Solar Developers Face New Desert Tortoise Species

Attention solar developers: You now have not one but two desert tortoises to worry about

Todd Woody
Forbes

Scientists on Tuesday published a paper revealing that DNA analysis shows that California’s imperiled desert tortoise actually is a separate species from its cousins elsewhere in the Southwest.

Normally that would be of academic interest. But given disputes over the impact of massive solar power plants on the Mojave Desert population of the desert tortoise, which is listed as a threatened species under state and federal law, the finding could subject those projects to greater scrutiny.

That’s because those animals found in California, Nevada and Utah that have been designated as a separate species – called Agassiz’s desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) after a 19th century biologist – now occupy a much smaller range.

The Agassiz’s desert tortoise’s Mojave Desert home, north and west of the Colorado River, constitutes only 30% percent of the desert tortoise’s previous habitat. The remainder of that range is now home to a new species christened Morafka’s desert tortoise – as a tribute to a California biologist named David J. Morafka – that roams the Sonoran Desert south and east of the Colorado River from Arizona through Mexico.

“This reduction has important implications for the conservation and protection of Gopherus agassizii, which may deserve a higher level of protection,” wrote the biologists who authored the paper, published in the journal ZooKeys. “Whereas species with broad distributions may survive population declines, those that have small distributions are far more likely to become extinct.”

“Given drastic population declines of G. agassizii during the past few decades, it might be endangered,” they added.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service already manages the Mojave and Sonoran populations separately and a spokeswoman said the new species designations will not change the way the agency analyzes the impact of solar power plants on the Agassiz’s desert tortoise.

“We independently evaluated the Mojave population of desert tortoise and there is no evidence to suggest the species is expected to go extinct, which is the threshold for uplisting to endangered status,” Jeannie Stafford, a public affairs officer in the agency’s Nevada office, said in an email. “We do not anticipate any changes in the way development projects will be evaluated for the Agassiz’s desert tortoise in the future.”

But some environmental groups most likely will press for closer scrutiny of the dozen big solar farms planned for the Mojave.

“We’re seeing some very large solar projects on public lands that are having a very big impact on tortoise populations,” says Lisa Belenky, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which litigates aggressively on behalf of wildlife and which has been involved in the licensing of solar power plants in California. “The threats have been increasing and the populations decreasing, and based on those factors alone, we have already been considering whether there needs to be an uplifting to endangered species status for the desert tortoise.”

“The new desert tortoise species certainly helps frame those issues even more clearly,” she adds.

Kristin Berry is one of the paper’s authors and a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Southern California who is a leading authority on the desert tortoise. She says the identification of Agassiz’s desert tortoise as a separate species should spur efforts to protect its habitat.

“In terms of conservation biology, when a species’ range is reduced by 70% one looks at what to do so habitat is adequately protected,” says Berry. “It’s a very important issue.”

Morafka’s desert tortoise, meanwhile, currently is not listed as a protected species. The government put the critter on an endangered species candidates list after it determined protection was warranted but precluded by a lack of resources and other animals facing even greater threats.

However, a legal settlement that environmental group WildEarth Guardians struck with the Fish and Wildlife Service in May requires the agency to move the tortoise off the candidates list by 2015.

Desert pipeline would send water to Inland Valley

Environmental documents for certifying the project expected to be ready within weeks

By Andrew Edwards
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Water providers serving the Inland Valley and other Southern California areas may be able to draw from a new source of water sufficient to supply 100,000 households if plans for a Mojave Desert pipeline pass environmental muster.

The Cadiz Co., headquartered in downtown Los Angeles, wants to build a 42-mile pipeline to carry water from a remote desert aquifer in the Cadiz Valley to the Colorado River Aqueduct to be delivered to the Los Angeles basin.

The Claremont-based Three Valleys Municipal Water District and the San Dimas-based Golden State Water Co. are poised to be among the agencies receiving water from the pipeline, if it is actually built.

"We're always looking for water in other places in case the big earthquake hits," Three Valleys board President Bob Kuhn said.

Three Valleys wholesales water to providers serving customers in east Los Angeles County communities, including Pomona and Claremont.

Kuhn said Three Valleys has an option agreement to buy the water if the project is approved.

Environmental documents for the Cadiz pipeline have yet to be released, although a spokeswoman for the water agency charged with certifying the project said this week they are expected to be ready for review within the next few weeks.

"We're still looking at releasing the draft environmental impact report sometime," said Michelle Miller, spokeswoman for the Santa Margarita Water District.

