Super bloom looms in county desert

Desert Sunflowers are at the beginning to bloom at Anza-Borrego Desert. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

J. Harry Jones
San Diego Union-Tribune

Signs that a “super bloom” of wildflowers is about to hit Anza-Borrego Desert State Park are popping up across the desert floor about two hours east of San Diego.

Botanists, business leaders and visitors are already buzzing around the tiny town of Borrego Springs, where big changes are overtaking the typically stark landscape.

“It’s incredibly green,” said Kathy Dice, superintendent of the 900-square-mile park, which stretches from the Riverside County line to the Mexican border in eastern San Diego County. “That’s the thing all of us have noticed. I’ve never seen it so green.”

Campgrounds in the park are packed and hotels are encouraging people to book rooms now before they are all gone. At La Casa del Zorro Resort & Spa, even weekday reservations are between 80 and 90 percent full for the next three weeks, said Lynn Bowen in the resorts sales department.

Early blooming flowers include purple desert sand verbena, yellow desert sunflowers and white desert lilies, along with dozens, even hundreds of other species.

More than 5.5 inches of rain has fallen in the desert since mid December, almost as much as falls in the average year.

Botanist Jim Dice, the park superintendent’s husband, said such an explosion of color hasn’t been seen in the area in many years — and its beauty is likely to bring hordes of visitors.

“I think we’re probably a week or two away from the prime annual wildflower bloom,” Jim Dice said. “With plenty of sun this week and 80 degree temperatures, by Friday, Saturday and Sunday we could see a pretty massive bloom. We’re just seeing the very beginning of it right now.”

Early Tuesday morning Chris Baxter got out of her car at the Visitor’s Center, camera phone in hand. “Oh look, Annie! They’re getting ready to pop! They’re getting ready to bloom!”

Baxter and Annie Dennis are visiting from a far different climate.

“For us this feels so good,” Dennis said. “We’ve been stuck in frozen Detroit so this is perfect.”

An hour later, miles away at the mouth of Coyote Canyon, Lynda and John Friar of Pacific Palisades were busy taking photographs of a lone white desert lily that had bloomed amid many other budding plants .

“It’s beautiful this year,” Lynda Friar said. “We’ve never seen it like this.”

At the visitor center in Borrego Springs, a line was already forming by 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and the crush continued throughout the day.

“We’re already having a banner year,” said the town’s chamber of commerce Executive Director Linda Haddock. “You can’t get onto Palm Canyon (Road). It’s jammed with people. The restaurants have people out the doors.”

“It’s going to be a bloom that I’ve never seen before,” she added. “I keep hearing stories from years ago about carpets of purple and yellow flowers. I’m going to be like a big kid, too.”

Though difficult to gauge, Kathy Dice said roughly a half million people visit the park every year. She expects an additional quarter million could come in March alone.

The best places to see the vibrant foliage are constantly changing, so the park has a Wildflower Hotline — 760/767-4684 — to guide people to the best spots.

“The phones are ringing off the hook,” Kathy Dice said.

On Tuesday, the latest update said recent rain was “likely to extend the blooming period for many annuals, including the sunflowers along Henderson Canyon Road which are just beginning to bloom.

“Desert lilies are blooming in profusion in the Badlands including Arroyo Salado primitive camp on Highway S-22. Annuals and shrubs are beginning to bloom at the Visitor’s Center and should continue for a few weeks at least. Wildflowers are blooming at the north end of Di Giorgio Road, drivers of two-wheel drive vehicles should park at the end of the pavement and walk up the road or out onto the flats.”

Potential visitors are also encouraged to visit the Anza-Borrego Foundations website at www.theabf.org.

Jim Dice, the reserve manager of the Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center run by the University of California, Irvine, said it’s been about nine years since a really good desert bloom and perhaps 20 years since a spectacular one.

“Just walking around the research center property the other day there are all sort of things I haven’t seen in the six years I’ve been there: Bigelow’s Monkey flower, Blazing Stars — all these annuals that haven’t been around or have been very, very rare recently.”

A dry winter can lead to fewer petals out in our arid regions

Desert Wildflowers Outlook

Wildflowers from the past near Amboy Crater. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

By Alysia Gray Painter
nbclosangeles.com

DRY DAYS, FEWER FLOWERS: It's a florid fact that can surprise even those who've called California home for years: Our deserts can pop with petals come February and March. There are big, showy springs, following damp winters, like the one in 2005, which saw hotel rooms sold out for weeks on end in and around Death Valley National Park. And there are typical springs, where beautiful pink and yellow buds pop out here and there with welcome regularity.

AND THEN... there is the dry stretch that follows a drier-than-normal winter. Welcome to the spring of 2014, which'll arrive on the heels of one of the toastiest Januarys in memory, at least for a good chunk of the state. This doesn't necessarily bode well for blankets of photo-worthy buds showing up in our deserts, but the show does go on, and surprises do happen. Desert USA, as well as our national and state parks, are keeping tabs on the winter-into-spring blooms, which can shoot up fast and bid farewell just as speedily. Eager to see one of the prettiest and most unusual sights in the driest parts of the Golden State? Then keep a watch...

ON THE DESERT SCENE: Desert USA reported that "some wildflowers are being spotted in the Culp Valley area" of the Anza-Borrego on Tuesday, Jan. 21. And in Joshua Tree National Park? "Some creosote bushes have started to bloom" read a report given on Jan. 21. It's not nearly high wildflower season yet, so don't let the recent dry days dissuade you; you could plan a weekend out among the ocotillo and canyons in March, and if you see flowers, well, then, so much the better. And the next free days in the National Parks? They're well-timed for petal seekers planning to head to Joshua Tree: Feb. 15-17. That's President's Day Weekend, a period when pretty colors typically make a showing around the stark and stunning landscape.

Heavy rains bring false spring to Anza-Borrego desert

Desert Hibiscus found near Glorietta Canyon on September 29, 2013 (Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association)

By Ernie Cowan
San Diego Union-Tribune

Mother Nature might know what is going on, but I’m confused.

Wildflowers and butterflies are something you find in the desert in the spring. Recent heavy rains have turned the desert into a green carpet of grass and produced a rare fall bloom of scattered wildflowers along with an invasion of colorful caterpillars and butterflies.

In July and August there was more than 4 inches of rain recorded in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Summer monsoons swept up from the Gulf of California bringing more than three quarters of the normal rainfall for a full year.

Initially there was some significant flash flooding, but in this arid land, plants that see little water anytime are opportunists that quickly respond when rain does fall.

When driving into Borrego Springs along S-22, visitors frequently stop at the Crawford Overlook to enjoy the expansive view across the Borrego Valley into the Badlands and to the Salton Sea in the hazy distance.

The visitor now notices a green tinge to the desert floor because of the carpet of grass that has sprung up.

You first notice the large white Jimson Weed blossoms as you enter the park and the road breaks off, dropping into the desert and leaving Ranchita behind. Soon you spot prickly poppies dotting a landscape that was burned in a wildfire a year or so ago.

The careful observer will notice clouds of California Patch butterflies darting about and flocking around the bright yellow blossoms of blooming brittlebush. Brightly colored and striped green worms march across the landscape feeding on the abundant new growth.

