As Valles Caldera moves to Park Service, pueblo’s claim to land lingers

A fog slowly lifted over the Valles Caldera National Preserve on Saturday morning as officials prepared for a dedication ceremony to mark the transition of 89,000 acres of land atop a dormant volcano to a national park. But despite Saturday’s sunny celebration of the transition — attended by high-ranking U.S. government officials and tribal elders — the matter o The pueblo’s website is soliciting contributions to the Jemez Pueblo Natural Resources Department to “help fund the final archaeological and ethnographic research to support the land claim” and to “help support litigation.” Jemez Pueblo members still consider the land sacred and use it not only for spiritual purposes, but for practical ones, too, according to an order by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in the summer that allowed the pueblo to take its claims of ownership over the property back to U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. f who actually owns the land is still foggy. The fight in Washington, D.C., to bring the pristine Jemez Mountains property into the National Park Service has ended. But meanwhile, another fight about whether the United States owns the land or the Pueblo of Jemez, whose ancestors roamed this area as long as 800 years ago, is reviving in U.S. District Court. The Jemez Pueblo, fueled by a U.S. Court of Appeals decision over the summer, is engaged with the federal government in an ongoing legal dispute about its claim to the property...more

Here's hoping the Pueblo of Jemez proves their claim.  I'll bet they can make the unit pay for itself.  Could see a hunting cabins-ranch headquarters-casino combination that makes the public happy and the tribe wealthy!