The Santa Margarita Water District serves south Orange County and has been designated as the lead agency for the project. Its board will be responsible for reviewing and deciding whether to approve Cadiz Co.'s environmental report.

The project could create the equivalent of 745 full-time jobs, according to a consultant.

The Cadiz Co. owns 35,000 acres in the Cadiz Valley, roughly 11 miles southeast of Amboy, once a stopping point for Route 66 travelers.

Cadiz and Bristol dry lakes - and the aquifer that lies below the desert surface - can be found in Cadiz Valley. The landowners currently use the water for lemon groves, vineyards and other crops grown on their Mojave Desert property.

But if Cadiz Co.'s proposal becomes a reality, the company would build a 42-mile pipeline along an existing railroad right-of-way to a place called Rice, near Highway 62, east of Twentynine Palms.

"Why do it? It's sort of like asking, `Why conserve?" said Cadiz Co. President and General Counsel Scott Slater.

The projected construction cost approaches $278 million over a two-year period.

The work could create the equivalent of 593 full-time jobs for those directly working on the pipeline and an additional 152 jobs at businesses supporting Cadiz Co., according to a forecast from Redlands-based economist John Husing, who focuses on the Inland Empire.

"I would guess they (the new hires) would be living in the Victor Valley or Barstow, given where the facility is," Husing said.

The project's $258.5 million second phase would require the construction of a parallel pipeline to recharge, or store excess Colorado River water in the Cadiz Valley aquifer.

Cadiz Co. hired Husing at a $10,000 commission to prepare an economic impact report for the project.

The firm's executives have yet to release the proposal's draft environmental impact report. It is set to be released this summer.

Water From A Stone?

Cadiz Valley. Southern California's newest source of water? (Photo by Chris Clarke)

Commentary by Chris Clarke
KCET

As Southern California's population grows and water is in ever shorter supply, one Orange County water district is looking to an odd source for more water: the middle of the Mojave Desert.

The Santa Margarita Water District, which provides water services to 150,000 residents and businesses in Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita and adjacent unincorporated areas, is putting together a proposal to import up to 50,000 acre-feet of water into Coastal Southern California each year from the Cadiz Valley, a wind-swept desert valley between Twenty-Nine Palms and Needles. The district plans to release a draft Environmental Impact Review on the project for public comment in late July.

That EIR will almost certainly be scrutinized line-by-line by desert protection activists, some of whom are calling this "the project that would not die."

Santa Margarita's partners in the venture are Cadiz Inc, which owns about 34,000 acres in the Cadiz and Fenner valleys in San Bernardino County, and four other Southern California water companies: Three Valleys Municipal Water District, Golden State Water Company, Jurupa Community Services District and Suburban Water Systems.

Cadiz Inc.'s land lies atop a large aquifer -- an underground reservoir which Cadiz's consultants say may hold between 17 and 34 million acre-feet of water, most of it laid down during the Ice Age. In the project's first stage Cadiz would build 44 miles of pipeline from wells on its property along a railroad right of way to the Colorado River Aqueduct west of the town of Rice. From there the water would head to the Greater Los Angeles Area, and the appropriate amounts apportioned to participating water districts.

Cadiz's selling point for the project is that the water it pumps from the aquifer would otherwise be lost to evaporation. In the words of the company's website,

The Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project is designed to capture and conserve billions of gallons of renewable native groundwater flowing beneath our property in the Cadiz Valley that is currently lost to evaporation at nearby dry lakes. Through the active management of the aquifer system, the Project will create a new, sustainable water supply for Project participants without adversely impacting the aquifer system or the desert environment.

The second stage of the project will involve building a second pipeline to pump "surplus" Colorado River water to the Cadiz Valley, where it would be emptied into "recharge basins" and allowed to percolate into the aquifer, to be pumped out again in dry years. Cadiz states that this phase could provide evaporation-proofed storage of up to a million acre-feet of water, a tempting proposal for Southern California water managers.

If this all gives you a sense of déjà vu, there's a reason for that: this project is a near-copy of one pushed a decade ago by Cadiz in tandem with the Metropolitan Water District. That proposal basically contained the same elements: pumping of aquifer water and storage of the occasional Colorado surplus, and an assertion that the developers could sustainably remove 50,000 acre-feet of water from the aquifer.

Environmentalists shredded that old proposal. Independent hydrologists countered Cadiz's claims about the amount of water the aquifer could spare each year, with one saying:

the estimate of annual recharge used in the Draft EIR/EIS is an order of magnitude too high--it is probably only 5,000-6,000 ac-ft/yr... once development has proceeded for a period of several decades simply stopping the pumping of native groundwater, as implied in the Supplemental EIR/EIR, will not halt the adverse environmental impacts--in other words, the groundwater system once perturbed has sufficient persistence that adverse impacts will persist well beyond 100 years, even though the project is stopped after 50 year or earlier.
Other geologists alleged Cadiz had inflated the sustainable yield of water by a factor of 15.