The desert is happy.

By late summer many native plants have normally shriveled from blistering heat and the lack of water. This year the drenching rains have revived them and they stand fresh and strong from the unseasonal nourishment. It brings a smile to this leathered desert rat that revels in the anomaly.

As the highway makes the wide, sweeping turn through Culp Valley, there are more butterflies and green hornworms thriving in the new growth. Soon the big caterpillars will mature and bury themselves in the sand as they begin a transformation into a Sphinx moth.

Once on the desert floor you notice a forest of ocotillo covered with thick green leaves. Normally this time of year they look like dead tentacles covered in angry spines. The heavy foliage adds to the green hue, now the prime desert color.

A few cholla cacti are budding and some are in bloom. A hike up a desert wash will reveal beautiful red California fuchsia in bloom and clumps of yellow chinch weed like small buttons on a carpet of green.

Swallowtail butterflies flitter in the abundant fields and the mild temperatures of late summer are kind and embracing to the wilderness hiker.

Canyons that were once familiar to the frequent visitor are now strange places. Flash floods a month ago sculptured the land into different forms. Roads were eliminated, boulders moved, and a new landscape was created to explore.

There is another joy to this wonder of nature.

Some jeep trails are still impassable because of huge gouges cut in the sand or boulders that were moved and now block old routes. Hikes exploring canyons on the western edge of the desert may put the first footprints into the new sand deposited by the flash floods. The landscape has changed.

Spring wildflowers bring the most visitors to California’s largest state park, but the beauty of this false spring has yet to be discovered by most nature lovers. It won’t last long as the monsoon rains sink deeper into thirsty desert sands and the brown hues of fall once again return.

Until then, there is silent beauty awaiting the desert explorer.

Silence of the Lambs

Feds Authorize Killing of Bighorn Sheep in Path of Wind Project

Endangered Bighorn on boundary of
Pattern's Ocotillo Express wind facility

By Miriam Raftery
East County Magazine

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.

Jorgensen calls the decision “astounding” in a comment submitted on the Biological Opinion, adding that the USF&W “is charged with protecting this endangered population—and it is not showing any leadership in safeguarding the [Endangered Species Act] ESA.”

According to the USF&WS website, “The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.”

There are only about 950 Peninsular Bighorn Sheep left in the U.S. as of 2010. Their numbers had steadily declined prior to being declared an endangered species in 1998, according to the Bighorn Institute.

The “take” authorization is found in a Biological Opinion issued by the Carlsbad, California office of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on April 25, 2012. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed a final Record of Decision last week authorizing the Ocotillo wind facility. His decision relied on the USF&WS document, among others.

Wind energy corporations in other parts of the country have been issued take permits for endangered eagles, our national symbol--all part of new policies implemented amid the rush to fast-track so-called "green" energy projects.

Until recently, over 800,000 acres in the area were designated as critical habit for the Peninsular Desert Bighorn Sheep. But that number was recently sliced to less than half—370,000 acres—by the USF&WS, a convenient decision for Pattern Energy, developer of the 12,500 acre Ocotillo Express wind project as well as other local developers whose proposed projects were similar removed from bighorn habitat designation.

Jorgensen accuses the USF&WS of bowing to political pressures and ignoring evidence. “They claim this was a result of `new science’ and a legal challenge, but they’ve never produced the science to substantiate their reduction,” he wrote in the the Biological Opinion submitted on May 2, 2012.

At times, the habitat removal borders on sheer incredulity. The only officially designated bighorn habitat on the 12,500 Ocotillo wind site is an “island”, or median area between the north and southbound lanes of the Interstate 8 freeway.

The Ocotillo wind project shares a five-mile boundary with Anza Borrego Desert State Park. Jorgensen and others have voiced concerns that the wind project cuts off a key corridor used by the sheep to migrate to and from the park seasonally.

Jorgensen has previously turned whistleblower, telilng ECM that the California Governor's office issued a gag order two days before the deadline for comments on the wind project's Environmental Impact Statement -- preventing state park employees from turrning in a comment that had been worked on for months. The muzzled comments included concerns over the project's impacts on endangered Bighorn sheep, according to Jorgensen.

Governor Jerry Brown's office has denied that a gag order was issued. But the Borrego Sun subsequently published a news article revealing that multiple individuals with close ties to Anza Borrego Desert State Park confirmed that state park employees were gagged. The nonprofit Anza Borrego Desert State Foundation, however, has issued scathing criticism of the project's potential impacts on wildlife including Bighorn sheep and denounced both state and federal officials for failing in their duties to protect endangered wildlife and habitat.

Above the project site to the west, construction of the high-voltage Sunrise Powerlink line in McCain Valley has disrupted additional bighorn habitat—and now a second wind facility, Tule Wind, has been approved by the BLM for construction in McCain Valley. With trucks and helicopters throughout the region, California Highway Patrol has recently had to use bullhorns to scare displaced bighorn off the freeway itself.

Pattern did remove some turbines slated to go into rocky areas, but has insisted that no bighorn sheep have been seen on the flat, sandy areas.

Two photographers sent ECM photographs of bighorn in the area as recently as April. Those photos showed a herd of the endangered animals on the project boundary—some with radio tracking collars and ear tags visible. One shot shows sheep standing in flat sand, not rocks.

ECM sent those photos to federal wildlife officials to document presence of the sheep on the project site. But instead of taking action to protect the endangered animals, the USF&WS authorized their destruction—and Secretary Salazar signed their death warrant.

Jorgensen had proposed that the entire project be rejected. Failing that, he sought removal of eight turbines within three-quarters of a mile of a documented lambing area. He also urged federal officials to consider the “overwhelming cumulative impacts being generated in the area” including two wind projects, two high-voltage powerlines, I-8, Border Patrol’s increased activity, off-road-vehicle activity and more.

Astoundingly, the USF&WS document claims that the project does not constitute a significant loss in habitat.

Pattern has agreed to a monitoring and mitigation plan, including restoration of historic bighorn habitat at Carrizo Creek. However that does not account for the disruption in habitat conductivity that the massive project will cause -- a concern raised by numerous wildlife experts in the area.

The project developer misleadingly has stated that only a small fraction of the 12,500 acres will be impacted—but fails to count the spaces between turbines as impacted areas even though they will be beneath blades each with a sweep area the size of a football field, each generating infrasound capable of causing health impacts, blade flicker, and noise described by some as similar to a helicopter hovering constantly. Wind facilities can also generate stray voltage capable of causing injury or even death; entire herds of cattle have been known to die from ground current.

Ominously, the Biological Opinion further makes reference to “incidental take”, leaving the door open to authorize even more bighorn deaths.

“This is not acceptable for USF&WS to permit,” Jorgensen says of the five ewes and five lambs authorized for potential destruction. His comment concludes emphatically that the USF&WS has “NO EXCUSE for this action!”

A massive excavation area at the site will be for a 785,000 "pond", a worker told an ECM photographer Jim Pelley. Pelley fears the pond may contain brackish water that could harm bighorn sheep or other wildlife.

Courtney Coyle, attorney for the Viejas tribe, told ECM she did not see a reference to where the pond would be locatedin the project EIS. "This is part of the changing project descriptions issue," she said.

