Reprinted with permission from the Taos Land Trust Newsletter
Summer 1999 Number 11
New Easement On Working Farmland
“It was our Dad’s wish that this land he worked so hard to care for would be preserved,” said Jose Leon Trujillo about the Conservation Easement he and his sister, Crestina Trujillo Armstrong, completed this spring on portions of their adjoining properties in San Cristobal.
Crestina Armstrong agreed and added, “I am protecting these acres as a gift to our ancestors, remembering and appreciating all the hard work they put into this land. I feel really good about having done this Conservation Easement, knowing that this land will be preserved forever. My two boys are excited about it, too. We think productive agricultural land will be needed in the future to feed people.”
The Conservation Easement is bounded on the south by the Acequia Madre de San Cristobal and on the north by the Acequia del Norte de San Cristobal. San Cristobal Creek runs through the easement. A statewide soil survey by the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture classified this land as prime farmland and as farmland of statewide significance.
By granting an easement on 37.5 acres of their properties, Armstrong and Trujillo have ensured that the agricultural values and openness of their lands will be protected. They have asked the TLT to accept responsibility for carrying out their wishes and protecting their properties forever as they have specified in the Deed of Conservation Easement.
Water rights on the property date back to 1835, Armstrong reported, and the land has a long history of use as irrigated farmland and pastures. She and her brother are the fourth generation in their family to farm there. Currently, the Armstrongs are growing feed for their livestock on it. Trujillo remembered, “Dad used to say, ‘They’re making new cars, new homes and so on, but they’re not making any more land, so we need to work with this land, to protect it.’”
The Easement grantors have specified that additions may be made in the future to the two homes and the agriculture-related structures currently existing on the easement property, but thy have limited the size of those additions and have stated in their Conservation Easement that no new residences may be built there. The acres of un-irrigated sage land adjacent to the Easement were not included in the Easement and so development rights remain intact there.
Of course the Trujillo-Armstrong family will retain ownership of all their land and all the rights that accompany ownership, including the right to pass the property on to their heirs or to sell it as they see fit. The Conservation Easement will stay with the land it protects forever.
Board of Directors President Ham Brown expresses the appreciation of the Taos Land Trust and the community for Crestina Armstrong’s and Jose Trujillo’s permanent protection of their working farmland and the green open space it provides for all of us to enjoy, adding, “So many acres of productive farmland are being paved over every year that we feel it is very important to help save as much as possible for the future.” This is the twentieth conservation project that Taos Land Trust has completed in northern New Mexico.