Appeals court: Jemez Pueblo may have claim to Valles Caldera

A federal appeals court on Friday revived Jemez Pueblo’s lawsuit claiming rights to the Valles Caldera National Preserve, an 89,000-acre former ranch that includes sprawling meadows, mountain peaks and one of New Mexico’s largest elk herds. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said a U.S. District Court in Albuquerque should take another look at whether an 1860 land grant extinguished the pueblo’s rights to the large swath of the Jemez Mountains west of Los Alamos. The ruling says the pueblo may still have a land-title claim against the U.S. government, which had awarded the land grant to the heirs of Luis Maria Cabeza de Baca. The property was later acquired by the Dunigan family of Abilene, Texas, which in 2000 sold it to the federal government for $101 million. Judge Stephanie K. Seymour wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel that the ownership issue remains unresolved. When the case goes back to the District Court, he wrote, “the Jemez Pueblo will have to prove that it had, and still has, aboriginal title to the land at issue in the case.” The ruling comes on the heels of federal legislation late last year that established the Valles Caldera National Preserve as a new unit of the National Park Service system. The tribe sued in 2012, claiming the land belongs to tribal members because their ancestors were the primary occupants of the area, and members still continue to visit it for religious ceremonies, initiations and hunting. They use hot springs for healing purposes. Ancient trails, home sites, fields, hunting traps and sacred areas have been identified on what is now the preserve, which encompasses the collapsed remains of an ancient volcano. The pueblo argues that the tribe holds the original land title and that the 1860 land grant didn’t extinguish that title...more