Significantly, the final project approval document signed by Salazar state that the project will power a mere 25,000 homes--a four-fifths drop from the 130,000 homes claimed by Pattern in its testimony to Imperial Valley Supervisors, County Planners, and in the EIS. Where did the missing 105,000 homes go? Were approvals granted under false pretexts?

Moreover, the wind speeds Pattern know acknowledges at the project site are lower than the Department of Energy's recommended minimum standard for a viable wind energy project.

The site also poses risks to human health, from deadly Valley Fever spores being kicked up by construction dust to infrasound hazards to residents of Ocotillo, who will be surrounded on three sides by whirling turbines 450 tall or more.

If the project is going to generate only a fifth of the power promised by proponents, and the hidden costs are staggering and irreversible, why hasn't the federal government halted the project and weighed whether federal subsidies should be withdrawn?

Robert Scheid is spokesman for the Viejas Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, one of several Indian tribes fighting to halt the project due to threats to Native American remains, artifacts, ancient geoglyphs and sacred sites. Scheid has called the Ocotillo project a "land grab of public lands by private corporations."

The Quechan tribe on Friday asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the devastation, after forensic dogs hired by tribes found six additional apparent cremation sites.

Meanwhile, bulldozers have begun the task of destroying the fragile desert terrain, wiping out habitat even as multiple lawsuits make their way into the courts seeking to protect Native American cultural sites as well as wildlife habitat.

Absent a restraining order soon, however, both the endangered Bighorn and countlesss Native American sacred sites may soon be gone with the wind.

California deserts will soon burst with wildflowers

A recipe of rain and warmth will turn austere fields in the Borrego Valley, Joshua Tree, Lancaster, Mojave and Death Valley into wildflower paradises with brilliant colors.

Map of rain for the first 14 days of February 2010.

Benoit LeBourgeois
Los Angeles Times

The valleys and hillsides of the Southern California deserts have been preparing all winter for their close-up. Silent and forlorn, often harsh and austere, they're ready to shed their mantle of earth tones and dress themselves in wildflowers, thanks to the rain storms and subsequent warm days. Here's a look at what's unfolding in some of Southern California's best natural settings.

If you go, these five parks regularly update wildflower reports on their websites during viewing season. They also post activity calendars with details on ranger and docent programs. Desert USA keeps track of conditions throughout the Southwest deserts.

Anza-Borrego

Its lower desert elevation gives Anza-Borrego Desert State Park an early start on the wildflower viewing season. A decent winter rainfall nourished the ground sufficiently to help the seeds to germinate.

"It should be crazy great," says Michael Rodriques, the park's interpretive specialist. He predicts annuals will be at their peak until mid-March, with "hundreds of thousands of acres" of desert sunflower, sand verbena and dune evening primrose around the Borrego Valley.

Brittlebush and other perennial shrubs will add a colorful note in rocky areas. The flattened pads of the beavertail cactus and the spindly stems of the ocotillo also are ready to burst.

"It will be absolutely gorgeous," Rodriques says. "The aroma, you'll never forget."

Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park hedges its botanical bets with two ecological zones, making a staggered wildflower bloom possible. "Portions of the park have received up to 10 inches of rain since December," says Joe Zarki, chief of interpretation. The bounty has stimulated early blooms in the lower eastern half of the park, where the whitish-yellow flowers of the small forget-me-nots compete for attention with chuparosa, a shrub covered with red tubular-shaped blossoms, and carpets of chia, a mint-family relative that Zarki describes as "weird-looking with spiky dark purple flower heads."

In the higher Mojave desert, the park's namesake tree (actually not a tree but a member of the yucca genus) has just started to bud. "Joshua trees don't necessarily track with other wildflowers," Zarki says. He expects wooly daisies, primroses and mariposa lilies as well as cacti to bloom in mid- to late March, with or without the Joshua trees.

Poppy Reserve

Milt Stark, vice president of the Poppy Reserve Mojave Desert Interpretive Assn., hesitates to quantify this year's seasonal display at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in Lancaster. "Predicting wild flowers is very difficult," he says, recalling that "last year looked great (in late winter), but it wasn't."

It may not be until mid-April that gargantuan fields of orange poppies will blanket the park's rolling hills, with patches of blue lupine and purple owl's clover making an appearance in riparian areas. The delay works out well for the preserve, which will be closed to vehicles (visitors may hike in) until March 1 because of state budget cuts. (The visitor center will not be open until the middle of the month.) The nearby Arthur B. Ripley Desert Woodland State Park is open. Expect to find California buckwheat, blue sage and other annuals among Joshua and some rare juniper trees.

Mojave

More optimism at the Mojave National Preserve. "We have a biologist who lives in the Granite Mountains. He believes there will be very good blooms at lower elevations," says Linda Slater, the park's chief of interpretation. In March, she expects evening primrose and sand verbena in the vicinity of the Kelso Dunes, desert marigold and Canterbury bell along Kelbaker Road and patches of beavertail cactus and Mojave Mound elsewhere in the vast park.

"If we get another rain," Slater says, "the flower bloom will continue at higher elevations like the Mid Hills," where globe mallow will paint the hillsides orange. The Joshua tree woodland on Cima Dome might sport creamy white blossoms, but Slater notes they do not bloom every year.

Death Valley

Ranger Alan Van Valkenburg expects that by mid-March the tiny white sprouts he sees on the floor of Death Valley National Park will become the season's first buds, ushering in a peak bloom later in the month. He says that near Furnace Creek the abundant yellow desert gold will turn the desert into, well, gold.

The purple notch-leaf phacelia will add a colorful counterpoint, one best enjoyed from a distance. "It's a plant that's very beautiful, but don't touch it," Van Valkenburg says. "It can produce a rash much like poison oak."

By the end of April, Van Valkenburg says temperatures will be too hot for most plants.

When the valley floor sizzles and wildflowers withdraw for the year, others come to life elsewhere. "If things work out just right, the bloom might be getting to peak in higher elevations like Emigrant Canyon, Scotty's Castle and Greenwater Valley," Van Valkenburg says.

Groups seek $2.7 million for fighting power line

Critic calls intervenor claims 'great way to make a living'

By DAVE DOWNEY
North County Times

Opponents of San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s power line have petitioned the state to compensate them for $2.7 million in costs they say they incurred over three years battling the Sunrise Powerlink ---- costs that would be passed on to utility ratepayers.

The groups were "intervenors" in the Sunrise case under a program that allows opponents to take on a formal role in arguing merits of utility projects before the California Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory body that licenses electric, gas and telephone projects.

The state lets intervenors recoup their costs.

But critics say the reimbursement requests are excessive. And because of the prospect of making big money, they suggest the program encourages groups to routinely oppose utility projects, whether ill-conceived or not.

The intervenors counter that their bills are reasonable. They say their involvement helped hold down costs of the $2 billion transmission line, and prevented it from being built in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and North County.

See highlights of the Sunrise Powerlink intervenor compensation requests

The most prominent intervenor, the San Diego consumer group Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN), asked for $1.2 million to cover fees for attorneys, experts, document preparation and travel from late 2005 through early 2009.

