few updates in-line.

The golf course improvement/expansion project continues. The result of the meetings two weeks ago is two new options (the previous lettered options are now off the table). Below are sketch maps of the new options, my comments, and some photos from a tour of the potentially impacted areas led by Craig Martin earlier today.

New Option 1

This option more or less rebuilds the course in place. Details matter, of course — there is some encroachment into the forest, both along the edges and into interior islands (for example, I worry about holes 4, 11, 15, and 16). But assuming the above accurately represents the actual tree loss, I could probably live with this.

The problem with this one is that it seems to have limited appeal to golfers, as far as I can tell. So if we do this, will we be having exactly the same discussion in ten years? I think everyone is much better served if we can come up with a true long-term solution. (Of course, if golfers are dissatisfied because it’s only a great community course rather than a “destination”, then I have pretty much no sympathy.)

New Option 2

This option has similar encroachment as Option 1, with two significant exceptions: Holes 4 and especially 17. Considered independently, this option is not acceptable. There is too much tree loss (we’ve just confirmed that some of these trees are 350 years old), and it totally changes the character of a secluded and remarkable viewpoint.

The upside is that the golfers seem to like this one. While Option 2 alone I could never support (simply reducing one’s demands is not a compromise; a true compromise has something in it for both sides), I believe we might make something of it. I do believe there’s a lot of value in an outcome that both sides are genuinely happy with, rather than an outcome which one side only grudgingly accepts. More on this later.

Today’s tour

Earlier today, Craig Martin generously led a tour of Option 2’s holes 17 and 4 to show folks what the impact on the ground might be. Unfortunately, all we had to go on was sketches like the ones above, so we had to do a fair amount of guessing. And there’s another layer of interpretation in my own descriptions below, so please don’t assume these are definitive.

Craig and his wife June spend a few hours flagging and staking before we arrived. Thus, you can go independently and check things out for yourself.

This is the tee area of Hole 17. I’m standing at the edge of what we think would be cleared; more or less all the visible trees from where I’m standing to the canyon rim (about 130 feet straight ahead) would be removed.

Update 1/26: Craig says: “The tee area for hole 17 is further to the south than I guessed, so fewer trees would have to be removed.” So some of the trees in this photo would go, but not all.

Same view point but angled more to the right. I think the two large trees at the right of the photo might be saved, but everything else between here and the rim would go, with perhaps less risk in the right 1/3 of the frame.

View from the tee area to the fairway on the other side of the canyon. It was unclear to us how many of the trees in the canyon would need to come down (the design team has proposed “topping” them, but any meaningful topping would kill the trees anyway).

Update 1/26: Branch removal would have a lighter touch than we thought; no trees in the canyon bottom are targeted for removal, and a couple would have branches removed but not enough to risk killing them.

View from the fairway area of Hole 17. I believe more or less all the trees between here and the canyon rim would go, along with a few more outside the right side of the frame.

Finally, this is the proposed Hole 4 under Option 2. Trees with pink flags would go; basically, count four trees in along the first row of trees and extend something that wide down to where the power lines turn right (hard to see in this photo, unfortunately).

Closing

In no particular order:

• One thing that became very clear during this tour is that details matter a lot. The forest is not amorphous; it’s a collection of individual trees. Thus, trees need to be analyzed for removal or preservation as individuals, and there needs to be room for on-the-ground negotiation regarding individual trees. Forest people must be intimately involved in these decisions, and minimization of tree loss must be a priority at all stages.
• As I mentioned, I don’t like Option 2. But, if there were something added to the deal which was of sufficient value to forest people like myself, I could live with it. Things that have been proposed which are of no value IMO are infrastructure (I don’t need any to walk in the woods) and planting native vegetation (does not replace mature ponderosas). What would be of value to me is additional open space protections in the county. The key is additional — the new protections would have to go significantly beyond the de facto protections currently enforced by public opinion as well as what we could expect to achieve without giving up forest for the golf course.
• One other thing that I think would be super cool, particularly as someone with children on the way, is mini golf. I wonder if there’s a way to fit that in without additional tree loss. That would make the course much more of a community place than a golfer place.
• Finally, I haven’t addressed the financial issues (the cost of these changes may approach $10 million); I don’t personally object to spending the money, but I’ve heard a lot of griping about it. I should also add that I’m still skeptical of the safety argument and completely unconvinced that any realistic golf course in Los Alamos can really be a regional draw.

