In February 2026, KRQE reported that New Mexico's Historic Preservation Division had told the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District that the bosque's jetty jacks could not be taken out because they were historic structures. On October 13, 2026, contractors working with the City's Open Space Division started removing them from the east-bank bosque between Campbell Road and Montaño Road, in one of several areas the City says now have preservation clearance.
For anyone who walks out from Campbell Road toward the Rio Grande Nature Center, this means the next few months will change the trail. It also means the version that reopens will be missing something that has stood there since the 1950s.
What crews are pulling out, and in what order
The City's Rio Grande Bosque Projects page describes the job in two steps. First the wires and cables come off, then the whole jacks come out. The work area is the east side of the river, south of Montaño Road and north of Campbell Road. The City says trail closures will run for the length of the project, with notices posted on that page and along the trail. No end date or segment-by-segment closure map has been published. Checking the page before heading out is the only reliable way to know which stretch is open on a given morning.
A second project shares the same ground. Open Space is working with the New Mexico State Forestry Division and the Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District to treat up to 126 acres between Montaño and Campbell. The work removes invasive tree species and dead and downed wood, followed later by removal of invasive resprouts and planting of native vegetation.
That treatment is already underway. Phase one was an 18-acre demonstration area that began March 30, 2026. In April, KRQE reported chainsaws and chippers working near the Nature Center, with cottonwood planting planned across the larger project. The rest of the acreage is scheduled for this fall and into next year, after migratory bird nesting season.
How a flood-control relic became a historic structure
The jacks come from a time when the Rio Grande got more say in where it went. The City says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation began installing them in the 1950s to limit flooding. By 1962, 115,000 had gone in.
Seventy years later, the state saw them the same way it sees other pieces of water infrastructure. KRQE reported on February 23, 2026 that the Historic Preservation Division had written to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District calling the jacks contributing structures, "just like dams and canals." According to the station, a bill that session to remove the "historic" status from jetty jacks gained little traction.
State Sen. Moe Maestas, who backed removal, made his case to KRQE:
"They are very dangerous if there is a fire; they just destroy the quality of life walking through the Bosque."
The same story gave the other side. An Albuquerque native told KRQE the jacks had always been part of the bosque for his generation, and keeping them made sense to him. Others the station spoke with said that if the jacks no longer serve a purpose, they should go. So in February there was a real disagreement on the record, and the state's preservation office was on the side of keeping them.
What the City says the removal is for
The City's stated reason for removal is a practical one. Firefighters can't move well through areas full of jetty jacks, especially at night, and the City treats a fast response as the best defense against a large bosque fire. Open Space says it worked with the Historic Preservation Division and got clearance to remove jacks in several areas.
The Campbell-to-Montaño stretch is one of three areas the City is focusing on. The other two are southwest of Avenida Dolores Huerta and northeast of Rio Bravo Boulevard. Before the heavy work started, youth crews hired by Open Space and the conservancy district had already begun cutting dangerous wires off the jacks.
The neighborhood also helped start this. At the conservancy district's August 10, 2026 board meeting, a City presenter said the Campbell-Montaño project came out of neighbor concerns. She described a $500,000 commitment from New Mexico State Forestry to fund the full project over two years, with the Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District leading the work on the ground. The City held public meetings on the project on June 3 and September 3, 2026. Videos of both are linked from its project page.
What the walk looks like through next year
The same August minutes give the clearest picture of how the work moves along the trail. The City said it would keep equipment on existing trail corridors as much as possible to limit damage off-trail, so the two routes most people use will take the impact.
- Wires first, then jacks. Cables come off before the steel does, starting in the zone between Montaño and Campbell.
- The Aldo Leopold crushed-fines trail and the asphalt trail serve as work corridors. Equipment uses them to get in and out.
- Treatment starts at the Montaño bridge and moves south. After re-treating the pilot area, crews plan to begin by the Montaño bridge and work north to south.
- Hand work under the big cottonwoods. The plan includes hand crews beneath large canopy trees and buffer zones. The City also describes wildlife surveys and 50-foot buffers around identified habitat that stay undisturbed.
- Trails re-established and reopened. After treatment, the City said it would rebuild those trails and open them back up to the public fully.
- Native planting follows. Resprout treatment and native vegetation come after the first pass.
The conservancy district's project timeline adds one more item: an "Interpretive sign on Jetty Jacks," scheduled for the 2028 to 2029 phase. No published plan says any jacks in this stretch will stay in place as examples. That leaves a gap of a couple of years when the trail runs past where the jacks stood with nothing to explain them.
The parts of this stretch that stay open for the season
None of the published notices list the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park itself as closed for the bosque work. Its current park alert mentions only holiday closures. The park at 2901 Candelaria Rd. NW posts grounds hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Visitor Center hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. New Mexico State Parks charges a $5 parking fee per vehicle, while walk-ins and bicycles get in free. That makes the Campbell Road approach the cheaper way in for anyone already on foot. The City's Paseo del Bosque Trail page describes Campbell Road as an access point with a junction toward the Nature Center and the paved trail.
The State Parks event calendar lists these dates at the Nature Center for the rest of the year:
- Saturday, November 7: Nature Art in the Park
- Sunday, November 15: Poetry in the Park
- Saturday, December 5: Nature Art in the Park
- Sunday, December 6: Poetry in the Park
The park closes on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, and on Christmas Day.
The Friends of the Rio Grande Nature Center list free guided bird walks every Saturday and Sunday at 8:30 a.m., meeting at the Candelaria Wetland wildlife viewing blind, with no signup needed. The group also lists a second-Saturday guided nature walk at 10:30 a.m., capped at 12 people. On that schedule, the next two fall on November 14 and December 12. Both listings come from the group's 2025 pages, so confirm with the Friends before planning a morning around them.
This is also the season for cranes. The City says the Nature Center pond attracts sandhill cranes, and the Candelaria Farm Wetland Preserve sits just north of the Nature Center. In past years, the City has reported cranes returning to its open space properties in late October and staying through fall and winter. Across the river, the agricultural fields at the Open Space Visitor Center are planted partly to feed winter migratory birds, and the City lists them as a place to watch cranes during fall and winter. On a morning when a work zone closes the riverside path, the pond and the wetland blind are still open, so the walk can still end with the birds.
Changes like this, steel coming out of the woods and trails rebuilt over two seasons, are part of why living near the bosque edge in the Near North Valley differs from block to block. Andrea Romero follows these projects closely because they shape how a home near Campbell or Candelaria lives day to day. If you're thinking about what your home is worth as the trail behind it changes, get your free home valuation and talk it through with Andrea.