Drawing down the aquifer would degrade habitat in a number of surrounding protected areas, others pointed out, including the aquifer's headwaters in the Mojave National Preserve, with significant impacts to bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, and animals dependent on the area's small springs. What's more, the older version of the project would have run its pipeline to the aqueduct not along the railroad, but directly through the Iron Mountains, a relatively pristine bit of desert habitat.

Water pollution was also a concern. Not only would pumping saltier water from the Colorado into the aquifer permanently alter the valley's groundwater quality, but the aquifer was found to contain significant amounts of hexavalent Chromium, the same toxic chemical responsible for the public health issues in Hinckley that launched Erin Brockovich's rise to prominence.

For a time in 2001, it looked to desert environmentalists as though the fix was in. Cadiz's controversial founder Keith Brackpool was cozy with California politicos ranging from Gray Davis and Schwarzenegger to Antonio Villaraigosa, a close friend of Brackpool's. Nonetheless, MWD backed out on the deal in 2002, perhaps due to that year's being the dryest year on record for the Colorado River. Why invest millions in a partnership to store surplus water if there is no surplus?

Aside from the alignment of the "conveyance pipeline," the only real difference between the old plan and Cadiz 2.0 would seem to be the claim that any water pumped from the aquifer would have been lost to surface evaporation. This, along with Cadiz's other environmental claims, will likely be scrutinized closely once the draft EIR is available later this summer.

The stakes are rather high. Aquifers can collapse if overdrawn, causing the land to subside and permanently reducing the aquifer's future capacity. A few years of excessive pumping could permanently damage thousands of square miles of the wild Mojave.

Off-roaders and Marines in contention for rugged desert

The Corps wants to expand its Twentynine Palms base for major combat exercises, but civilians fear the loss of a popular recreational area.

Off-road vehicles stir up dust in Johnson Valley, where the Marine Corps wants to extend its Twentynine Palms base to accommodate major combat exercises. (John Herrick/CRAWL Magazine)

By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Twentynine Palms — Rough and rocky, Johnson Valley is considered the perfect place to test the mettle of men and their machines.

An estimated 200,000 people a year flock to the desert valley for recreational pursuits: hiking, camping, rock-hounding, star-gazing and a new sport called "geocaching," a treasure hunt using GPS technology. Moviemakers use the desert floor for chase scenes.

But the valley has gained its greatest acclaim in recent years as an untamed, unregulated venue for off-road vehicles. Off-roaders take their Jeeps, motorcycles, dune buggies, ATVs, "rock crawlers" and other souped-up vehicles over, around and through the rills and hills and rocks.

The annual King of the Hammers race, billed as the toughest desert race in the nation, draws more than 20,000 participants and spectators.

"There's not another place in the country where we could hold our race," said Dave Cole, one of the race organizers. "This is our Daytona 500."

The Marine Corps, whose Twentynine Palms base is directly adjacent to Johnson Valley, also likes the valley's challenging terrain — for similar yet different reasons.

The Marine Corps would like to include the land inside the boundaries of its Air-Ground Combat Center as a training area for large-scale, live-fire exercises where three battalions could simultaneously practice assaulting a fixed location. The land is controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

Johnson Valley would give the Marine Corps a large-scale training capability it lacks at any of its bases, according to Marine brass. Even in a budget-tightening season when other projects are being dropped or trimmed, the Marine Corps has allocated $60 million for the expansion project.

Gen. James Amos, the commandant, considers the expansion "absolutely essential to providing the requisite training area for preparing Marines to meet the challenges of the future security environment."

The off-roaders look at the valley and see an exciting, irreplaceable place for their sport. Amos looks at the valley and sees a place to provide training that will enhance the "survivability" of Marines in combat.

The off-roaders and the merchants who depend on all the recreationalists are not going down without a fight. When the Marines opened up their expansion proposal for public review in May, more than 25,000 responses were received.

The Marines have offered a compromise: the heart of the Johnson Valley racing area would be available 10 months a year and closed for two months when a major exercise is planned.

But expansion skeptics feel that the dual-use idea would be withdrawn as soon as the first civilian wanders innocently or defiantly into the midst of Marine training or is hurt by ordnance left when the training is over.

