Desert Protective Council

Desert Environmental News for May 25, 2012

2012-05-25T21:10:34+00:00

[View the story "New Story" on Storify]

Desert Environmental News for May 24, 2012

2012-05-24T21:01:04+00:00

[View the story "New Story" on Storify]

Desert Protective Council Files Lawsuit Against Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility

2012-05-26T05:32:34+00:00

May 25 2012 San Diego and Imperial Counties FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Today the Desert Protective Council is filing a lawsuit in Federal Court in San Diego to stop the Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility Project (OWEF) from causing damage to fragile desert lands in western Imperial County, adjacent to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the largest state park in the U.S. The lawsuit, naming the Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, the County of Imperial, California, and the Project Permittee, Pattern Energy of La Jolla, CA as defendants, alleges that the Secretary violated the right-of-way provisions of the Federal Lands Policy Management Act (FLPMA) when he approved the Project. The lawsuit further alleges that the Secretary acted illegally when he approved amending the 1980 California Desert Conservation Area Plan (CDCA) and when he ignored the requirements of NEPA to explore all reasonable alternatives and to take into account the cumulative impacts of this project. The lawsuit alleges that Imperial County ignored the requirements of CEQA, as well as County ordinance standards relating to noise intended to protect nearby residents from excessive noise that will disturb their peace and interrupt sleep. The suit alleges also that both the Secretary and the County failed to take adequate measures to protect the endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep and the protected golden eagles that inhabit the 12,400-acre site where the Pattern Energy plans to build 112, 450-ft. tall turbines. The lawsuit asks for an injunction to halt construction of the Project. The Desert Protective Council (DPC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit membership organization. Founded in 1954, the DPC’s mission is to safeguard for wise and reverent use by this and succeeding generations those desert areas of unique scenic, scientific, historical, cultural, spiritual or recreational value and to educate children and adults to a better understanding of the deserts. DPC will be asking the District Court to resolve this matter as soon as possible so that the already started construction activities can be halted in order to prevent additional irreparable damage to natural resources and to the Native American cultural landscape. The California Environmental Law Project of Mill Valley, California represents DPC in this litigation. Contact: Terry Weiner, Imperial Projects Coordinator, the Desert Protective Council: (619) 342-5524; ; Attorney Larry Silver, California Environmental Law Project: (415) 515-5688;

New El Paisano is now online

2012-05-25T05:20:20+00:00

The Spring 2012 issue of our newsletter El Paisano is now online, along with is accompanying Educational Bulletin Public Lands Development–A Ruinous Policy by Howard Wilshire. Check it out!

Documentation of Destruction at Ocotillo

2012-05-23T21:49:54+00:00

Photo: Courtesy of Bill Pate We would like to bring to your attention a new Website featuring Ocotillo residents and others’ daily documentation of the destruction of the beautiful Ocotillo desert: http://saveocotillo.picturepush.com/ The 20-square-mile area targeted for 112 450 ft. tall wind turbines is 90 miles directly east of San Diego and adjacent to the magnificent Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The destruction is being brought to you by Pattern Energy, and the Department of the Interior with the sanction of the Barak Obama Administration. This area of the western Imperial County desert was designated a “limited use” area Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) 1980 California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) Plan for protection of its special natural, cultural and scenic resources. The area is an integral part of the Native American cultural landscape of the Yuha Basin, is home to the sensitive Flat-Tailed Horned Lizard, the Burrowing Owl and is part of a corridor for the endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep. The BLM, which designated this area for protection 32 years ago has turned its back on the very same area in giving its approval to the Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility. The quality of life and possibly the health of the members of the rural community of Ocotillo will be forever destroyed. To add to the ignominy of this destruction of 12,400 acres of functioning desert habitat, this remote wind energy development will operate for 20-30 years maximum. We citizens must pressure our local, state and federal representatives to shift subsidies from large corporations to home and business owners and local jurisdictions to develop renewable energy projects with rooftop solar and distributed energy generation in the built environment. With a concentrated effort to conserve a lot more energy than we do, with retrofitting our homes for efficient use of energy and with solar on all rooftops, parking lots and in brown fields close to cities, we could stop the push for remote industrial energy projects on public lands. Meanwhile, watch our DPC web site, our FaceBook page and Twitter pages for updates on next steps in fighting this project. Terry Weiner, Imperial County Conservation and Projects Coordinator. (619) 342-5524; terryweiner@sbcglobal.net.

