It's a 7,300-square-foot building that's already been completed and sits east of US 84/285, less than a quarter-mile south of the gigantic Buffalo Thunder Casino and Resort.
And so, in an effort to shore up some of their economic woes, Pueblo officials are now planning to open the Nambé Falls Casino in mid-December. The human condition follows the sad caricature of many sovereign nations across the Southwest: Unemployment is high, the underemployed struggle to make ends meet and those with full-time jobs must commute to Los Alamos or Santa Fe for a lack of industry.Įven the buffalo herd, established in the mid-'90s, has seen better days: It's dropped from 40 head to a mere seven. That's just the calamities of Mother Nature. Just eight months ago, the Pueblo decided to close the Nambé Falls Recreational Area-a historic revenue-generating tourist draw-as officials start the Herculean task of restoration. Then, finally, the death knell: The trout died.
Then came the erosion, the ashes, the mud and the deadwood, polluting the lake and turning a pair of waterfalls into a murky spectacle. And it seems to come in threes: It started with the Pacheco Fire, which swept through its watershed in the summer of 2011.