The dispute features two sides that, philosophically, are aligned. Both believe in living life on the edge, facing down danger in the desert.

The Marine Corps sent a color guard to this year's King of the Hammers. Off-duty Marines have their own desert racing team. And expansion opponents, many of them military veterans, feel a twinge at opposing the Marines during a time of war.

"It's going to have a devastating effect on recreation," said Ray Pessa, a Yucca Valley activist. "National defense comes first, and if they say they need it, so be it. But I'm not sure they've looked at all the alternatives."

The Marines agree there are other expansion alternatives on the eastern and southern edges of the base but insist that none is as good as Johnson Valley on the west.

The final environmental impact statement is set for completion in early January. The Department of Navy's decision on which, if any, alternative to select is scheduled for April, in time for the issue to be sent to Congress for inclusion in the defense appropriations bill.

Beyond the effect on off-roaders and business owners, Betty Munson, with the Johnson Valley Improvement Assn., sees a loss of the freedom that lures people to the austere and often blisteringly hot desert.

"Johnson Valley is all that is left of the California desert where you can travel without any restrictions, go camping without a fee, go anywhere, any time," Munson said. "There's a lot of freedom out there that people won't have anymore."

Ninety percent of Marines deploying to Afghanistan come to the Twentynine Palms base for live-fire and other training called Mojave Viper. A re-created Afghan village has 1,500 buildings and is populated by up to 1,000 Afghan "role players." Marines are also taught to detect and dodge roadside bombs, the Taliban weapon of choice. Training is continuously tweaked to include lessons learned from the battlefield.

But what the base lacks is space to have three battalions converging on an "enemy" location.

Although the Twentynine Palms base is sprawling — 600,000 acres, compared to 125,000 acres at Camp Pendleton — there are various impediments to having a simultaneous live-fire exercise involving three battalions on the move. Among those impediments are federally protected tortoises.

The tortoise issue annoys the off-roaders. If there were more tortoises in Johnson Valley, that would probably kill the idea of annexing it to the base, said Cole, who loves Johnson Valley so much that he was married on one of its promontories.

"If I was having a tortoise race, that would be seen as valuable," said Cole. "But I'm having a people race, and that's not seen as valuable."

The Marine Corps has been studying expansion of Twentynine Palms for nearly a decade, with each study coming to much the same conclusion: Johnson Valley is the best alternative.

Under the Marine Corps' preferred alternative plan, 108,530 acres of Johnson Valley would be permanently closed to the public. An additional 38,137 acres would be open 10 months a year.

Although the issue involves federally managed land, members of California's Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission toured Johnson Valley in late May and, after hearing testimony from all sides, sent a letter to the Marine Corps saying it could not support the expansion plan.

Commission members suggested that the Marines look at sharing one of the spacious bases in California or Nevada belonging to other branches of the military, possibly the Army's Ft. Irwin, the Navy's China Lake, or Edwards Air Force Base. The Marines say that such an agreement would be overly expensive and impractical for a variety of reasons.

Daphne Greene, deputy director of California State Parks, said the Marines are to be complimented for seeking off-roaders' opinions and looking for a compromise. But the inclusion of Johnson Valley in the expansion plan would be too great a loss of a natural asset that Californians have long enjoyed, she said.

"We wouldn't let the Marines take over Yosemite," Greene said.

Desert tortoise comes under fire from 'Sheriff' Biden

Federally funded website dedicated to reptile "a waste"

There are nearly 2,000 federal .gov domains, according to the White House (AFP/File, Saul Loeb)

AFP

WASHINGTON — As part of the White House's recently launched Campaign to Cut Waste, Vice President Joe Biden says one of his first wasteful spending targets is a website dedicated to the desert tortoise.

Biden, who was named by President Barack Obama to head up the campaign designed to identify and eliminate wasteful federal spending, said Monday that one example of such waste was a federally funded website dedicated to the desert tortoise, a threatened species.

In a message on the White House website entitled, "There's a New Sheriff in Town," Biden addressed potential cuts to spending.

"And I bet you didn't know that your tax dollars pay for a website dedicated to the Desert Tortoise. I'm sure it's a wonderful species, but we can't afford to have a standalone site devoted to every member of the animal kingdom," Biden wrote in the message also sent via email to supporters. "It's just one of hundreds of government websites that should be consolidated or eliminated."

The new campaign comes as the president and Republicans in Congress are engaged in difficult negotiations over the national debt and budget deficit.

There are nearly 2,000 federal .gov domains, according to the White House. Under many of these domains are smaller sites that result in an estimated 24,000 websites, and the White House said the redundancy creates confusion and wastes money.