The commission also received requests for:

-- $797,673 from the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity.

-- $473,379 from the community group Rancho Penasquitos Concerned Citizens.

-- $257,617 from the Mussey Grade Road Alliance, represented by the husband and wife team of Joseph Mitchell and Diane Conklin of Ramona.

If granted, the consumer group's award would be the largest compensation given to an intervenor since at least 1996, according to commission records. And the environmental groups' compensation would be third-highest since then.

The current record of $866,884 was awarded to The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco consumer group.

At the same time, the San Diego-based utility spent more than $125 million to promote its power line, and those costs will be passed on to ratepayers, said Jennifer Briscoe, a company spokeswoman.

The total includes costs associated with the 11,000-page environmental impact report prepared for the project, the company's legal bills, applications for various permits, and hosting dozens of public meetings and open houses around the region. Briscoe said the company hasn't finished tallying those expenses.

Good intentions

The intervenors billed ratepayers $300 to $480 per hour for attorneys and $75 to $270 an hour for "expert" witnesses.

And they are seeking more than $16,000 to cover the time they spent preparing their compensation claims.

The deadline for submitting claims was last week. SDG&E and the commission staff have until March 25 to file responses to the claims, and commissioners are expected to decide how much the groups will get sometime after that.

The Sunrise Powerlink is a 120-mile, high-voltage line that was given the green light by the state commission in December.

Construction is scheduled to start in 2010. The wires are to be strung from metallic towers up to 150 feet tall through southern San Diego County and southwestern Imperial County. The project was one of the most contentious and heavily studied in California history.

Designed for these types of projects, the state's intervenor program sought to empower small, poorly funded grass-roots organizations to credibly challenge corporate giants in the commission's complicated courtlike proceedings, said Susan Carothers, a commission spokeswoman.

"By hearing from different perspectives, the California PUC is better able to make informed decisions," Carothers said.

But critics say intervenors often take advantage of the program ---- and clearly did so in the Sunrise case.

"I can see how the original intent might have been a positive one," said Lani Lutar, president and chief executive officer of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, in a telephone interview Wednesday. "But it seems to have gone out of control with unintended side effects. It has become an incentive to have these just-say-no nonprofit groups. Groups like UCAN now make it their mission to oppose every utility project that comes forward."

Scott Barnett, a San Diego-area tax watchdog who operates TaxpayersAdvocate.org, said the Sunrise reimbursement requests are unreasonably high.

"It seems like quite a racket to me," he said. "I need to get into the intervenor business, I think. It's a great way to make a living."

Both taxpayer groups favored the line.

Michael Shames, executive director for the Utility Consumers' Action Network, insisted his group does not routinely oppose projects for the sake of boosting coffers with intervenor-compensation dollars.

And he disagreed the program gives the wrong incentive.

"Intervenors don't earn even one dollar unless our opposition is sound, credible and effective," Shames said by e-mail. "The economic incentive is for us to be effective, not for us to just oppose."

The commission's Web site tells intervenors this: "You may request compensation for the time and expenses you incurred to participate in the proceeding as long as your participation made a 'substantial contribution' to the outcome of the proceeding."

Shames said his personal hourly rate of $330 and his group's $1.2 million claim is justified.

"Why is that appropriate? Because SDG&E made us do a tremendous amount of work ---- they filed the equivalent of three different applications with continuous modifications throughout," he said. "We spent the better part of three years in extensive litigation and totally disproved and discredited SDG&E's representations about the economic benefits of the line and the need to route it through Anza-Borrego."

Years of fighting

The battle aside, Barnett and Lutar, the taxpayer advocates, charged the four intervenors duplicated much of the work of the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, the arm of the commission responsible for representing ratepayer interests.

"It seems like we're paying twice for the, quote, independent perspective," said Andrew Poat, vice president of public policy for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. and a backer of Sunrise Powerlink.

Scott Logan, a regulatory analyst for the division who handled the Sunrise case, said there was little duplication.

"We look at it as both a complement and supplement to DRA's work," Logan said.

Because the commission frowns on repetition, the intervenors ---- in their claims ---- stressed the unique accomplishments they say they made.

The consumer group said it held down project costs, the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity said they shaped the environmental report and kept the line out of Anza-Borrego, and the Ramona group said it secured extra measures to prevent wires from starting wildfires.

Harvey Payne, an attorney for Rancho Penasquitos Concerned Citizens, said his group persuaded SDG&E to scrap the last 15 miles of the power line, sparing neighborhoods in Rancho Penasquitos and Carmel Valley.

And Payne maintains his group's request for almost a half-million dollars is justified.

"This was three years of constantly fighting SDG&E," he said. "This was approximately 1,000 hours of time over three years for me. This was my expert's time over three years. But, most importantly, we are saving the ratepayers at least $72 million."

Payne hired a retired transmission engineer for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., William Stephenson, to provide expertise.

When it came to intervenor costs, the environmental groups submitted the highest hourly rate: $480. That was to cover work by San Diego attorney Steven Siegel, whom they hired for their Sunrise opposition campaign.

Kieran Suckling, executive director for the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, said the $480-per-hour rate is "perfectly reasonable."

The commission's allowable range for attorney compensation is $150 to $535 per hour.

"He is a very experienced senior attorney, so we billed him out at a higher rate," Suckling said. "We feel like our success in the case came from having a senior attorney. Steve did a great job for us."

The environmental groups also are seeking $70 to $150 an hour for experts who provided information about endangered animals, such as the desert bighorn sheep that roams Anza-Borrego, and native plants.

Likewise, Conklin, of the Ramona group, defended her group's $257,617 bill.

"We were totally consumed by this," Conklin said. "We worked incredible hours. We didn't bill for all those hours. It sounds like a lot ---- a quarter of a million dollars ---- but we tried to be as reasonable as possible."

Desert power line gets OK

The ratepayer-funded electrical transmission project aims to boost the use of clean sources.

By Marc Lifsher
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Sacramento -- Regulators gave a San Diego utility the go-ahead Thursday to build a $1.9-billion transmission line that it says is needed to move nonpolluting geothermal, wind and solar power from inland deserts to energy-hungry coastal cities.

The California Public Utilities Commission, meeting in San Francisco, voted 4-1 to approve a proposed decision by President Michael Peevey to allow San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to use ratepayer funds to string 123 miles of new high-voltage lines. Massive steel towers would carry the electricity from Imperial County through environmentally sensitive areas of the San Diego County backcountry and the Cleveland National Forest.

The commission's lone dissenter, Dian Grueneich, couldn't persuade her colleagues to support an alternative decision. It would have authorized the line, known as the Sunrise Powerlink, but only if SDG&E, a unit of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, complied with strict requirements that it be filled with electrons from "green" sources.

Once operational, the line will play "a critical role in California's efforts to achieve energy independence" and help the state meet its goal to generate a third of its power from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2020, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

Developers, who want to invest millions of dollars in power plants to generate alternative energy, say they won't be able to secure financing without a commitment from the state that the line will be available to carry their electricity to market.


The Sunrise plan, which has been before the commission for three years, has solid backing from state, local and ethnic chambers of commerce, many San Diego County governments and labor unions. But it has garnered equally strong opposition from environmental groups, consumer advocates and rural communities that lie along the line's path, roughly paralleling the U.S.-Mexico border.