U.S. Government Authorizes Killing of Endangered Bighorns in Path of Wind Project

2012-05-21T03:45:28+00:00

May 19, 2012 (Ocotillo)—In a precedent that has horrified wildlife experts, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has authorized the “take” (meaning harassment, displacement or even death) of 10 endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep – five ewes and five lambs. The decision comes after federal wildlife officials were provided photographic evidence that the endangered animals were seen in recent weeks on the site of the just-approved Ocotillo Express wind energy facility—a presence federal officials and the project developer have long denied. Mark Jorgensen is the retired Superintendent of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which shares a five mile border with the Ocotillo Express wind project now under construction on adjacent public property owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). He is horrified at the decision to allow the killing of the sheep on land that until recently was designated as critical bighorn habitat. Please see the full article, by Miriam Raftery here: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/9732

SUIT FILEDTO HALT OCOTILLO WIND AS COALITION HOLDS PROTESTS IN SAN DIEGO AND EL CENTRO

2012-05-16T21:09:13+00:00

May 16, 2012 (La Jolla) – At a press conference yesterday outside the gleaming corporate towers occupied by Pattern Energy in La Jolla, a coalition of environmental groups, Native American tribes and outraged citizens urged President Barack Obama to stop fast-tracking of massive energy projects on public lands and halt construction at the Ocotillo Express wind facility immediately. Heavy equipment has begun grading the site, ripping massive ocotillo cacti out by the roots, burying burrowing owl nesting sites and breaking hearts of the many people who love this desert land. Read more: http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/9679

Call for a Moratorium on “fast-tracking” Massive Energy Projects on Public Lands

2012-05-11T20:44:49+00:00

Coyote Mountain is among several culturally important mountains where views will be destroyed, along with Sugarloaf, Signal Mountain, Sombrero Peak and others. Photo: Miriam Raftery Native American tribes join environmental, recreation and hunting organizations to call for a moratorium on “fast-tracking” massive energy projects on public lands. (Ocotillo and San Diego, California)—An unprecedented coalition of environmental leaders, tribal representatives, off-road vehicle users, writers/artists, hunters, outdoor enthusiasts, community residents and legal spokespersons are calling for a national moratorium on “fast tracking” massive energy projects on federal public lands. “This industrial wind project is symbolic of what’s wrong with the current federal fast-tracking process,” said Terry Weiner, Imperial County Projects Coordinator for the Desert Protective Council. “The Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility (OWEF), is the first big energy project in our region poised for destruction of public lands. We are the canaries in the coal mine. If this is not stopped here, destruction of millions of acres of public lands across the southwest will likely soon follow.” Imperial County’s Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors approved construction of the massive Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility (OWEF) by San Francisco-based Pattern Energy on 12,500 acres of desert surrounding the rural community of Ocotillo—despite compelling testimony and pleas by tribal members, residents and environmentalists to deny it. Similar projects are in the pipeline on San Diego County’s scenic and cherished public lands, and others. Half of the giant ocotillo forest is slated for destruction for the industrial wind facility. Photo: Terry Weiner Industrialization of the 20 square miles of desert for the OWEF will cause irreparable impacts to fragile natural and Native American cultural resources, to the adjacent Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, to Ocotillo’s community character, quality of life and public health. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is poised to make the decision to grant the developer, Pattern Energy, a right of way on previously protected land. Bulldozers could begin rolling as early as this week. The federal renewable energy policy, authorized under the George W. Bush administration and now being implemented under the Barack Obama administration, for the first time, allows formerly protected national forests and recreation areas to be opened up for development as energy corridors. Additional remote solar and wind energy developments and long-distance transmission lines are in various stages of approval across America, including San Diego’s East County and Imperial County. A new federal fast-track process intended to speed approvals of renewable energy projects has instead proved disastrous, shutting out parties with critical information and stifling voices of dissent. “We believe that the Department of the Interior (DOI) is poised to violate the law and our rights to religious freedom and our cultural identities guaranteed by DOI’s own policies, the United States Constitution, and international declarations. We need your help,” Anthony Pico, Chairman of the Viejas band of Kumeyaay Indians, wrote in a letter to President Obama on February 22, 2012. Endangered Peninsular bighorn sheet were photographed on the project boundary this spring by local residents. “This project will have devastating environmental consequences and cause irreparable harm to sensitive desert habitat, further endangering Peninsular Bighorn sheep, golden eagles and other wildlife,” said Ralph Singer, President of the Anza-Borrego Foundation. “Imagine 112 massive turbines, each 450 ft. tall -skyscraper height- with blades as large as a commercial jetliner wingspan. Yet impacts on Anza-Borrego Desert Park, which shares a 5-mile border with this project, were largely left out of the EIR.” “I have done calculations on the wind speeds claimed and believe this project has relied on inflated numbers,” revealed Jim Pelley, an engineer and Ocotillo resident. “If true, then taxpayers are being defrauded and subsidies granted to Pattern Energy should be returned. I call on Congress to launch an investigation and on President Obama to order Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversees the Bureau of Land Management, to halt this project pending outcome of a Congressional investigation with full public disclosure.” “The BLM and Imperial County get a big fat F for failing to uphold their legal and ethical duty to protect sensitive resources, public health and safety, and taxpayers from boondoggle projects like this,” said Donna Tisdale, Secretary for the Protect Our Communities Foundation. There are safer, cleaner options for renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E now pays less for moderate-sized rooftop solar power ($114/MWhr) than for wind energy ($118/MWhr). PV solar is dropping to price parity or nearly so. Given the unreliability of the wind resource and vast hidden costs of wind energy’s harmful impacts, solar on roofs and parking lots in the already built environment is the cleaner, cheaper, more reliable option for the people of California. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, shot just inside park boundary near 5-mile border it shares with the massive wind facility site, will no longer provide a wilderness experience unless the project is stopped. Photo: Miriam Raftery Several organizations have indicated they are pursuing legal actions in hopes of halting the Ocotillo project. But the broader issue is the destruction of public lands soon to take place on a devastating national scale. These are our precious public lands that are being plundered for private profit by corporations including big energy companies. The same industry that brought you the ENRON fiasco and Gulf oil spill is now implementing a massive takeover of our public lands. The coalition will schedule a press conference after Secretary of the Interior Salazar signs the Record of Decision for the project. We will send a follow up press advisory with time and place. Project map provided by Pattern Energy, with inserts by Jim Pelley Contacts: Jim Pelley, Ocotillo resident: (619) 990-1096; jhpelley@hughes.net Terry Weiner, Desert Protective Council: Cell (619) 342-5524; terryweiner@sbcglobal.net Conrad Kramer, Executive Director, the Anza-Borrego Foundation: (208) 716-6109; conrad@theabf.org Robert Scheid, Community and Public Relations, Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians: (619) 922-9736 RScheid@viejas-nsn.gov Susan Massey, Imperial County resident: (760) 554-3300; susanlil_8@yahoo.com Donna Tisdale, Secretary, Protect Our Communities Foundation: (619) 766-4170; tisdale.donna@gmail.com Kevin Emmerich, Director, Basin and Range Watch: (775 )553-2806; atomicquailranch@gmail.com