Another website that drew criticism from the White House was a federal domain devoted to foresters who play the fiddle, but all that remained of www.fiddlinforesters.gov on Monday was a dead link.

"This kind of waste is just unacceptable. Particularly at a time when we're facing tough decisions about reducing our deficit, it's a no-brainer to stop spending taxpayer dollars on things that benefit nobody," said Biden.

The site identified by Biden, www.deserttortoise.gov, is managed by the Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program, a database about a desert area that spreads into California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service is committed to saving the taxpayers' money. At the same time, we will continue to work with all agencies involved to protect all endangered species," agency spokeswoman Vanessa Kauffman told AFP.

Dry Southwest slurps up surging water supply

Colorado River, Lake Mead recover; Calif., Ariz., Nev. keep rationing at bay

Las Vegas gets nearly 90 percent of its drinking water from Lake Mead, which had been shrinking over the last decade.

By CRISTINA SILVA
The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS -- Communities below the snow-capped mountains of the West are bracing against the swelling rivers and flooding that come with the spring thaw. In the drought-ravaged cities of the Southwest, however, the deluge is cause for celebration.

There will be more water for Nevada, California and Arizona this year, sparing them from having to take emergency measures, such as water rationing, for at least another three years.

The three states can thank the heavy and, in some cases, unprecedented snowpack in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. The ripe June sun is sending snowmelt into the Colorado River, its tributaries and Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir located outside Las Vegas.

"This is obviously really welcome, great news," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, CEO of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million people. "It's been a godsend."

The water comes at a crucial time for the Southwest. After 10 years of receding water levels that threatened a regional water shortage, this year's melting snows are expected to grow Lake Mead, the chief source of water for the three states and Mexico, by 40 feet or more.

The jubilation in California, Arizona and Nevada is not a case of wishing neighbors ill, only the reality of nature's polarizing impact in the water-poor West. Brutal, prolonged winters in the north produce robust, life-giving water flows in the south.

That cycle had been disrupted for more than a decade as one dry winter after another emptied Lake Mead, which sits on the Nevada-Arizona border and was formed in 1935 after the construction of Hoover Dam. Mead and Lake Powell upstream are the major water storage facilities in the system.

Roughly 96 percent of Mead's water comes from melted snow in the upper Colorado River basin states: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.

By November 2010, the water in the reservoir had fallen to 1,081 elevation feet, a historic low and a mere six feet above the point that would trigger a large reduction of Arizona and Nevada's share of the Colorado River.

If that trend had continued, Arizona and Nevada could have had to begin water rationing this year.

That outlook changed during late winter as snowstorms blanketed Western mountains from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada.

By June, there was more cumulative snow than ever recorded in the upper basin states that feed into the Colorado River, said Kevin Werner, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service's Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.

As a result, Lake Mead is expected to grow to up to 1,126 feet by December. At full stage, the lake registers at more than 1,200 elevation feet.

For public water utilities, the engorged river will buy officials more time to plan for the possibility of a future without Lake Mead, a nightmarish prospect across the Southwest. Some researchers believe long-term drought, climate change and an ever increasing demand for water could leave the lake dry by 2021.

In California, water leaders are promoting conservation programs and exploring other water sources.

In Nevada, Las Vegas gets nearly 90 percent of its drinking water from the lake. Officials are seeking a permit to build a 285-mile-long pipeline project to import water from aquifers in northern Nevada and Utah. The project has encountered stiff opposition from conservationists and rural leaders against tapping northern groundwater to fuel more growth in southern Nevada.

Meanwhile, construction problems have stalled a $700-million effort to build a new pipe into Mead.

The huge snowmelt has somewhat eased some of the pressure driving both projects, said Scott Huntley, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "This is the first significant elevation in 10 years," he said. "It provides us a greater cushion to fall back on."

The good news has spread quickly.

In rural Arizona, the new water means farmers won't have to reduce agricultural acreage.

"It means we've dodged a bullet," said Kevin Rogers, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, the state's farming lobby. "That water is the lifeblood of the West."

At the Lake Mead National Recreation Area bordering Hoover Dam, park officials are preparing for new visitors and urging concessionaires to move their marinas, floating restaurants and boat rental stands to accommodate the transforming shore.

"Water has already started to rise a foot a week," said park spokesman Andrew Munoz. "We are looking at three good years of access to the water."

The National Park Service also is looking forward to replenishing its purse. Every 20-foot drop of water during the past decade has cost the agency roughly $6 million in renovations as roads and utilities were extended to match the receding shoreline.

