A couple of quick updates for my readers.
First, my good friend from Albuquerque, Ken Tabish, and I got the fish tank filled and running this week at White Mountain Elementary School in Ruidoso.
If you’ll recall, Trout Unlimited sponsors programs to allow elementary or middle school students to raise trout in a large aquariums in their classrooms for eventual release into nearby cold streams or lakes. The program is designed to help kids appreciate the need for clean cold waters in the United States, take part in the process to raise trout in their own classroom and encourage them to participate in fishing.
I will help in the process to bring rainbow trout eggs from the Lisboa Springs hatchery in northern New Mexico to Ruidoso in mid January and put them in the tank we have been preparing. The third graders will be able to see the eggs hatch into fry and then grow into a size that can be released into nearby waters late this spring. The students, who are very excited about the program, will be on hand to see the fish they helped raise be released into the wild.
The New Mexico council of Trout Unlimited received some very good news this week that its request had been approved for a $40,000 grant to expand the Trout in the Classroom program at other schools around the state. The grant was from the newly created New Mexico Outdoor Equity Fund to encourage outdoor recreation and conservation projects around the state.
Other schools around southern New Mexico are hoping to get Trout in the Classroom projects going next year, including Mesilla Park Elementary in Las Cruces and G.W. Stout Elementary School in Silver City. Schools in Alamogordo and Artesia have also expressed an interest in starting programs.
As the project progresses, I’ll give you updates.
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On another subject, I’m glad to report that the intersection of Interstate 25 north and Interstate 10 east has FINALLY been reopened. I ranted in an earlier post about how long it had taken the New Mexico Department of transportation to repair this important interchange between two major U.S. Interstate highways. An accident on July 21 caused damage to an overpass from I-10 to I-25, but it took five months to get the work done. I am still convinced that if this kind of interchange had been damaged in Albuquerque or Santa Fe, a repair would have been completed in significantly less time.
aero-cordero.com 