DPC Call to Action – Help Us Protect the Desert!

2012-04-20T01:18:08+00:00

Your presence is needed at the Tuesday April 24th public hearing in El Centro 10:45AM: The Imperial County Board of Supervisors will be deciding whether or not to approve the Planning Commission’s recommendation to build an industrial wind project with 112, 440-ft. tall turbines on12,000 acres of beautiful desert habitat, adjacent to the southern boundary of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the rural community of Ocotillo in Western Imperial County, CA. We need a very large crowd of people who are opposed to this project to attend this public hearing! Irreversible impacts include: •Destruction of the view shed for miles around; •Destruction of the integrity of the Native American cultural resource area; •Impacts to endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep which have been recently photographed around the edges of the proposed project site; •Impacts to protected golden eagles, other birds and to bats •Impacts to sensitive and rare desert plant species and to huge forests of ocotillos •Destruction of the quality of life of the community of Ocotillo •Addition of particulate pollution to an impaired air basin from scraping of desert soil •Industrialization of 20 square miles of functioning desert ecosystem. Imagine going for a hike or camping trip to Mortero Palms, Dos Cabesa, Indian Hill or Piedras Grandes and being surrounded by 440 ft. tall noisy wind turbines. Other important facts: although this project will create up to 300 short-term construction jobs (and there is no guarantee they will be local jobs), Pattern Energy states that under 20 permanent jobs will be created as a result of this project. Again, no guarantee they will be local jobs. DATE AND TIME: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 10:45AM Please attend next Tuesday and voice your opposition to this project. Carpool if you can. PLACE: County Administration Office Building Suite 209 (2nd floor)  940 Main Street,  El Centro, CA 92243 If you cannot attend the hearing, please send a letter to the Imperial County Board of Supervisors this week, with your reasons for opposing this project including any documentation or technical data you have on the problems with remote industrial development, with wind turbines (e.g. turbine failure and fires, impacts to human health from stirring up valley fever spores in the desert soil, etc.) Email your letter to the Clerk of the Board and c.c. the local supervisor, the staff of the planning commission and the BLM. Addresses below: SylviaBermudez@co.imperial.ca.us (Clerk of the Board of Supervisors)  JackTerrazas@co.imperial.ca.us (Supervisor for the district where project is proposed) angelinahavens@co.imperial.ca.us (Planning Dept. Staff) mariascoville@co.imperialca.us (Planning Dept. Staff)    The Planning Department address: 801 Main Street, El Centro, CA 92243    C.c. to El Centro BLM’s Resources Branch Chief, Daniel Steward msteward@blm.gov and BLM District Project Manager,Cedric Perry cperry@blm.gov Local BLM address: 1669 South 4th St. El Centro, CA 92243 Please circulate this notice or create a shorter “e-blast” to all of your email lists and to all citizens of Borrego Springs. We need solidarity on this. Call me please with any questions. Thank you very much. See you next Tuesday at 10:45AM. Terry Weiner Imperial County Projects and Conservation Coordinator Desert Protective Council P.O. Box 3635 San Diego CA. 92163 (619) 342-5524 cell (858) 273-7801 FAX terryweiner@sbcglobal.net http://www.protectdeserts.org Co- Founder, Solar Done Right http://www.solardoneright.org