"That's hundreds of thousands of dollars that they won't have to spend this year," Munoz said.

Gail Kaiser's family owns the Las Vegas Boat Harbor and Lake Mead Marina outside Las Vegas. For more than 10 years, the family has repeatedly released its anchors and moved the marinas to stay attached to the receding shoreline.

This year, however, they expect to move the marinas up at least five times through August to keep pace with the rising water.

"It is always a good thing to have more water," she said. "People go, 'Wow, they are getting water there. Let's go out and see what the lake is doing.'"

Boaters forced to confront muddy beaches and newly uncovered islands as they toured Lake Mead in recent years are also watching the rising water with delight.

Rick Brodeen has been boating on Lake Mead since 1972. His friends crashed into unmarked islands as the lake began to empty. The beaches became less popular for day trippers as more and more rocks emerged. It was dangerous and depressing, Brodeen said.

"I've been watching this water go down for years," he said. "To have the water going up is a lot better."

Proposed bill would re-open lands to off-roading and mining

More than 3 million California acres unsuitable for wilderness are still unavailable for public use

Soda Mountains Wilderness Study Area photo by John Dittli

By KAREN JONAS
Desert Dispatch

WASHINGTON, D.C. • A bill proposed by a California congressman would allow nearly three million acres of land — currently designated as being unsuitable for wilderness — within the state to be opened for multiple uses, such as off-roading and mining.

The Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act of 2011 — H.R. 1581 — was proposed by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-22) in April and seeks to put control of lands designated as being unsuitable for wilderness — which are lands that were studied for wilderness designation but never classified as wilderness areas by Congress — back in the hands of local agencies, such as the local offices of the Bureau of Land Management, according to a statement recently released by McCarthy.

The bill’s language states that the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 left BLM lands that could not be classified as wilderness, yet are not being used. McCarthy stated that 6.7 million acres of BLM land throughout the U.S. are classified as unsuitable for wilderness.

About 36 million acres of national forest lands were also never designated as wilderness, yet have restrictions on public access and use, according to McCarthy.

The bill is sponsored mainly by Republicans, including Rep. Buck McKeon, who represents Barstow as part of the 25th District. There are currently 22 cosponsors for the bill.

McCarthy stated that more than three million acres in California are unavailable for public use.

“This means many rural and outlying communities that depend on tourism and recreation cannot maximize the potential of the public lands in their area,” said McCarthy.

For local off-roader Mike McCain, the bill is a step in the right direction of opening public lands for everyone’s use.

“The land has to be multi-use; it won’t be excluding anybody,” said McCain. “If it’s open for one group, it should be open for all groups. That’s the only fair way.”

Drawing water from desert

Pipeline may create 745 jobs and make lake bed a source of air pollution

Lesley Thornburg from Cadiz Company walks through the vineyard at the Cadiz Farms, 12 miles southeast of Amboy. The company wants to build a pipeline that might create 745 full-time jobs. (Al Cuizon/Staff Photographer)

Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

Cadiz Dry Lake, CA -- Southern California water providers may be able to draw from a new source of water sufficient to supply 100,000 households if plans for a Mojave Desert pipeline pass environmental muster.
The project could create the equivalent of 745 full-time jobs, according to a consultant.

The Cadiz Co., headquartered in downtown Los Angeles, wants to build a 42-mile pipeline to carry water from a remote desert aquifer in the Cadiz Valley to the Colorado River Aqueduct.

"Why do it? It's sort of like asking, `Why conserve?" said Cadiz Co. President and General Counsel Scott Slater.

Letting the water flow to the aqueduct would make it possible to provide a new source of water to providers serving the region, including the Claremont-based Three Valleys Municipal Water District and the San Dimas-based Golden State Water Co.

"We're always looking for water in other places in case the big earthquake hits," Three Valleys board President Bob Kuhn said.

Three Valleys wholesales water to providers serving customers in east Los Angeles County communities including Pomona and Claremont.

Kuhn said Three Valleys has an option agreement to buy the water if the project is approved.

The Cadiz Co. owns 35,000 acres in the Cadiz Valley. Roughly 11 miles southeast of Amboy, it was once a stopping point for Route 66 travelers.

Cadiz and Bristol dry lakes - and the aquifer that lies below the desert surface - can be found in Cadiz Valley. The landowners currently use the water for lemon groves, vineyards and other crops grown on their Mojave Desert property.

But if Cadiz Co.'s proposal becomes a reality, the company would build a 42-mile pipeline along an existing railroad right-of-way to a place called Rice, which is near Highway 62, well east of Twentynine Palms.

The projected construction cost approaches $278million over a two-year period.