As always, the county’s project page is here, and they are still accepting comments at cpfd@lacnm.us. Also, there’s another public meeting on Tuesday the 24th at 5:30pm in Fuller Lodge. Please attend and speak.

Golf course expansion/improvement process update

I attended one of several working group sessions this afternoon to talk about the golf course expansion/improvement project. It was pretty intense, though generally productive. Kudos to Andy Staples and the rest of the project team for putting up with four of these!

Below is my follow up letter to Andy (with a few formatting modifications). After all, I have to keep up my reputation for lengthy written comments.

The county’s project page is here, and they are still accepting comments at cpfd@lacnm.us.

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Andy,

Thanks again for meeting with me and other community members! I felt like my opinions matured as a result, and I remain optimistic that we will be able to come to a solution which is satisfactory to generally all points of view. In particular, I feel like you are a guy we can work with, and I look forward to doing so further.

I won’t be able to make the summary meeting tomorrow, but I hope that my further comments in this e-mail will be of use during that discussion. I am also happy to work further in whatever capacity is useful. In particular, I’m happy to meet with whoever, exchange e-mails, or talk on the phone if these things would be helpful.

This note builds on my earlier comments regarding the project. I’ll focus on three things: mapping the golf course footprint, what a potential deal might look like, and arguments that I still feel haven’t been made adequately.

The golf course footprint

I liked that we tried to map the existing golf course footprint. I felt that we did not succeed, however, due both to time constraints as well as the fact that the boundary turns out to be more complex than we (certainly I) expected.

I spent a little time with Google Earth and sketched out a “footprint” that matches how I feel. It’s pretty rough, but I think the basic idea will come across. The core of this sketch is that I have divided the trees around the golf course into three classes.

(click for bigness)

• Class A: The red trees are those that are most important. In my opinion it is basically unacceptable to cut any of these down. Any deal which does propose cutting these trees would need to offer very strong justification for each individual tree lost as well as very significant value to forest people elsewhere in the county, to offset for the loss.
• Class B: The magenta trees are important, but somewhat less so. In my opinion it is unacceptable to cut any of these down absent strong justification for removing each individual tree. A deal which removes these trees would need to offer significant value to forest people elsewhere in the county.
• Class C: I consider these trees part of the golf course, and thus I feel it is up to the golf course to decide what to do with them. Many are deciduous trees planted (I assume) during the original construction. I still consider these trees quite valuable, and I would hope that the design minimizes their loss, but I don't feel such loss requires offsetting to make an acceptable deal.
  

Note that the trails are missing from my map. In my opinion, the particular alignment of the trails is much less important than preserving the integrity of the forest that contains them. (A notable part of this is that the forest is sparse enough that many forest corridors have little to give; even removing a few trees can change the corridor from a forest to some trees next to the golf course.) Moving trails around is no big deal; it’s the forest that matters.

Outlines of a potential deal

I still believe that the goal should be zero trees down. To be persuaded otherwise, here is a structure of argument that I might find convincing. The crux is demonstrating clearly that leaving all trees in a given class standing is unworkable. One way to present this argument is to offer options that fall into the following categories:

1. One or more options which leave all trees in Classes A and B standing.
2. One or more options which leave all trees in Class A standing.
3. One or more options which cut in both Classes A and B.
   

For each option, I would want to see pros and cons. If no options exist in a certain category, I would want to see a clear demonstration of why none were possible. (I realize we talked about how minimizing tree loss was already one of your considerations; the point here is that I believe it is important to share this reasoning.) I would also want to see, for each option, acres of trees in Classes A and B to be removed as well as a count of individual trees to be lost, especially trees which are notable due to size or location.