DPC’s Conservation Coordinator Speaks out on Behalf of the Bighorn Sheep

2012-04-02T03:43:27+00:00

Terry Weiner, DPC’s Conservation Coordinator, is featured in this Channel 10 News story, voicing concern for wildlife in regards to the proposed wind turbine project in Imperial County. http://www.10news.com/video/30776306/index.html

Protest Planned March 14 at Renewable Energy Conference that Excluded Advocates of Rooftop Solar

2012-03-13T15:15:41+00:00

March 12, 2012 (Holtville) – “Why are billions of our tax dollars going to fund large-scale energy development on our public lands instead of to home and business owners for developing rooftop solar?” asks Terry Weiner with the Desert Protective Council and Solar Done Right. Massive solar and wind developments are planned for San Diego and Imperial County, many on public lands, others on prime agricultural croplands. Read More: http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/8986

Student’s Art Project Depicts America’s Desert Dilemma

2012-03-05T16:46:07+00:00

Nothing is quite as uplifting as receiving inspiration from a young person. That happened for us this last week when high school student Halle Rayn Kohn posted her artwork project online. The artwork itself is well executed & imaginative. Created as a mixed media piece, she used acrylic paint, sandpaper, graphite and colored pencil, plus a collage of pictures cut from magazines to depict an ancient tortoise, now burdened by today’s human energy demands. The words she used to explain her project were poignant and to the point–saying much in a small space. It’s always encouraging to meet intelligent, informed young adults eager to understand our world and how best to preserve it. We’ll let Halle’s own words say the rest. “The fragility of desert ecosystems and their sensitive inhabitants is too often overlooked. This habitat and its animals, having delicately evolved over billions of years, are desperately in need of our protection and respect. Unfortunately, because of the many misconceptions about these lands, many view the desert as a dumping ground – useless for anything other than fulfilling superficial human needs. If our perception of this beautiful and one-of-a-kind environment does not soon change, it can easily slip through the cracks of our fingers and be gone forever, as if to have ceased to exist completely; unable to be viewed nor admired by future generations. This may seem unthinkable, but is sadly quite possible – consider the events unfolding in Ivanpah, CA. Endangered desert tortoises have been removed from their burrows and forced to live in captivity, so that solar panels could be erected in the sand which they once depended on for a home and security. It is a drastic mistake for our society to approve of such measures to be taken for our own lifestyles, when we could be placing these panels upon our rooftops and no longer put this species existence into jeopardy. This is why I decided to have my piece portray an aged, wise desert tortoise carrying solar panels upon her shell, to convey the metaphorical weight that we are placing on this species as a whole. After all, why is it okay for them to be deprived of their homes for us to receive such a luxury as power in ours?” Thank you Halle for your inspiration, and for using your talents to illustrate our human impact on the desert wildlife in such beautiful and insightful manner.

