SANTA CLARA PUEBLO, NM (AP) — This was a land of dense forests. A creek cascading through ponds in a canyon. A valley of sage and juniper with shady cottonwood galleries and many gardens.
For thousands of years, the Tewa people of Kha’p’o Owingeh — Valley of the Wild Roses — have called Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico home. They hunted, gathered firewood and medicinal and ceremonial plants and dug clay to make shiny black and redware pottery. Fields near the Rio Grande bore a bounty of corn, beans, squash and chiles.
But heat and drought, exacerbated by climate change, have taken a toll on the the pueblo’s 89 square miles (230 square kilometers), from the Rio Grande Valley to Santa Clara Canyon in the Jemez Mountains — threatening an existence tied to land, water and animals celebrated through stories, songs and dances passed down through ages.
Keeping up with change
Three large wildfires in 13 years burned more than 80% of the pueblo's forested land. The last one, the 2011 Las Conchas fire, burned so hot it hardened ground like concrete.
Two months later, just a quarter-inch of rain unleashed the first of several devastating flash floods, scouring charred slopes and sending boulders, debris and sediment through the pueblo. It buried a canyon road 50 feet (15 meters) deep, blew out earthen dams and drained ponds. It decimated wildlife habitat and killed all fish.
In the valley, where the tribe of about 1,350 lives, runoff after rains still fills irrigation ditches with sediment and ruins crops. Farmers who once freely diverted water from the Rio Grande now do so on designated days. They say hotter temperatures and stronger winds dry soil quickly, rain is unpredictable, snowfall scarce.
People here are familiar with drought. But the megadrought now gripping the West and Southwest, the worst in 1,200 years, makes the future less certain.
“How do you prepare ... with so many unknowns?”
says Santa Clara Pueblo Gov. J. Michael Chavarria. “We can’t just pack up our bags and leave."
Restoring the lands
The tribe is restoring the watershed with scientific and native knowledge: using rocks to slow water and create ponds and floodwater diversions. Tree roots and debris create habitat, enrich soil and shade seedlings and Santa Clara Creek.
Signs of progress include fir and spruce sprouting this summer along the creek. Only about 40% of the tribe’s more than 2 million trees planted in the past 20 years have survived, and some unshaded slopes may never again support trees in a hotter, drier climate.
So the natural regeneration is “like the apex of restoration,” says Garrett Altmann, a geographic information systems and project manager.
There are more signs of renewal: A carpet of green beneath blackened trees. Bulrushes along streambanks. Aspens filling in where conifers burned. Bears, elk, deer and bobcats returning.
But there's much to do even after about $100 million in federal disaster aid and other funding was spent on emergency response and to rebuild a temporary canyon road, install culverts, erect steel mesh barriers to catch debris in ravines, and to dig ash and sediment from ponds and the creek.
The tribe needs to rebuild a permanent canyon road and restore ponds, where they hope to reintroduce native cutthroat trout — projects that could cost almost $200 million more, pueblo officials say.
But they believe they can spend less and accomplish more with their nature-based approach, while recognizing limitations in a warmer climate.
They'll be strategic about replanting trees, leaving space between future forest stands. They’ll revive prescribed burns — an ancient practice long discouraged by state and federal agencies — to keep forests from again becoming overgrown and susceptible to drought, insects and disease.
Still, some fear climate change could outpace recovery, that another wildfire could undo years of progress.
“I want to be hopeful,” says Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo, 63, who wants to share his childhood experiences — hunting, fishing, camping — with his grandchildren. “But the way things are going now, I don’t know.”