For offsetting loss of trees, I first mention a couple of things that I find unattractive. Infrastructure such as trailhead facilities or trail surface improvement is of little use to me. Similarly, planting “replacement” vegetation simply takes too long to mature: even fast-growing trees will be only beginning to mature within my lifetime, and mature ponderosas near the golf course are, I am told, 200-300 years old despite their smallish size.

The key thing that a good deal could offer to forest people is broad protection of other forests within the county. In my opinion, there would be two key components to such an offer. First, it would need to be a package deal: no fix golf course now with a promise of figuring out the details of forest protections later. Do it all at the same time. Second, it would need to go significantly beyond existing protections; for example, many formally unprotected forests in this down have de facto protection due simply to public resistance to change.

Arguments which need to be developed further

I’m still not convinced by the safety arguments made thus far. Specifically in response to today’s meeting, the envelope standard seems arbitrary to me. It’s clearly based on a probability contour (i.e., X% of golf balls stay within the envelope), but the value of X is unspecified. How was the contour computed? What is X? How was it chosen? For example, we as a community can’t decide that (for example) 1/2X is an acceptable tradeoff to reach other goals. Is there any way to provide multiple envelopes with different (and specified) values of X?

In terms of liability concerns, couldn’t appropriate signage on the trails mitigate these?

Finally, it is unclear which designs are targeting the goal of a becoming a destination course and which target simply becoming a great community course. I would like this to be explicit for each option. I’ve said this earlier, so I won’t repeat myself too much, but I haven’t seen any coherent argument that it is indeed possible to become a destination course given our isolated location. If the designs continue to target this, I believe it is important to present the data and economic analysis which support the viability of this goal.

Again, thank you for listening. Please let me know if I can clarify anything or be of assistance in any way.

Golf course hike

Went on a brief walk this afternoon with Erin and Melissa, along the Walnut Rim Trail near the golf course. This is the trail which is at risk due to golf course expansion plans.

The above is pretty sad: this is all that’s left of the Golf Course Pool, where I spent a large fraction of my childhood.

Snowy Jemez Mountains. Supposedly we have more snow in the works for early next week.

All of these trees would be cut down under some of the golf course expansion options.

Should we cut down mature ponderosa forest to accommodate a golf course expansion?

Some of the latest drama here in Los Alamos is a proposed golf course improvement/expansion project which involves cutting down a significant amount of forest in North Community (both north and south of Diamond Drive, depending on the option). As you might guess, I don’t think this is a good idea. I’m in favor of golf course improvement (they really need it), but not at the expense of our internal community forests, especially after two major fires.

On December 8, there was a big public meeting at Fuller Lodge; about 150 people showed up. There was a lot of passion, but a very respectful and community-minded tone for the most part (with the exception of a group of golfers sitting behind us). The Monitor had a moderately good writeup and a few letters to the editor (1 2 3) (all behind a paywall, unfortunately). The county also has a fair amount of background information, with the usual level of bureaucratic disorganization. There are other blog posts appearing (1 2 3), and the Los Alamos Trails Facebook group is pretty stirred up.

If you want to weigh in, the county is listening. Please write to the Capital Projects and Improvements Department at cpfd@lacnm.us or to the Parks & Recreation Board at prb@lacnm.us. It’s unclear to me which is preferable, so I wrote to both.

Please also don’t hesitate to get in touch with me if you want to talk more about this or swap ideas and strategy.

My letter to the county is below.

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Dear Mr. Walker, Mr. Aragon, and members of the Parks & Recreation Board and Capital Projects and Facilities Department:

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Golf Course Improvement Study. I attended (and spoke at) the public meeting on December 8 and found it extremely valuable, particularly in understanding the perspective of the golf course community. I was persuaded that the golf course indeed needs work, and that a quality golf course is in the best interests of both forest users and golfers. However, I still have significant concerns about the project, which I detail below.