Connecting Children with Nature

2012-02-26T22:47:07+00:00

A Short History of DPC’s Salton Basin Living Laboratory Field Trip Programby Terry Weiner I imagine most of us did not become desert lovers until we actually spent time there. It’s likely someone initially introduced us to a special corner of one of our southwest deserts. But, our fascination did not take hold as we drove through vast, open, arid valleys. We had to get out of our cars and put our feet on the land. Our intrigue grew as we hiked or camped or just spent a morning sitting on a rock listening to the quiet. In 2008, as we pondered DPC’s mission “to educate children and adults to a better understanding of the desert” and as we considered the current American cultural tragedy of children spending less and less time outdoors, we decided it was time to do our part. Our Mesquite Fund requires that we develop or support programs in Imperial County, California that contribute to the conservation of the environment and improvement of public health. At that point our Conservation Coordinator got together with the long-time desert naturalist/ educator/writer Pat Flanagan, and over a weekend of brainstorming, they conceived of a program for Imperial County elementary students that would introduce them and their teachers to the wonders of the geology, ecology, the human and natural history of the Imperial Valley: their backyard. In geographical terms, the Imperial Valley is in the Salton Basin, which extends from the southern end of the Coachella Valley to the Gulf of Mexico. Pat embarked upon a year of research and field trips and collaboration with several teachers and other educators to create a science curriculum, which would supplement the generic science curriculum taught in Imperial Valley schools. We named the program the Salton Basin Living Laboratory Field Trip Program. An integral part of this educational program is the field trip to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, to the wetlands of Imperial County or to the Salton Sea. Teachers visit the Anza-Borrego Stout Paeo Lab In 2009, we introduced our curriculum to about a dozen willing 4th, 5th and 6th grade Imperial Valley teachers. At the beginning of each school year we introduce the program with a full-day teacher-training workshop. Over the past three years, teachers have given us important feedback on the curriculum, enabling us to make the curriculum easier to incorporate into the existing science curriculum, and making it easier for students to understand. The curriculum consists of two volumes, one of which is entirely centered on the field trip. During the school year, we conduct monthly follow-up workshops to address the needs and questions of the teachers. In December or January, we conduct a daylong teacher-training field trip so that they will be able to confidently conduct their own field trips with their students in the spring. During the entire field trip, the teachers have specific information to impart about early explorers to the region, about land forms, plant identification and the students have work sheets to fill out during and after the field trip. The field trip materials are designed to awaken awareness and interest in the sights and sounds and smells of the desert, develop methods of inquiry and observational skills. An integral part of the Anza-Borrego Field trip is a visit the Anza-Borrego Stout Paleo Lab where the volunteers show the students what is involved in digging up and curating bones of million-year old and older fossil animals that lived in the Anza-Borrego desert. In our third year of bringing this curriculum to Imperial Valley Elementary schools, the teachers are now self-recruiting. They have heard about our science field trip program from other teachers and are anxious to participate. We have now trained over 30 teachers who have introduced the Salton Basin Living Laboratory Program to more than one thousand 4th, 5th and 6th grade students. Many of these students have introduced the concepts they have learned to their parents. Working with the teachers last summer, we developed assessments, which will help us and the El Centro Elementary School District determine to what extent our place-based science materials have deepened understanding of science, and whether this helps improve student science test scores. In 2010/2011, DPC developed a mutually supportive partnership with the Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program, which enabled us to add field trips to either the Sonny Bono Wildlife Refuge at the Salton Sea or to the New River Wetlands. In 2011/2012, the fifth grade classes do a field trip to Anza-Borrego and the 4th and 6th graders go to either the wetlands or the Salton Sea. In financing the development of this curriculum, the Desert Protective Council has tackled its most ambitious educational project in its 55-year history. Place-based science education is rare in this country and we had no local models to guide us. It has been an amazing and thrilling learning experience to students and teachers the natural world of their own desert back yard in Imperial Valley. DPC’s challenge now is to find additional resources in order to continue to perpetuate and expand this important program in Imperial Valley. In order to continue improving and expanding the Salton Basin Living Laboratory Program, we will need to hire a team of teacher trainers, find funding for transportation (as school buses are no longer available) and hopefully eventually turn over the program teaching to an educational foundation much larger and better funded than the Desert Protective Council. For more information please contact Terry Weiner: or Pat Flanagan: For a printable map, click here: Salton Basin Field Trip–Anza-Borrego Desert

Welcome to Our New Communications Coordinator

2012-02-01T16:00:05+00:00

The Desert Protective Council is delighted to welcome our new Communications Coordinator, Indy Quillen. Indy will be managing our web site, blog and social network pages, as well as editing our quarterly El Paisano newsletter and online E-Paisano. Indy’s background has been rich with the love of nature, Native American culture, and respect for our environment since childhood. Her pursuits have included organic gardening, owning and running a natural food store, bird watching, camping and hiking, wildlife photography and artwork, botanical illustration and greeting card illustrations with nature themes. She recently finished her first novel, which her NY agent is submitting for publication. The story’s protagonist is a modern day Native American tracker/survivalist. When Indy first arrived in San Diego in 1995, it didn’t take her long to miss the quiet countryside of the Midwest, where she spent her childhood and early adult life. With her first trek into the desert, she immediately became enamored with the solitude, the quiet, the majestic landscapes, and the tenacity of the native plants. She found these new smells, sights and sounds fascinating and enriching. During the process of learning how to market her writing via social media, Indy developed her own social media management company, Media Fast Lanes. Indy now eagerly looks forward to using her social media skills to help further DPC’s mission: to promote awareness of the beauty, importance and fragility of the desert environment, highlight solutions toward protecting and preserving it for future generations, informing the public about DPC’s projects, and developing broad support for the organization. Indy welcomes your feedback, and would like to encourage you to offer suggestions for articles for El Paisano, and pass along notices of special desert events and meetings to post, along with photos for our desert gallery. You can email her at:

Thank you Desert Protective Council

2011-12-31T17:50:44+00:00

Today marks my last day as Communications Consultant for the Desert Protective Council, as I’m moving on to other projects. It’s been a very rewarding two and a half years, and I’m grateful to the DPC for the opportunity to do some important work on issues that mean a great deal to me. In particular, I’d like to thank a few current and former members of DPC’s Board of Directors — Nick Ervin, Larry Klaasen, Geoffrey Smith, and Mike Colm — for their generous aid and assistance; former Communications Consultant Lawrence Hogue for advice and continuing friendship, and the DPC’s amazing Conservation staff person Terry Weiner for her boundless energy and enthusiasm. And last but most importantly, I’m grateful to you, the DPC’s members, friends and colleagues, for your unwavering support. It’s been a privilege to be part of the DPC’s now 58-year history. Look forward to great things in 2012, and please, do feel free to .