The work could create the equivalent of 593 full-time jobs for those directly working on the pipeline and an additional 152 jobs at businesses supporting Cadiz Co., according to a forecast from Redlands-based economist John Husing, who focuses on the Inland Empire.

"I would guess they (the new hires) would be living in the Victor Valley or Barstow, given where the facility is," Husing said.

The project's $258.5 million second phase would require the construction of a parallel pipeline to recharge Cadiz Valley's aquifer with Colorado River water.

Cadiz Co. hired Husing at a $10,000 commission to prepare an economic impact report for the project.

The firm's executives have yet to release the proposal's draft environmental impact report. It is set to be released this summer.

"We're going to do a very careful review of the draft EIR and figure out how this proposal that deals with water and affecting special places in the desert, like the Mojave National Preserve," said Seth Shteir, desert field representative for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Shteir's group opposed the Cadiz Co.'s water plans in 2002. He said it wants to review the environmental impact report before taking a position now on the project.

The association's concerns include what may happen if diversion of water away from the aquifer below Cadiz Valley makes Cadiz Dry Lake so dry that dusty particulate matter collects on the lake bed and becomes a potential source of air pollution.

Cadiz has conducted considerable research and is confident its environmental report will withstand scrutiny, Slater said.

The Santa Margarita Water District, which serves south Orange County, has been designated as the lead agency for the project. As such, its board will be responsible for reviewing and deciding whether to approve Cadiz Co.'s environmental report.

Santa Margarita officials are also counting on receiving water from the proposed pipeline, said the agency's general manager, John J. Schatz.

"We're looking at this to balance our water supply portfolio," he said.

Obama Administration Backs Away From Wilderness Plan

Wilderness Society president "deeply disappointed" at the decision

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar at left as Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey speaks about an initiative that would allow the BLM to designate and protect wilderness areas on Thursday, Dec. 23, 2010 outside of REI in Denver. (AP)

FoxNews.com

Washington, D.C. -- The Obama administration is dropping a controversial plan to restore eligibility for federal wilderness protection to millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West after the GOP-led House put up a strong fight.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a memo Wednesday that his agency will not designate any of those public lands as "wild lands." Instead Salazar said officials will work with members of Congress to develop recommendations for managing millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West. A copy of the memo was obtained by The Associated Press.

Salazar's decision reverses an order issued in December to reverse a Bush-era policy that opened some Western lands to commercial development.

A budget deal approved by Congress prevented the Interior Department from spending money to implement the wilderness policy. GOP lawmakers complained that the plan would circumvent Congress' authority and could be used to declare a vast swath of public land off-limits to oil-and-gas drilling.

Republican governors in Utah, Alaska and Wyoming, filed suit to block the plan, saying it would hurt their state's economies by taking federal lands off the table for mineral production and other uses.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, hailed Salazar's reversal of what he called a "misguided" policy that would have harmed Utah's economy.

"Since the majority of land in Utah is owned by the federal government, it is critically important to strike a balance between the needs of our local communities and the protection of public lands that truly do have wilderness characteristics rather than pandering to environmental extremists," Hatch said. "Today's announcement is a positive step toward restoring that balance."

Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, also cheered the announcement, calling it a "positive."

"I'm glad to see the administration move in the right direction on this," he said. "We all share the common bond of loving our public lands, and ensuring access to them is important. We will continue to be vigilant and make sure that future designations of public lands are made by consensus, not by executive fiat."

William Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, said he was deeply disappointed at the decision, which he said ignores the Bureau of Land Management's obligation to protect wilderness values.

"Without strong and decisive action from the Department of Interior, wilderness will not be given the protection it is due, putting millions of acres of public lands at risk," Meadows said.

Bob Abbey, director of the land management bureau, said the December directive would not have required protection for any particular areas. Designation as wild land could only be made after public comments and review and would not necessarily prohibit motor vehicle use or the staking of new mining claims, Abbey said.

The measure blocking implementation of the wild lands policy was included in a budget bill for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

The New Sublime

Artists working at the Salton Sea capture the beauty and decay with a fresh perspective

Christopher Landis, North Shore Yacht Club Pool, 1994, digital print, 30x40 inches

Ann Japenga
Palm Springs Life

You drive in from Interstate 10 or Palm Springs, turn south at Mecca, and pass fields of peppers and the old artists’ colony called Desert Camp. When you see the first glint of blue in the distance, your spirits likely will lift. A giant lake in the desert is a miracle in light, space, and water. Enjoy that first glance at the Salton Sea.