For context, I grew up on Woodland Road and recently returned to town to pursue my career. I now live in Western Area. When I was little, I spend a great deal of time in the woods within and close to town, particularly between Woodland Road and the golf course. Much of this time was unsupervised, something uniquely possible in Los Alamos, with its well-bounded interior forests. As a returning adult, I am spending time in the county forests at least once a week; when it’s lighter in the evenings, I expect to spend more. I am expecting my first child in May and hope to be able to provide him or her with the same extraordinary and unique outdoor experiences I was lucky enough to have when I was young.

I have never played a round of golf and expect never to do so. This does not mean I am anti-golf; rather, I am simply indifferent to it. However, I do believe strongly in community and realize that a viable community has diverse interests. Thus, it is important to me as a community member to support the interests of local golfers, to the extent that they do not threaten my own, and in this specific case, it is important to me to reach some kind of agreement which satisfies both golfers and forest users. I am happy to put in significant work towards this goal (e.g., by serving on a working group).

My concerns about the project fall into three basic categories: the removal of trees, the expectation that an improved course can really be a regional draw, and the validity of the safety concerns expressed by the golf course.

Removal of trees

First, I believe the framing of the impacts is incorrect. The central issue is not trails, but rather their context: the forest. Neither matching nor increasing the trail mileage is sufficient; it is the impact on forest that should be considered. Trails are simply a means to access the forest.

Most importantly, I stand by my opinion that the goal of the project should be zero trees removed. This is not an extreme position. Our forest is particularly precious after two major wildfires in the past decade, once of which had severe effects within North Community itself. Should we not think long and hard before reducing what little we have left? The forest and its trees are a core asset for the people and wildlife that use them, and it is perfectly reasonable for us to ask that they be left alone.

I worry too about the erosive precedent we would set by removing trees: a few trees here, a few trees there, and pretty soon we’ll have nothing left. Many mountain communities have followed this unfortunate path. Let’s not become one of them.

Allow me to make an analogy. Suppose that instead of trees, the golf course were surrounded by boulders and cliffs – features prohibitively expensive to remove. Would the golf course simply throw up its hands and give up on improvements? Of course not. The course’s planners would get creative and produce a great solution within the constraints. My point is this: the cost of removing trees is in fact prohibitively expensive. It is just that the expense cannot be measured in dollars. And thus, I ask the community to work towards creative solutions which respect the magnitude of this expense.

Similarly, project planners must not hide this expense. When presenting options, planners must quote clearly (a) acres of forest to be removed and (b) number of mature ponderosas to be removed. If the golf course is going to ask forest users to give up part of the forest, it has a duty to be explicit about the impact.

I also note that the golf course invoked the notion of sustainability several times. I found this frustrating – does not sustainability include preserving our rapidly disappearing natural heritage? It is impossible to plant mature ponderosas; a “sustainable” new course does not make up for lost trees.

I believe strongly that the golf course has not made its case for removal of trees. The way to make this case is to show first that zero-tree options have been creatively and exhaustively explored, and then make a persuasive case that such options really are unworkable. Currently, it is clear that improvement within existing boundaries (currently Option C) was not explored anywhere near as thoroughly as the expansion options. The golf course must do so in order to credibly ask for tree removal.

Can an improved course really be a regional draw?

I sympathize with the golf course’s desire to become a regionally known course that draws golfers from beyond our community. However, I’m not yet convinced this is a realistic goal. In particular, I note that anyone coming up to Los Alamos to play golf must drive past courses in the valley which golfers in the meeting acknowledged as excellent. Thus, if the course were to become a regional draw, it would need to not only match neighboring courses in quality but exceed them sufficiently to justify another half hour of driving. As I mentioned, I’m not a golfer, but that seems like a tall order to me.