New El Paisano now online

2011-11-28T05:37:20+00:00

The Fall 2011 issue of our newsletter El Paisano is now online, along with its accompanying Educational Bulletin The Mysterious Mojave River by Laura Cunningham. Check it out!

The Most Astonishing Boring Plant in the Desert

2011-11-24T05:45:13+00:00

There are a lot of dramatic and prominent plants in the California deserts—towering Joshua trees, fierce bristling chollas, even saguaros along the Colorado River—but one of the most amazing plants in the desert is one it could take you years to notice, hiding some jaw-dropping science behind a singularly unimpressive appearance. Despite being part of the same botanical family as showier plants like roses, flowering plums and cherries, there is really nothing about blackbrush—Coleogyne ramississima—that commands your attention. Even in the rare very wet desert springs when it comes into full bloom, its flowers are pallid yellow, pretty close up but unremarkable from even a short distance, and generally hidden behind a haze of grayish branches when other shrubs are bright spots of glorious color. Most of the time, blackbrush is so unobtrusive it can make other unobtrusive plants seem gaudy. The plant gets its common name from its overall color; in dense stands, it can make whole hillsides look funereal, dark gray summer leaves and stems only a little lighter. It ranges throughout the desert Southwest, thriving best at elevations between 2,000-5,000 feet, and in areas especially conducive to its growth it can reach a height of five feet. In the California desert it rarely tops three feet, and you might be hard-pressed to find an individual plant wider than that. But it can be hard to pick out an individual plant, as blackbrush tends over time to form a patchy cover over the desert soil. I first noticed the plant when negotiating those patches hiking off-trail in the Mojave: clear corridors through the blackbrush would fork, twist, and suddenly end in cul-de-sacs, and I often walked three times the actual map distance just in all the retracing of my steps I needed to do to get from Point A to Point B. I once tried to just push on through, and was immediately repulsed by a few dozen sharp, thorn-like ends of stems. It’s formidable, and that was when I started to want to know more about the species. I said above that blackbrush “tends over time” to form a cover, but it can take a while to fill in. A very long while, in fact. It takes a wet winter and spring to bring blackbrush into bloom. Even in a good bloom year the plant doesn’t produce a whole lot of its tiny seeds, and of those seeds very few escape the local rodent and bird populations. If a seed lands in a good spot to germinate and remains uneaten, an unlikely event in a habitat where animals search constantly for every available bit of food, then a subsequent winter and spring may provide just the right combination of moisture and temperature to bring that seed to life—at which point it is even more vulnerable to marauding animals. In practice, this means that Coleogyne never reproduces from seed unless the desert gets two relatively wet winters in a row, which rarely happens. Fortunately, each plant lives a long time—400 years or more by some estimates. A plant need only have one of its offspring survive to maturity in that time to maintain the local population numbers. If two survive in 400 years, on average, then the blackbrush’s tribe increases. And yet it’s not hard, once you start noticing blackbrush, to see that in a lot of places it forms nearly solid stands, carpets of dormant summer gray covering many miles of open desert. These stands are crucial parts of the desert biome. Blackbrush is hard for people to hike through, and it’s just as hard for non-human hikers to penetrate. This means that other plants’ seeds—Joshua tree, Mojave yucca, cacti of various kinds, the occasional piñon or juniper—find blackbrush “forests” a congenial place to germinate and grow for a few years. Blackbrush thus acts as a “nurse plant” to many other, more noticable desert species. Without blackbrush cover, we’d have a lot fewer picturesque succulents out there. Given that blackbrush reproduces very slowly, you might reasonably start to wonder how long it took for the species to cover, say, the alluvial fan at Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas, or the uplands of the Wee Thump Wilderness or any of the hundreds of other places in undeveloped sections of the Mojave where blackbrush blankets the land. Researchers Robert H. Webb, John W. Steiger, and Raymond M. Turner looked into just that question, and in a 1987 paper entitled Dynamics of Mojave Desert Shrub Assemblages in the Panamint Mountains, California, they reported that it takes a very long time indeed. The researchers studied a number of disturbed areas in the above-named mountain range along Death Valley’s western margin, and measured the rate of regrowth of various desert shrubs in each of the areas. Some of the areas had been disturbed by mining and other human activities in the 19th and 20th centuries; some had been disturbed by landslides and other natural phenomena thousands of years ago. Webb, Steiger and Turner concluded that in some areas, the length of time needed for blackbrush to cover one fifth of an area could be as long as—in their words—“tens of thousands of years.” Think about that length of time needed to cover just 20 percent of a stretch of land, and then consider the fact that many places in the desert have upwards of 60 percent blackbrush cover. I don’t usually repurpose my previous writing here, but I’m having trouble coming up with a better way to express this than in a passage I wrote on Coleogyne on my website a couple years ago, so begging the readers’ forgiveness, this is what that study means: Find the oldest coast redwood forest on earth, with trees three hundred feet tall and thirty feet thick at the base, some of them 2,000 years old. Then plat out a few square miles of the White Mountains’s bristlecone pine groves, home of the Methuselah tree and its ancient cohort, ranging up to twice as old as the redwoods. Then pick a random piece of Cima Dome, a couple miles in each direction, full of unprepossessing blackbrush. Chainsaw all three. Bulldoze it all flat. Leave only stumps flush with the ground. Then let them all grow back at their own pace. When the new redwoods and bristlecones are considerably older than the ancient ones we have now, the blackbrush may still not be more than about halfway recovered. That’s still optimistic, though. As we mess with the climate, the desert is expected to get hotter and drier, on average, meaning that the likelihood of getting two consecutive winters wet enough to prompt Coleogyne reproduction will change. In the meantime, we are destroying broad swaths of blackbrush habitat through urban and suburban development, razing the desert for energy extraction, deliberate and accidental fire, and a whole host of other activities. Revegetating an area in blackbrush requires that a few old, established plants remain to repopulate the earth, and so between making the desert drier and completely denuding square miles of it at a time we are, most likely, ending the ancient blackbrush forest’s existence. An ancient forest is what it is, after all, especially from the point of view of the packrats and kangaroo rats and night lizards that inhabit it. The blackbrush forest has been there for tens of thousands of years, feeding and sheltering unimaginable thousands of generations of their forebears. You know what they say about a little knowledge. Since learning this little bit about blackbrush a couple of years ago, I can’t see that solid, drab, literally monotonous gray shroud on the desert landscape without a sharp intake of breath, a tingling awe running up the back of my neck, a wonder of nature only made more wonderful by how well it’s hidden. And if we lose it, we might just lose much of the rest of the desert as well.

