The recent flurry of newspaper articles, editorials and letters to the editor regarding Valles Caldera National Preserve demonstrates the public's concern about its future. Hunters and anglers, many of them members of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, are at the forefront of this wave of concern, and we were pleased to see The New Mexican write in favor on Sept. 29 of a new management system for Valles Caldera. Unfortunately, the editorial ("A Jemez national park? Maybe later") contained errors that need to be corrected.

Valles Caldera was acquired with taxpayer money in 2000 for the public to enjoy. The purchase was driven in large part by the desire to protect the property from being commercially developed, and by the desire of average citizens to enjoy this natural wonder for the first time.

As a condition of the purchase, however, the property was subject to an experiment in which it would be managed by a federal government corporation run by a politically appointed board of trustees. After nine years, it is clear that this experimental management system is not working. Access is overly restrictive, user fees are high enough to prevent many families from using the area for the activities that are permitted, and now the Valles Caldera Board of Trustees is proposing to commercially develop the preserve with a high-end hotel, RV park and "glamorous camping" for the wealthy in order to meet the experimental mandate to become financially self-sufficient.

Most important, and a point missed in Monday's editorial, is that despite all the high fees, this experimental management system is actually costing the taxpayers more money than traditional management. At present, Valles Caldera hosts 15,000 visitors per year with an operating budget of around $4 million, a cost of about $266 per visitor. Bandelier National Monument, which is managed by the National Park Service, hosts more than 250,000 visitors per year on a budget of around $2.5 million, or about $10 per visitor.

People are demanding a new approach, one in which the preserve is maintained but professionally managed as public land for the benefit of all citizens. For these reasons the New Mexico Wildlife Federation supports the move by New Mexico's two U.S. senators to start exploring options to turn management over to a professional, public natural resource agency, such as the National Park Service or U.S. Forest Service.

Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall have jointly asked the National Park Service to study the option of managing Valles Caldera as a national preserve —- not as a national park as was erroneously stated in your editorial, an important distinction because hunting is allowed in national preserves.

The New Mexico Wildlife Federation has fought several misguided attempts by the Valles Caldera Trust over the last nine years to privatize part of the public wildlife on the preserve and shut down hunting opportunities for all but the wealthiest. An outraged hunting community and other citizens disturbed by the idea raised such a significant response that the New Mexico Senate passed a memorial earlier this year calling for a natural resource agency to take over management of Valles Caldera, like our U.S. senators are exploring now.

Such a move would not only benefit the public, but would be a wise move economically. New management would bring an economy of scale that would save taxpayers money in management expenses, and also attract more visitors, providing a boost for local businesses.

Management by a natural resource agency such as the National Park Service also would stabilize the future of the preserve. Currently the Valles Caldera earns only about $700,000 from its fees, leaving an annual shortfall of $3.3 million to be made up by taxpayers in an uncertain budgeting process each year. Every year New Mexico's congressional delegation must request special funding to cover this shortfall, an annual ritual with a tenuous outcome. Under an agency such as the Park Service, annual funding would be appropriated and guaranteed.

Edward Olona is president of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, a sportsmen's conservation organization founded in 1914. He lives in Springer.