What you see and feel next will vary. If you were raised on Sierra Club calendars and Ansel Adams panoramas, you might focus on the crumpled Mecca Hills and the big vistas of the Santa Rosa Mountains across the sea. If you grew up with Love Canal and Chernobyl, you might zero in on abandoned trailers, dying palms, and fish bones.

For decades, artists have come to the sea to put their stamp on its waters. In April, the Salton Sea History Museum in the restored North Shore Yacht Club opened its inaugural exhibition, Valley of the Ancient Lake: Works Inspired by the Salton Sea.

Curated by Deborah Martin (with historical works and memorabilia provided by Jennie Kelly), the exhibition features 10 artists who focus their work on the sea. To contextualize their paintings, drawings, and photographs, it’s helpful to know they follow the path of several generations of artists.

The first artists influenced by the sea lived around its shore and made art from the land itself. Indians carved petroglyphs in the boulders and scratched pictures in the tufa of the ancient shoreline. Native American potters made ollas from the milky-white clay cradling Agua Grande (an Indian name for the sea).

Next, expedition artists accompanied railroad surveys. In 1853, artist Charles Koppel came through with geologist William Blake and made etchings of Travertine Point and the ancient shoreline across the sea from the yacht club. For a while, the inland lake was called Blake’s Sea.

After the expedition artists, California Impressionist painters brought the style of capturing light that spread from France to the U.S. East Coast and finally to California and the desert in the early 1900s. There were no sunken trailers then, but still the desert was foreign to artists from greener places. Some saw bleakness and desolation. Others — such as Fred Grayson Sayre — saw paradise. Art collector Allan Seymour was so inspired by Sayre’s vision of “the Turquoise Sea” that he bought a home at North Shore.

As Impressionism faded, a lively and little-known era in Salton Sea art began. In 1940, one of the great Western artists, Maynard Dixon, lived in a shack along the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks near North Shore. He made a sketch for his painting Destination Unknown with fellow artist John Hilton posing as a hobo. Painters Jimmy Swinnerton and Clyde Forsythe visited him at the shack he called Desert Camp, as did Indian Wells artist Carl Bray and Desert Magazine Editor Randall Henderson.

Los Angeles Times columnist Ed Ainsworth bought property at North Shore and built a housing development known as Palm Island Estates, which eventually found Hilton, Swinnerton, Forsythe, Orpha Klinker, and Bill Bender congregating for his makeshift salon. Ainsworth’s 1960 book Painters of the Desert remains the classic on early desert painters.

By the time Ainsworth died in 1968, the open landscape had given way to tract housing and freeways. Flooding from storms damaged the yacht club jetty and submerged buildings along the shoreline. Agricultural runoff polluted the sea and repelled tourists. The increasing salinity of the water gummed up boats’ engines, and water-skiers decamped for the Colorado River. The yacht club became an emblem of decay. For a growing number of Americans, their only exposure to the Salton Sea came from Goth fashion photos taken at the pigeon-infested, graffiti-scarred, busted-up yacht club.

As the land changed, a new wave of artists tackled the degradation head-on. In the 1970s, the New Topographics photographers declared “an end to romantic nature.” Photographers Robert Adams, Lewis Balz, and others influenced young artists and photographers nationwide to turn toward the man-mauled, nonidealized landscape.

Valley of the Ancient Lake showcases the traditional, apocalyptic, and everything in between. Martin, a realist painter, places ruined buildings within luminous landscapes, while Eric Merrell works his canvases in the Early California tradition.

Beautifully tragic photographs by Christopher Landis, Kim Stringfellow, and Bill Leigh Brewer long to save the sea, while interventionist Cristopher Cichocki says his images of DayGlo-painted dead fish help bring forth “a new awareness of man and nature in conflict.”

Seymour found plein air artist Andrew Dickson painting one day on a ridge near his North Shore home and invited him to dinner. That’s how glad he was to see a traditional landscape painter at the Salton Sea. (Dickson has been coming to North Shore to visit his grandparents since age 7; his grandmother still lives there.)

Some art critics have foretold the dawning of a New Sublime, a return to the pastoral vision of America’s early landscape painters but with a contemporary edge we haven’t even thought of yet.

It comes back to that longing for the sea. If their longing is pure and sustained, the artists you see in this exhibition might be the ones to accomplish what politicians and environmentalists have so far been unable to achieve: to dream back Blake’s Sea, dream back Agua Grande.

Salton Sea From the North Shore, 2011

Mary-Austin Klein, oil on Dura-Lar mounted on board, 10x34 inches

Information: http://www.saltonseamuseum.org/