Native Singers Keep Culture Alive

2011-11-11T05:43:57+00:00

One of the worst habits of modern American writers is that of referring to this continent’s original inhabitants in the past tense. This is as true of the desert as anywhere in the U.S. It’s understandable, in a way: Native people dominate the history, modern and ancient, of the desert. Writing about the desert’s past without writing about Native people is just about impossible. But there’s more to the Native people of the desert than the seemingly permanent ancient rockworks and petroglyphs. Native people are still here, shaping the desert. A few, the Agua Caliente Cahuilla in my own Palm Springs being an example, have attained a certain measure of political and economic power. Others—including some of the Agua Caliente’s close neighbors—still struggle for self-determination and respect. All of them work to defend and preserve their diverse cultures. And some aspects of that cultural diversity are far harder to preserve than a petroglyph or intaglio. Some are as ephemeral as a soft voice spoken in the desert wind. Before European contact, California was one of the most linguistically diverse places on Earth, with between 70-100 languages spoken here. About half those have since gone extinct, and all are considered endangered—meaning that children are not expected to be speaking them in 100 years, unless deliberate attempts are made to save them. For the last two centuries most Native Californians have grown up speaking either English or Spanish, and the number of fluent native speakers of each language dwindles. California’s desert people are no exception. Though spared the worst results of the population pressure from settlers seen in more comfortable climes such as Los Angeles and the Bay Area, native culture in the desert has had more than its share of disruption. Most of the California Desert’s 16 or so native languages are in danger of extinction. If the languages go extinct, so will the traditions most crucial to the survival of a traditional culture: myth and song. Fortunately, the information revolution now in progress offers at least a partial solution. Filmmakers and recordists are taking advantage of ever-cheaper recording technology and distribution channels to preserve at least some aspects of these threatened cultures. California’s desert languages can be divided into two large groupings: those belonging to the larger Hokan language family, and those that are part of the Uto-Aztecan family. Uto-Aztecan-speaking people, including the Shoshone, Paiute, Chemehuevi, Serrano, Vanyume and Cahuilla, covered most of the southern California deserts. Hokan-speaking people—or more accurately, people who speak languages considered part of the Yuman-Cochimí subfamily of the Hokan language family—lived along both sides of the Colorado River, from the Havasupai, Yavapai and Hualapai in Grand Canyon country to the Quechan and Kukupa near the delta, with the Mohave and Halchiduma in between. Many of the Yuman-speaking peoples have similar origin myths, usually centering on Spirit Mountain near Laughlin, Nevada. In late 2009 Quechan author, activist and storyteller Preston Arrowweed organized a group of singers from Yuman-speaking tribes up and down the Colorado River to come together to share the songs their cultures had in common. Filmmaker Daniel Golding, a Quechan himself, was in attendance, and the result—the documentary “Songs of the Colorado”—is now available on DVD. Here’s the trailer: Songs of the Colorado from Daniel Golding on Vimeo. Golding and Arrowweed had worked together before, most notably on the 40-minute 2002 documentary “Journey from Spirit Mountain,” which retraces the path from Spirit Mountain to the Quechan’s present-day homeland, as detailed in the Quechan creation story. The desert’s Native people don’t restrict their use of communications and recording technology to formal filmmaking. A quick tour through YouTube shows that Yuman-speaking people take full advantage of more flexible social media, as shown in this video of Mohave Bird Singers at a 2008 Indio PowWow. Note the participation of the next generation of bird singers at the far right: The Bird Song tradition—which has less to do with actual bird songs and more with creation stories and similar cultural myths—has spread to non-Yuman people as well, as witness this group of Cahuilla bird singers: And of course, no discussion of disseminating music on the Internet is complete without a link to the possibly moribund MySpace, which groups like the