Opponents, who denounce Sunrise as too costly and unneeded, vow to file lawsuits challenging the Public Utility Commission's decision.

"The commissioners issued a $2-billion, politically driven decision today that disregarded the facts," said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers Action Network. "It will be up to the appellate courts to force the PUC to face the facts that make the Sunrise project a whopping Christmas present for Sempra but a lump of coal for all of the state's ratepayers."

Other Sunrise foes said the commission's decision could have been worse for the environment if SDG&E's initial power line route had been approved. The utility originally wanted to run the line through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a vast preserve that spans portions of Riverside, San Diego and Imperial counties, considered a jewel of the California system.

In the face of criticism from the Sierra Club and the California Parks Foundation, SDG&E recently dropped the Anza-Borrego route and embraced a more costly path farther south.

In October, the utility came out on the losing end of an administrative law judge's proposed decision that the line wasn't needed to satisfy San Diego County's short-term power requirements.

Commissioner Grueneich, a veteran environmental activist, offered SDG&E a compromise: The company could build on the southern route if it could provide the PUC with a firm, legal commitment that the line's 1,000 megawatts of capacity would be filled completely with energy from renewable, nonpolluting sources.

Grueneich said she feared that the company would use Sunrise to carry electricity produced by coal or natural-gas-fired power plants in other states or nearby Baja California, Mexico.

Both SDG&E and Peevey, who authored his own, ultimately successful proposed decision, countered that Grueneich's conditions could prove too burdensome to the utility and its alternative energy suppliers.

The commission, Peevey said, would monitor SDG&E to make sure it lives up to a nonbinding promise to send no coal-based electricity through the Sunrise line. The company also said it would meet the state's 33% alternative energy goal by the 2020 deadline.

"I fully expect the company to follow through on its commitments," Peevey said.

But SDG&E's word wasn't good enough for Grueneich.

"We have an obligation to ensure that San Diego Gas & Electric's ratepayers and not just its shareholders see a return on their investment," she said.

"I am not willing to risk $2 billion in ratepayer money to the invisible hand of the market."

Debate over Sunrise Powerlink may be near decision

Transmission lines near Boulevard in San Diego County. Many area residents have criticized a utility’s plan to erect what it calls a superhighway for green electricity as it tries to meet its renewable energy commitment.Sean Masterson / For The Times

The California Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on the renewable energy transmission project, opposed by some environmentalists.

By Marla Dickerson and Marc Lifsher
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Sacramento and Calipatria, Calif. -- In the rural, arid flatlands near the Salton Sea, CalEnergy Generation is sitting on what California needs.

The Imperial County company taps steam heat from deep within the Earth's crust to generate clean electricity, enough to light 238,000 homes.

There's more where that came from. But whether further development of renewable energy ever happens at this Calipatria operation and dozens of proposed projects in California's hinterlands may depend on what goes on in San Francisco, maybe as soon as today.

The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on a controversial transmission project known as the Sunrise Powerlink. The $1.9-billion high-voltage line would stretch more than 100 miles from Imperial County to San Diego, linking power plants in the desert to coastal cities hungry for their energy.

Billed by its developer, San Diego Gas & Electric Co., as a superhighway for green electricity, the project has drawn fierce opposition from environmental and community groups that don't want Godzilla-sized power towers marring the region's scenic wild areas.

The bruising four-year battle has exposed one of the dirty little secrets of clean energy: A lot of this new-age power requires old-school infrastructure to get to people's homes.

"You can't love renewables and hate transmission. They go together," said Jonathan Weisgall, a vice president of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., which owns CalEnergy.

SDG&E, a unit of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, says it needs the line to meet tough state mandates to boost its use of green energy. Existing transmission, company executives contend, can't possibly accommodate all the wind, solar and geothermal projects needed in coming decades.

Opponents say clean power is a cover for SDG&E to use Sunrise to transport low-cost, polluting electricity from Mexico, where Sempra has invested heavily in natural gas and power-plant assets.

Activists also say Sunrise will fleece ratepayers, destroy sensitive desert habitat and increase the risk of deadly blazes in one of the state's most fire-prone areas. Far better, they say, to upgrade California's existing transmission network, encourage energy conservation and build clean generation closer to California's cities.

"This isn't about protecting the planet. It's about money," said Donna Tisdale, a rancher and community activist in eastern San Diego County. "This is the industrialization of rural America."

A creaky grid

California isn't alone in this power struggle.

Concern is rising about the inability of the antiquated U.S. power grid to keep pace with the nation's growing demand for electricity. Congestion -- essentially electricity traffic jams -- bedevils existing transmission corridors across the country. Renewable sources such as wind and utility-scale solar thermal plants are adding to the bottleneck.

The U.S. Department of Energy has identified Southern California and the New York-to-Washington corridor as the nation's most critically power-congested areas. Officials say more transmission should be built and warn of the increasing risk of blackouts if it isn't.

California is in a particularly tight spot. State law requires investor-owned utilities to procure 20% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. That's set to increase to 33% by 2020, thanks to sweeping new rules that require California to slash its greenhouse gas emissions.

At present, less than 12% of the state's electricity comes from renewables. Utilities are counting on large-scale solar plants, wind farms and geothermal operations to help them meet their targets.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger actively supports these projects as well as new transmission to accompany them. He wrote utility regulators Tuesday endorsing the Sunrise line, saying, "This project is a vital link in California's renewable energy future and must be approved as soon as possible."

Critics say spending billions on distant power plants and hulking transmission lines is a throwback to another era, the equivalent of betting the farm on an Escalade instead of a Prius. The true promise of green electricity, said San Diego environmentalist Terry Weiner, lies not only in switching to clean sources but also in changing the way energy is delivered.

She said massive investment in rooftop solar panels in California's cities could bring hundreds of clean megawatts online quickly without damaging precious wilderness habitat.

"San Diego doesn't need to import sunshine from the desert," said Weiner, conservation coordinator for the San Diego-based Desert Protective Council.

Environmentalists have won some rounds. SDG&E had been pushing to build Sunrise through the heart of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a recreational jewel beloved by hikers and campers. That 150-mile route appears doomed after recent decisions by an administrative law judge and a utilities commission member.

Judge Jean Veith wants the commission to reject the Sunrise Powerlink because she has concluded it's too costly, too harmful to the environment and not needed for SDG&E to meet clean-energy mandates.

Commissioner Dian Grueneich favors an alternate 120-mile route along the Mexico border, provided that SDG&E agrees to deliver a "substantial" amount of clean energy on the line.

The utility objected, complaining that continued regulatory wrangling would slow construction and discourage the development of renewables. The company promised to allow no power from coal-fired generation on the line if the commission would give it a timely approval.

"I think it's ready for a decision," said Mike Niggli, SDG&E's chief operating officer. "There have been tens of thousands of pages of documents."

A need to plan

The likelihood of approval increased markedly a few weeks ago, when commission President Michael Peevey issued his own proposed alternative decision mandating the same route Grueneich did but without her restrictions. It would "clear the way for a new renewable energy superhighway, allowing us to tap into the Imperial Valley's rich renewable resources without delay or unnecessary barriers," Peevey said.