In particular, I am concerned that factors beyond course condition have a significant effect on the course’s ability to become a regional draw. I believe the golf course has a responsibility to quantify the degree to which course condition has hurt the course as well as the degree to which improving it would help. What data support the theory that improving the course will lead to increased interest (and accompanying player numbers)? How much of the cited play decline, and the expected play increase, are due to course condition as opposed to other factors, including construction and improvement of nearby courses, change in popularity of golf in general, and the economic downturn? How much does the additional driving beyond competing courses matter to players?

In other words, why should the golf course attempt to become a regional draw rather than an excellent community course? My point here is that the golf course must be improved under realistic assumptions and toward realistic goals. The golf course must make a credible case, backed by data, that becoming a regional draw is in fact plausible and likely under the proposed changes, before asking the community to endorse steps towards that goal.

Safety concerns expressed by the golf course

While I certainly agree that safety is an important consideration in most things, I do not believe the golf course has adequately made its case that meaningful safety problems exist and that the proposed improvements would mitigate them. At the meeting, evidence supporting the existence of a safety problem was limited to course standards and anecdotes (and especially in this town, the plural of anecdote is not data). No evidence at all was presented supporting the implicit claim that the course is meaningfully worse off than similar courses. (While the golf course showed that it did not meet current design standards, that is not the same thing.)

The golf course must present data showing (a) that a safety problem exists, and the specific nature of that problem, (b) that these problems are significantly worse than similar courses, and (c) that the proposed improvements sufficiently mitigate the problem. Additionally, the similar courses must be selected appropriately; new courses constructed to the most modern standards would not qualify. In these analyses, the golf course must be clear about who in particular is benefitting from improved safety, and to what degree. Golfers? Motorists on Diamond Drive? Hikers in the forest? In particular, simple signage could go along way towards improving hiker safety (if indeed there is a problem).

At this point, I worry that the golf course is simply “playing the safety card” in order to get what it wants. Being more specific and quantitative about the issue will allay this concern.

Moving forward

I do believe, based on the respectful and community-minded tone of the meeting as well as my own goals, that an agreement can be reached which would satisfy both sides. I also agree with Mr. Walker that a proposal that does not enjoy broad support would probably be unsuccessful (certainly, I would vigorously oppose a proposal which I believed did not adequately take into account the interests of forest users).

I also believe that keeping this constructive tone is important. While in general I do not see any problems emerging in this area, one that concerns me is vocabulary. The county is calling the plan an “improvement”, but several of the options include increasing the size of the golf course, which clearly meets the definition of “expansion”. (In particular, I was frustrated and worried when Mr. Stupka stood up at the end of the meeting and asserted repeatedly that the golf course was not seeking to expand. Denying the meaning of common words is an important ingredient in the collapse of good will and common purpose. I hope that the golf community will not continue down this path.) I suggest renaming the project to “Golf Course Improvement and/or Expansion Project”, in order to reflect the fact that some of the options involve expansion.

Along those lines, I’m interested in serving on a working group to hash out an agreement. It seems to me that having stakeholders sit down, get to know one another, and work out disagreements at length is a fruitful strategy that would lead to a solid agreement supported by both sides. (It is not clear to me that the current process really involves the two sides working together.) I’m sure it’s obvious that that I am firmly on the side of the forest, which I believe makes me an excellent candidate for a working group – if I’m satisfied, then there is a good chance that most forest people will be satisfied.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment, and I would love an opportunity to participate more deeply in this process. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

[my full name, address, phone number]

A few Los Alamos hikes

Erin and I went on a few short hikes around town this weekend: a little bit of Hidden Canyon Trail off Trinity, East Fork Trail near the golf course, and Kwage Trail behind the stables on North Mesa.

Pajarito Mountain from pretty much someone’s back yard, near Hidden Canyon.

Not actually East Fork Trail – we got lost. The tracks lead to someone’s back gate.

Just below the stairs on East Fork Trail.

Also just below the stairs on East Fork Trail.

Kwage Trail on North Mesa. The mountain on the right is Caballo.

The end of Kwage Trail, overlooking the new old sewage treatment plant.

Barranca Mesa from the Kwage Trail.