Main road through Joshua Tree National Park reopens

2011-11-10T05:40:19+00:00

The main road through the length of Joshua Tree National Park is open once again. As of November 1, visitors can travel the spectacular Pinto Basin Road for the first time since violent storms cut off access September 13. That storm, which dumped three inches of rain on the basin and adjacent areas, created flash floods that removed the road in several places along its length, most critically in a small canyon south of the Cottonwood Springs Visitor Center. That Visitor Center is now open as well, as are a few four-wheel-drive road spurs running off Pinto Basin Road. The Cottonwood Campground and Cottonwood Springs Oasis, both of which are still being repaired from significant damage done by the storm, remain closed for the time being. The National Park Service cautions that though Pinto Basin Road is open once again, it is unpaved in several sections—presumably through some of the Pinto Basin washes that carried flash floods across the old roadbed. The Park Service encourages drivers to exercise caution and drive at safe speeds through the unpaved sections, good advice even on the unimpaired sections of this winding, two-lane road. Locals taking advantage of this shorter route between 29 Palms and the Coachella Valley often drive faster than is advisable, so stay alert and take time to enjoy the freshly watered scenery.

DPC Comments on Algodones Dunes Fee Changes

2011-11-05T22:05:47+00:00

As seen in our Desert Environmental News posting for November 4, 2011, the BLM is discussing the fee structure for use of the Imperial Sand Dunes (a.k.a. Algodones Dunes), a popular off-roading destination. The DPC’s Terry weiner submitted comments to the BLM on the fee structure: those comments are posted below. Please accept my comments on behalf of the Desert Protective Council for the meeting record. We appreciate and support the Dunes Special Recreation Permit fee of $25.00 a week (or a day) or $90.00 for the year for visitors who camp in the ISDRA campgrounds. Providing and servicing pit toilets and dumpsters for campers are very expensive and the campers who enjoy the use of them should contribute to the costs. I, members of the Desert Protective Council, and other hikers, birders, photographers and botanists occasionally enjoy day trips to the Algodones Dunes Wilderness north of highway 78. In addition to being just about impossible to safely park on the canal road on the west side of the dunes, as well as on the Ted Kipf Road east of the dunes, we enjoy no amenities whatsoever and yet have to purchase a Special Recreation Permit. BLM signs posted along highway 78 and along Ogilby Rd. state that a Special Recreation Permit is required to visit the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area (ISDRA). We believe it is a violation of the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act to charge an “entrance” fee to visitors of the ISDRA who simply drive through the area maybe stopping to bird watch or take a photo or who simply go for a hike or throw down a sleeping bag in the dunes for a night. The Desert Protective Council urges you to take steps to rescind the entrance fee for ISDRA for visitors who do not use the campgrounds and amenities. We look forward to hearing what actions the BLM plans to take to remediate this situation. Please give a copy of this comment to all members of the Dunes Sub-group at tomorrow’s meeting. Thanks very much for your attention to this situation. Sincerely, Terry Weiner Imperial County Projects and Conservation Coordinator Desert Protective Council P.O. Box 3635 San Diego CA. 92163

KPBS Discusses SDG&E Rooftop Solar Rate Hike

2011-10-19T23:23:34+00:00

San Diego’s public radio station KPBS covered the San Diego Gas & Electric Company’s plan to charge a “grid access” fee to property owners who’ve incurred the expense and bother of installing rooftop solar panels. The discussion, on the station’s “midday edition” program, included JC Thomas, SDG&E’s manager for government and regulatory affairs, Daniel Sullivan of Sullivan Solar Power, and rooftop solar owner Gil Fields. You can listen to the discussion here.

Imperial County Planning Commission Approves Landfill Expansion

2011-10-12T22:33:46+00:00

In a nearly unanimous vote earlier today, the Imperial County Planning Commission approved the expansion of the Burrtec Salton City landfill we reported on earlier this month. We will have a more thorough examination of the project’s future next week, but here are the details as we know them in the meantime: All but one of the Commissioners voted in favor of the project. The proposal as approved amended the plan to cap the maximum height of the landfill at 225 feet, 25 feet lower than originally proposed The lengthy environmental assessment documents for the landfill expansion seem not to mention impacts on Anza-Borrego Desert State Park’s viewshed, hydrology, or wildlife anywhere. The DPC submitted comments to the Planning Commission, and we’ll have more on those comments and the future of the landfill next week.