Whether Sunrise is greenlighted and with what conditions will send important signals to companies hoping to develop more geothermal, solar and wind energy in California's desert regions.

Building transmission gives renewable-energy companies the certainty they say they need to market electricity. Access to transmission allows them to sign long-term delivery contracts with utilities and line up financing to build new power plants.

But financial uncertainty could make it impossible to fulfill contracts with both SDG&E and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to supply up to 1,700 megawatts of power, said Steve Cowman, chief executive of Stirling Energy Systems Inc., a Phoenix solar power company.

Californians need to find a balance between protecting environmentally sensitive areas and building transmission lines, said Paul Thomsen, director of policy and business development for Ormat Technologies Inc., a Reno geothermal company.

"You really start to back yourself into a corner," Thomsen said, "if you don't want to live next to a power plant, and you don't want transmission and don't want fossil fuels."

A high-tech response to cactus thefts in Palm Desert

People are stealing pricey cactuses -- especially golden barrels -- in the upscale desert city. Surveillance cameras are being used around landscaping, and authorities plan to start inserting microchips into cactuses in order to track ownership.

Lt. Frank Taylor stands among freshly planted golden barrel cactuses at the Henderson Community Center in Palm Desert.

By David Kelly, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

PALM DESERT — Someone is swiping the cactuses in this upscale desert city.

Over the last six months, there has been an epidemic of thefts. Officials say they have lost nearly $20,000 worth of the plants. The main target is the golden barrel, which, depending on its size, can fetch anywhere from $100 to $800 each.

The problem is so bad that surveillance cameras have gone up near large concentrations of cactuses in urban landscaping, and authorities expect to implant microchips into the barrels soon to track their whereabouts.

"Each microchip has a scannable bar code that tells who owns it," said Police Lt. Frank Taylor. "The odds are that we won't microchip every plant, but it will have a deterrent effect."

A few years ago this upscale city of golf resorts and retirees began shedding its lush grass and artificial turf for a landscape more in keeping with its austere, sun-blasted environment.

Out went the phony greenery and over-watered lawns. In came sand, along with succulents, cactuses and other hot-weather plants. Median strips around town and public spaces were soon studded with spiny, twisted flora.

"The city decided to stop apologizing for the desert and said, 'We live in the desert; it is what it is,' " said city landscape manager Spencer Knight.

But with the transformation nearly complete, the thefts began.

The city's visitor center lost 50 cactuses in one night, and criminals have hit private property as well.

"We have seized 15 to 20 barrels at a time," Taylor said. "They have a very shallow root system and can be popped out pretty easily. People have been digging them up in broad daylight."

Palm Desert isn't the only city targeted by thieves, who often resell their booty to landscapers and nurseries. They also struck last year in Yucaipa, which saw a rash of sago palm thefts. In Indio, police say they have seen cactuses stolen from building sites.

State and national parks have also been hit.

Saguaro National Park near Tucson recently had 17 large saguaros taken.

Chief Ranger Bob Love said the park also plans to microchip its cactuses.

"In some cases the thieves work for landscapers, and in other cases they are independent contractors who sell the saguaro to legitimate commercial operations," Love said. "Depending on the size and shape, or if it has arms, they sell for anywhere from $500 to $5,000 or more each."

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park east of San Diego hasn't seen an upswing in theft, but the barrel cactus remains the prime quarry for those who do poach on the sprawling 600,000-acre preserve.

"Once or twice a year we encounter people with shovels and pickup trucks trying to steal cactus," said Gail Sevrens, a park spokeswoman. "You can see the cumulative impact of 60 years of this kind of thing along some park roads where all of a sudden there are no barrel cactus."

Desert plant pilfering has a long history in California. Joshua Tree National Monument was founded in 1936 largely because Minerva Hoyt of Pasadena was so appalled at the rampant cactus and Joshua-tree theft in the area that she dedicated her life to saving desert flora.

"This park was established to preserve plants," said Cindy Von Halle, supervisory ranger at Joshua Tree, which is now a national park. "We don't have a problem with thefts anymore -- maybe because we have armed rangers patrolling everywhere."

Outside the visitor center in Palm Desert, city landscape inspector Brad Chuck looked over a collection of golden barrels that had been stolen, recovered and replanted.

"I can't believe they are still here," he said, a surveillance camera above him trained on the area. "These are probably worth $150 or $200 each. I think the economy is driving a lot of this. If it isn't nailed down, they are going to take it."

Chuck said the thefts began increasing last year. Agaves and Mexican fan palms have also been taken. He said thieves sometimes dress like city workers and steal plants in the middle of the day.

"I think there is a demand for them," he said. "We are trying to be in the forefront of water-wise planting and are cutting down on our lush vegetation. A lot of people are getting away from lawns and turf in favor of desert landscaping. A golden barrel 3 or 4 feet across is worth $4,500 or more. You pay by the inch."

In some cases, entire median strips have been picked clean.

Knight said the city wants a more natural, eco-friendly environment. It initially imported plants from the Sonoran Desert, such as saguaros, but the Coachella Valley is too dry to sustain them. Eventually the city turned to native plants and those capable of surviving baking summers -- oleander and lantana, for example.

"There has always been plant theft, but now it has escalated," Knight said. "It has increased because a landscaper has a job to do, and with the slowdown in the economy he may look for cheaper prices. I have heard that some of these [thieves] sell plants on street corners now."

Still, there are no plans to return to the water-guzzling greenery of yesteryear.

"Generations of people have gotten used to fake turf," he said. "But we think we are way ahead of the curve on this."

Bighorns facing smaller habitat

Federal agency wants to reduce protected area by more than 50%

By Mike Lee, Staff Writer
UNION-TRIBUNE [San Diego]

With their chiseled forms, sure-footedness and coiled horns, bighorn sheep have long symbolized the rugged American West. They grace everything from heavy-duty trucks to the helmets of football teams.

But by 1998, bighorns in San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties had been ravaged so much by disease, harmed by development and preyed on by mountain lions that only 280 remained. They were added to the list of the nation's most imperiled species.

Since then, several public agencies and nonprofit groups have helped bighorn sheep in the Peninsular Ranges of Southern California steadily climb back from the brink of extinction.

Today, about 800 bighorns roam the arid backcountry from the U.S.-Mexico border to the San Jacinto Mountains. Peninsular bighorn sheep also live in Baja California, but they are not included in the population classified as endangered by the U.S. government.

In the spring, visitors to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park can sometimes spot lambs nimbly trailing their mothers across rocky outcroppings in search of water.

But the sheep's recent run of good fortune may be about to end, according to some advocates for bighorn recovery. They are concerned that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed trimming protected sheep habitat by more than 50 percent, from 844,897 acres to 384,410.

“Those of us who have put (the bighorn) recovery plan together are totally shocked. . . . These animals need high-value habitat to make it in this world,” said Mark Jorgensen, superintendent at the desert state park.

In October, Fish and Wildlife Service officials said their 2001 map of the lands considered essential to Peninsular bighorn recovery – classified as “critical habitat” – grossly overstated the core area.