Valley of the Wild Roses
Three-year-old Antonita, center, helps peel corn at the home of her grandparents Norma and Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Farmer Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo boils corn at his home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Farmer Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo boils corn at his home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Norma Naranjo fries sopapillas to feed her friends and relatives at her home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Naranjo says their grandfathers used to tell them not to plant until the snow disappeared from the peaks. As the climate changes, she says snowfall is increasingly rare. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Artist Sharon Naranjo Garcia builds a pot with clay at her home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, on Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. She is from the nearby Santa Clara Pueblo, where she learned to make the pueblo's distinctive pottery from older generations in her family. She and other artists say wildfires and flash floods, worsened by climate change, have made it more difficult to gather clay from the foothills of the pueblo’s canyon and wood used to fire the pottery. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine)
Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo places corn to dry at his home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings, from corn grown in neighboring Santa Clara Pueblo. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Farmer Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo harvests corn at his ancestral family farm on the Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Climate change is taking a toll on the community, which has been home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Norma Naranjo shows bagged chicos, corn kernels dried during a previous season at her home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make year make chicos – dried kernels used in stews and puddings – from corn grown in neighboring Santa Clara Pueblo. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A small crop of chile peppers grow in the gardens of Gilbert Naranjo’s cousin at Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Climate change is taking a toll on Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, which has been home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Farmer Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo checks if the corn is ready to harvest at the Santa Clara Pueblo farmlands in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Climate change is taking a toll on the pueblo, which has been home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
An early Santa Clara Pueblo structure sits on the mesa top at the Puye Cliff Dwellings in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. The tribe lived there until drought forced them to move to the Rio Grande Valley about 500 years ago. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Gilbert Naranjo poses for a photo at his home on Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. “Fields just aren’t producing like they used to,” says Naranjo, who's in charge of plowing farmers' fields. He says some people now buy starter plants because it can be difficult to get seeds to germinate. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A butterfly rests on a bush along the Rio Grande River at the Santa Clara Pueblo farmlands in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Corn that did not fully mature can sits at the Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Climate change is taking a toll on the pueblo, which has been home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Tammy Parsons, nursery manager with New Mexico State University's John T. Harrington Forestry Research Center, holds Douglas fir seedlings in Mora, New Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. The center grows seedlings that are planted at Santa Clara Pueblo and other areas affected by wildfires. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A coyote strolls through the Santa Clara Canyon in northern New Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The canyon, part of Santa Clara Pueblo, remains closed to the public while its habitat is restored after devastating wildfires and flash floods. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Daniel Denipah, Santa Clara Pueblo forestry director, shows the area where a pond used to be at the Santa Clara Canyon in northern New Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The canyon, part of Santa Clara Pueblo, is closed to the public while its habitat is restored after devastating wildfires and flash floods. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Burned pine trees stand at the Santa Clara Canyon in northern New Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The canyon, part of Santa Clara Pueblo, remains closed to the public while its habitat is restored after devastating wildfires and flash floods. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A juvenile Steller's jay sits in a burned branch at the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. Large areas of the northernmost New Mexico national forest were ravaged by the Hermit's Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires in April 2022. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Birds fly near the Puye Cliff Dwellings in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. The cliff dwellings were home to the ancestors of today's Santa Clara Pueblo people until drought forced them to move to the Rio Grande Valley about 500 years ago. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Raymond Naranjo, 99, poses for a photo outside his home in Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Pueblo elders say ancestral knowledge is key for future generations to develop a strong cultural and spiritual connection to this ancient place to help preserve their way of life. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
FILE - Firefighter Brandon DeLong, left, and Andrew Buus conduct a burnout operation while battling the Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos, N.M., July 1, 2011. Three wildfires have burned more than 80% of forested land on the Santa Clara Pueblo. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
Contractors work on waterway restoration in Santa Clara Canyon in northern New Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The canyon, part of Santa Clara Pueblo, remains closed to the public while its habitat is being restored after devastating wildfires and flash floods. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Burned pine trees stand in the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. Large areas of the northernmost New Mexico national forest were ravaged by the Hermit's Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires in April 2022. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Lawrence Sisneros collects dried corn from a rack at the home of Norma and Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly called San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings, from corn grown at nearby Santa Clara Pueblo. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Corn sits on a drying rack at the home of Norma and Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly known as San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Nine-year-old Amalia Valdez, right, helps her grandmother Norma, center, peel corn at Naranjo's home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Norma Naranjo, left, is helped by relatives and friends to peel corn at her home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly called San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Three-year-old Antonita, center, helps peel corn at the home of her grandparents Norma and Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Farmer Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo boils corn at his home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Farmer Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo boils corn at his home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Norma Naranjo fries sopapillas to feed her friends and relatives at her home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Naranjo says their grandfathers used to tell them not to plant until the snow disappeared from the peaks. As the climate changes, she says snowfall is increasingly rare. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Artist Sharon Naranjo Garcia builds a pot with clay at her home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, on Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. She is from the nearby Santa Clara Pueblo, where she learned to make the pueblo's distinctive pottery from older generations in her family. She and other artists say wildfires and flash floods, worsened by climate change, have made it more difficult to gather clay from the foothills of the pueblo’s canyon and wood used to fire the pottery. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine)
Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo places corn to dry at his home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings, from corn grown in neighboring Santa Clara Pueblo. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Farmer Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo harvests corn at his ancestral family farm on the Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Climate change is taking a toll on the community, which has been home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Norma Naranjo shows bagged chicos, corn kernels dried during a previous season at her home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make year make chicos – dried kernels used in stews and puddings – from corn grown in neighboring Santa Clara Pueblo. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A small crop of chile peppers grow in the gardens of Gilbert Naranjo’s cousin at Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Climate change is taking a toll on Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, which has been home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Farmer Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo checks if the corn is ready to harvest at the Santa Clara Pueblo farmlands in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Climate change is taking a toll on the pueblo, which has been home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
An early Santa Clara Pueblo structure sits on the mesa top at the Puye Cliff Dwellings in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. The tribe lived there until drought forced them to move to the Rio Grande Valley about 500 years ago. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Gilbert Naranjo poses for a photo at his home on Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. “Fields just aren’t producing like they used to,” says Naranjo, who's in charge of plowing farmers' fields. He says some people now buy starter plants because it can be difficult to get seeds to germinate. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A butterfly rests on a bush along the Rio Grande River at the Santa Clara Pueblo farmlands in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Corn that did not fully mature can sits at the Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Climate change is taking a toll on the pueblo, which has been home to Tewa-speaking people for thousands of years. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Tammy Parsons, nursery manager with New Mexico State University's John T. Harrington Forestry Research Center, holds Douglas fir seedlings in Mora, New Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. The center grows seedlings that are planted at Santa Clara Pueblo and other areas affected by wildfires. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A coyote strolls through the Santa Clara Canyon in northern New Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The canyon, part of Santa Clara Pueblo, remains closed to the public while its habitat is restored after devastating wildfires and flash floods. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Daniel Denipah, Santa Clara Pueblo forestry director, shows the area where a pond used to be at the Santa Clara Canyon in northern New Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The canyon, part of Santa Clara Pueblo, is closed to the public while its habitat is restored after devastating wildfires and flash floods. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Burned pine trees stand at the Santa Clara Canyon in northern New Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The canyon, part of Santa Clara Pueblo, remains closed to the public while its habitat is restored after devastating wildfires and flash floods. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A juvenile Steller's jay sits in a burned branch at the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. Large areas of the northernmost New Mexico national forest were ravaged by the Hermit's Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires in April 2022. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Birds fly near the Puye Cliff Dwellings in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. The cliff dwellings were home to the ancestors of today's Santa Clara Pueblo people until drought forced them to move to the Rio Grande Valley about 500 years ago. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Raymond Naranjo, 99, poses for a photo outside his home in Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Pueblo elders say ancestral knowledge is key for future generations to develop a strong cultural and spiritual connection to this ancient place to help preserve their way of life. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
FILE - Firefighter Brandon DeLong, left, and Andrew Buus conduct a burnout operation while battling the Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos, N.M., July 1, 2011. Three wildfires have burned more than 80% of forested land on the Santa Clara Pueblo. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
Contractors work on waterway restoration in Santa Clara Canyon in northern New Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The canyon, part of Santa Clara Pueblo, remains closed to the public while its habitat is being restored after devastating wildfires and flash floods. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Burned pine trees stand in the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. Large areas of the northernmost New Mexico national forest were ravaged by the Hermit's Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires in April 2022. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Lawrence Sisneros collects dried corn from a rack at the home of Norma and Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly called San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings, from corn grown at nearby Santa Clara Pueblo. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Corn sits on a drying rack at the home of Norma and Eugene “Hutch” Naranjo in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly known as San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Nine-year-old Amalia Valdez, right, helps her grandmother Norma, center, peel corn at Naranjo's home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly named San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
Norma Naranjo, left, is helped by relatives and friends to peel corn at her home in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly called San Juan Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Friends and relatives of the Naranjos gather every year to make chicos, dried kernels used in stews and puddings. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
A guessing game
Tribal members also worry about farming's future in Rio Grande Valley, where dozens of families once tended plots.
“Fields just aren’t producing like they used to,” says Gilbert Naranjo — no relation to Hutch — who plows farmers’ fields. Many didn’t plant this year after losing much of last year’s crop to winds, a late-summer frost and ongoing drought.
Some who did lost crops again when drought returned in spring, after heavy monsoon rains in July and August, and when elk from the canyon raided their fields.
Hutch and Norma Naranjo attribute their successful harvest — especially corn, integral to Tewa diet and culture — to prayer, crop rotation and native seeds that better withstand drought.
But farming is now “a guessing game,” says Hutch.
Farmers say temperatures exceed 90 and 100 degrees (32 and 38 Celsius) more often. The wind blows harder, drying soil and flattening crops. Snowpack that melted in spring, filling waterways and recharging aquifers, is increasingly scarce.
A recent federal assessment for New Mexico projects even less snowpack in the future, along with more intense heat and drought that could trigger more wildfires and dust storms.
Changes over the past 30 years already contribute to drought and extreme weather, says National Weather Service hydrologist Andrew Mangham.
“It’s becoming very, very feast or famine,” Mangham says. “We either have no rain or we get 5 inches at once or 8 inches at once.”
Rainfall can be bittersweet — it helps crops but can wreak havoc, like this summer when flash flood sediment destroyed former Santa Clara Gov. Walter Dasheno's irrigation system.
Tribal leaders also worry whether groundwater that supplies pueblo homes will continue to recharge adequately.
Dasheno, who’s on a pueblo water rights committee, says they've discussed a solar-powered well, rerouting irrigation ditches or finding a way to store water from Santa Clara Creek.
The tribe also hopes to recreate wetlands along the Rio Grande to recharge surface and groundwater, says pueblo forestry director Daniel Denipah.
All ideas are on the table, Gov. Chavarria says.
"If you don’t have good water to irrigate your crops ... they die off,” he says. “So if we don’t have a good water source, good quality of water, we may die off as well.”
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