Watersheds have been threatened and damaged for months by the largest wildfire in the state’s recorded history and the flooding that followed. This week, the Natural Resources Conservation Service got a start on land restoration, dropping seeds by helicopter and mulch by plane onto private land…

The state is sponsoring the project and would normally have to pay for construction, but the NRCS is picking up the full bill this time. The program is funded as part of $133 million secured from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, money that’s committed for recovery from the wildfire and flooding in New Mexico.

This is part of the federal efforts to cover all wildfire-related cleanup costs into November for the blaze that the U.S. Forest Service started by losing control of one prescribed burn and failing to make sure another was fully extinguished…

The next phase of the federal program will begin in a few weeks, Branch said, where the NRCS will design and build structures — like diversions, sediment basins and trash racks — to protect people and catch debris from the flash-floods that wash over a burn scar after a wildfire.

Keep on rocking over New Mexico. It helps our beautiful state.