They said their current proposal is based on a revised method for identifying the territory needed for the protection of bighorn sheep. For instance, the agency excluded high-elevation and densely forested areas because federal officials said bighorns typically do not live there.

“We focused on areas that have documented, repeated use by bighorn sheep and contain the specific habitat . . . necessary for bighorn,” said Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Jane Hendron in Carlsbad.

The agency plans to hold public hearings about its sheep-habitat proposal, but has not set dates.

The critical-habitat designation is important because it requires any activities that the federal government undertakes, funds or authorizes to be scrutinized for potential harm to threatened and endangered species.

The Bush administration has dramatically reduced critical habitat for several species. In December, environmentalists filed lawsuits against the Fish and Wildlife Service in U.S. District Court because they said many of the agency's habitat reductions lack scientific justification.

Michael Senatore, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, which helped bring the lawsuits, said the environmental group is negotiating settlements with federal lawyers.

While those cases play out, bighorn advocates are keeping one eye on whether the Fish and Wildlife Service will adjust its habitat proposal and the other eye on the sheep's well-being in the backcountry.

Jorgensen and others are cautious about proclaiming success for bighorn recovery efforts because of how quickly sheep can succumb to disease. In recent weeks, for example, biologists in Nevada said pneumonia may have wiped out a herd of 110 bighorn sheep in the northwestern part of the state.

“Bighorn (numbers) can plummet a lot quicker than than they can increase,” Jorgensen said. “We need to secure their future before we let our guard down.”

After decades of conservation work and the addition of protective laws, several high-profile species have made big comebacks in recent years. Yellowstone grizzly bears, bald eagles and California brown pelicans have recently made headlines for meeting recovery goals.

Peninsular bighorn sheep are not in that category yet, but they may get there if the overall population holds steady for several years and it increases in some parts of their range.

At the start of the 19th century, as many as 2 million bighorns roamed North America. Today, the Bighorn Institute in Palm Desert puts their numbers at about 70,000.

“They were doing quite well until, unfortunately, humans started throwing some obstacles in their way,” said Randy Rieches, curator of mammals at the Wild Animal Park near Escondido. “This is a species that we owe something.”

As settlers and ranchers spread across the landscape in the 19th and 20th centuries, their domesticated cattle and sheep brought diseases that the wild sheep were not able to fight. Some wildlife experts compare it to the way smallpox and measles decimated American Indians, who lacked immunity to diseases brought to the New World by European explorers.

In 1982, a group of biologists started the Bighorn Institute to help prevent the sheep from dying out in the Peninsular Ranges.

At the time, ewes were producing lambs, but most were dying from bacterial pneumonia, said Jim DeForge, executive director of the institute. He linked pneumonia to diseases such as bluetongue and parainfluenza III that are common in domesticated livestock.

“We couldn't turn the diseases around in the 1980s. All we could do was document it,” DeForge said.

To make matters worse, the building of resorts in the California desert during modern times means that golf courses and homes now cover land that bighorns once roamed. The resorts' lush grass creates what one biologist calls an “attractive nuisance” for the sheep, which may be killed by cars as they enter developed areas.

The reproductive biology of bighorn sheep adds another level of difficulty. Ewes typically have one lamb at a time, which means that populations tend to grow very slowly. The combined result was that the Peninsular bighorn population crashed, from 1,170 sheep in 1971 to 280 in the late 1990s.

At that point, Peninsular bighorns' future was so bleak that they were given federal protections under the Endangered Species Act as a distinct unit of the desert bighorn family.

Within a few years, the sheep's numbers started to rise – to about 400 in 2001 and about 800 today.

Biologists credit the variety of sheep-protection efforts. For instance, the institute started raising bighorn sheep in captivity in Riverside County, releasing them into the wild and then studying them closely to learn details about their health and behavior. To date, 118 bighorns born or rehabilitated at the institute have been added to the Peninsular Ranges.

In addition, land managers started removing livestock from parts of the bighorn sheep's range to control the spread of diseases. In 1987, Anza-Borrego park officials airlifted dozens of wild cattle out of the park.

Those efforts dramatically reduced the disease pressure so that today it is not thought to be a major limiting factor for bighorn recovery.

Despite the gains, biologists note that sheep populations are fragile and swings can be caused by factors as fundamental as rainfall, which dictates how much food the plant-eating animals have in the desert.

On that front, this spring is a good one thanks to a series of winter rainstorms. “We will have a lot of successful reproduction across the desert this year,” said John Wehausen, a bighorn researcher in Bishop for the University of California.

PENINSULAR BIGHORN SHEEP

• Habitat: Steep slopes, canyons and washes in desert regions
  
• Diet: Acacia, encelia, sweetbush and other desert plants
  
• Range: Parts of Baja California and the Peninsular Ranges of San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties, including the San Jacinto, Santa Rosa, Vallecito and In-Ko-Pah mountains
  
• Threats: Habitat loss, high predation rates and diseases
  
• Population in 1998: 280 in the United States
  
• Population today: About 800 in the United States
  
• Reasons for increase: Captive breeding program, fewer disease outbreaks and habitat protection

SOURCE: Bighorn Institute

Southland deserts splashed with color

The wildflower season is in full bloom, drawing droves of tourists, painters and nature lovers to deserts.

By Mary Engel, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

BORREGO SPRINGS, CALIF. -- Jeff Sewell's paintbrush chased the slanting light across a field of desert sunflowers. Gold. Ocher. Flecks of palest yellow. Then the sun sank behind the San Ysidro Mountains, and the only field left glowing was the one on Sewell's canvas.

Even so, the seascape painter from San Juan Capistrano could hardly bring himself to pack away his easel.

"This is like something I've never seen," he said, waving at the carpet of wildflowers laid out before stark hillsides of dirt and rock. "It's a whole new planet."

The two dozen painters in the second annual Borrego Springs Plein Air Invitational, which got underway Sunday, didn't seem to mind that this spring's wildflowers don't match the legendary 2005 bloom. The inaugural gathering, after all, met in 2007, a drought year, when Anza-Borrego Desert State Park got a mere three-quarters of an inch of rain. "They got skunked last year," Sewell said.

This year the 600,000-acre park, which stretches from Riverside County's southern border through San Diego County almost to the Mexican border, has received about 4 1/2 inches of rain since July 1. That's far less than 2005's record 13 inches, which led to record numbers of wildflowers and wildflower oglers, but it's enough to give this crop of plein-air painters -- artists who capture outdoor images in natural light -- a broad palette of yellows, pinks, whites and blues. (Each artist at the event creates two paintings a day through Friday, and the works are displayed and sold at numerous community receptions throughout the week.)

If 2005 was an A+ year, wildflower aficionados are grading 2008 a B or B+.

"It's a beautiful, charming season," said Mary Ekelund, a Wisconsinite who retired to Borrego Springs in 2003. "The number of flowers isn't everything."

Ekelund volunteers for the park, the Anza-Borrego Institute and the Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Assn. Avoiding the fields along Henderson Canyon Road that set Sewell to swooning, she guides visitors to quiet, out-of-the-way places without crowds.

She recently led a group of five women from La Jolla -- the youngest was 81 -- up a gentle slope through Sunshine Canyon, rewarding them with glimpses of pale yellow ghost flowers and the pink tufts of fairy dusters.

