A three-year effort aimed at enhancing the pedestrian trail system on irrigation ditches in Albuquerque’s north and south valleys died Monday night after supporters of the status quo galvanized opposition that underscored the plan’s potential problems.

 

The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board sided with opponents of the Ditches With Trails program and by unanimous vote severed its relationship with the group. Board member Janet Jarratt spoke for many on the board when she said she supported the concept behind the trail program but had strong reservations about a slew of details, including the board’s loss of management control over its 300-mile-long network of irrigation ditches in Bernalillo County.

 

Said board member Jim Roberts of the trail system, "I like it the way it is."

 

Ditches With Trails was started by North Valley residents who sought to enhance the informal trail system. They enlisted the help of a National Park Service trails planning program and in 2005 won a vote of support by the conservancy district. Since then they have been working on a feasibility study and two pilot projects.

 

But the feasibility report raised hackles on the conservancy board when it proposed alternative management models for the ditches, including one that would form a regional commission to plan, develop and maintain ditch trails. Several board members said that would create a jurisdictional nightmare and strip the conservancy district of its authority to manage its own irrigation ditches.

 

Similarly, the feasibility report suggested that some of the larger ditches, such as the Alameda Drain, might eventually get a strip of paved bike path along them. Some opponents of the ditch enhancement plan saw that as the first step toward paving their beloved dirt ditches, and while Ditches With Trails emphatically decried the idea, opponents speaking at the meeting said they still thought it possible.

 

The board’s decision leaves open the possibility of working with Ditches With Trails on individual projects, but supporters of the plan, including state Sen. Dede Feldman, an Albuquerque Democrat, were clearly frustrated by the board’s vote. She was among many who asked the board to hold off on a vote and gather more public input.

 

"The conservancy district has never played well with others, and perhaps this is not unexpected," Feldman said after the vote. In a prepared statement earlier she told the board: "I hope you will consider very carefully the message that a disapproval of this cooperative, multi-community, multi-jurisdictional project would send to the Legislature, to the vast majority of your own ratepayers who do not utilize MRGCD ditches for irrigation, and most importantly to the public. … Your decision will have grave implications for the future," though she said later that was not meant as a threat, but as a reminder that the district depends on its taxpayers and the Legislature for aid.