Wildflower season is to Southern California deserts what fall's changing leaves are to Ekelund's native Midwest, but less predictable and more intense.

"Where we live near Lake Superior, we have the same madness for a few weekends," said Ekelund, who still spends summers there. "But here you've got San Diego and Los Angeles so close," and the crowds keep coming.

Crowds earlier this month prompted the weekly Borrego Sun to editorialize against cars stopping in the middle of roads. But by mid-March, the first caterpillar had been spotted picnicking on carpets of wildflowers, a sure sign that the season is peaking -- or moving north.

On the hour-and-a-half drive north to Joshua Tree National Park, the yellow swaths of dune evening primrose and desert sunflowers give way to a kaleidoscope of desert Canterbury bells, mallow, chia, chuparosa and desert chicory -- indigo against apricot next to deep purple, scarlet and white. Scores of tourists from Japan, Germany, Canada, San Diego, Los Angeles and nearby Twentynine Palms line up at the park visitors center.

Drive-by wildflower viewers stop at marked pullouts, read interpretive signs and snap digital photos of the nearest clump of color. Die-hard flower enthusiasts strike out in search of blooms like birders with their life lists.

Bigelow's monkey flower? Check. White pebble pincushion? Check. Purple mat? Bladderpod? Desert lily?

Check.

Check.

Check.

The timing of rain is almost as important to good wildflower years as the amount, said Linda Slater, a ranger at the Mojave National Preserve, northeast of Joshua Tree. The rain that has fallen on Southern California deserts through the winter and into the spring have been adequate and, more important, evenly spaced.

"Starting in November, we've had rain every single month," Slater said. "It's as nice a year as I've ever seen here."

The stars of a desert spring are the annuals, ephemeral plants that need rain to sprout. An early rain can cause some seeds to germinate, but if enough well-spaced rains don't follow, the plants remain stunted and put out a flower or two at best, Slater said.

In good years, well-spaced rains cause annuals to erupt among the widely spaced desert perennials, the year-round plants that have adapted to the inhospitable environment by storing water in fleshy tissue protected by thorns, establishing deep roots or shedding leaves and appearing more or less dead much of the year.

In a good spring, these perennials join the show. Joshua trees put out waxy white blooms. Long-stemmed yellow flowers wave above silver-green brittlebush. Ocotillos, typically as bare as bundles of kindling, put out stubby green leaves along branches tipped by lipstick-red blossoms that disappear as quickly as the rain.

After a few weeks, the annuals die, leaving behind seeds for the next year. Or years. The tough little seeds of desert wildflowers have evolved to wait things out. This year's blooms have waited since 2005, a relatively short span in desert time.

The 1.6-million acre Mojave National Preserve, in southeastern California between Interstate 15 and Interstate 40, is typically the last of Southern California's desert parks to bloom and the least visited.

With the season just getting underway there, the Kelso Depot information center is seeing about 300 visitors on weekends, up from its usual 50 but far fewer than the crowds at Anza-Borrego, Joshua Tree or Death Valley National Park. "Mojave preserves that sense of isolation and being out in the desert alone," Slater said.

Anyone seeking isolation in the other desert parks will have to wait out the wildflower season.

Wildflower Reports 2008

Week of
17 Feb 2008
DesertUSA



View from Amboy Crater 02/17/2008




The wildflower season is off to a good start with the recent rain in the desert areas. More rain is forecasted for Southern California and Arizona.

The hot spots for wildflower sightings are Southern California between 29 Palms and Amboy, CA and the southern part of Joshua Tree NP. Sand verbena is showing shades of purple in the Palm Desert and Palm Springs regions.








Sand verbena, Amboy 02/15/2008

The bloom has just starting in Death Valley and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Reports indicate that Arizona is looking good. Organ Pipe NP is blooming now.

See reports and pictures.











Evening primrose, Dumont Dunes 02/08/2008

Conservancy buys 1,000 acres to expand state park

Desert property is near Jacumba

By Anne Krueger STAFF WRITER
San Diego Union Tribune

The Nature Conservancy has bought more than 1,000 acres of desert in the southeastern corner of San Diego County, with plans to use the property to expand Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

The national conservancy organization purchased the $2.3 million property near Jacumba with donations. David Van Cleve, the conservancy's senior project director, said the property was owned by five investors who bought the land intending to develop or sell it. The conservancy intends to sell the land to the state park.

Van Cleve said the property is a critical link between the state park, federal Bureau of Land Management property and land in Baja California. It will provide a habitat for endangered species including bighorn sheep and the Quino checkerspot butterfly, he said.

Van Cleve said the region on both sides of the border is one of five places in the world with the climate and geography to create diverse habitats of chaparral, grasslands and oak and coastal forests.

Van Cleve said the conservancy is meeting with state park officials to discuss selling the land. One person already has donated $900,000 toward the sale, he said.

Mark Jorgensen, superintendent of Anza-Borrego, said that park officials are interested in the property but that its purchase will depend on resolution of the state budget crisis. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed closing 48 state parks to save $14.3 million.

“We're going into hard budget times, so we'll have to find funds dedicated to” buying the land, he said.

Jorgensen said the purchase allows the land to be preserved until the state can buy it. Developers are already eyeing other parts of Jacumba. On 1,250 acres near the town center, a developer is proposing a project with 2,125 homes.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, with more than 600,000 acres, is the largest state park in the contiguous United States. Jorgensen said the addition of the property to the park would help ensure that wildlife can move freely between the United States and Mexico.

“It would be a pretty sad day to think we were cutting off that movement with triple fences and continued development,” he said.

A resort town thirsts for solutions

Drier than its name would suggest, Borrego Springs braces for an impending water shortage. Big changes may be in store.

The most conspicuous indication of groundwater decline in Borrego Valley is a graveyard-like forest of dead and dying mesquite trees on the valley floor.(Annie Wells / LAT)

By Alison Williams, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

BORREGO SPRINGS, Calif. -- In a flat desert valley filled with cholla, creosote, citrus and golf, far from any major highway or state water project, residents are struggling to deal with an impending water shortage, highlighted by the failure of a public well this past spring.

Borrego Springs is a small unincorporated resort, retirement and agricultural community in northeast San Diego County, surrounded by 600,000-acre Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Aside from the 6 inches or so of annual rainfall, the sole water source is an aquifer whose groundwater has been declining by 1 to 2 feet a year for more than half a century and has an expected useful life of only 30 more years.

At that point, according to the Borrego Water District, the water will be half gone, and pumping from the district's 12 working wells and other private wells will become much more expensive and less productive. More recent studies this spring by the California Department of Water Resources worsened the prognosis: "There may be substantially less water in storage in Borrego Valley groundwater basin than previously interpreted.

"Preserving this area's way of life may require dramatic changes, and water experts say some of the choices facing Borrego Springs -- whether to fallow farmland that uses most of the water or allow desert flora to wither and die, starving wildlife -- will increasingly be confronted elsewhere in the state as water sources become less reliable.

Robert Glennon, a University of Arizona law professor and the author of "Water Follies," calls the Borrego Valley a microcosm of California. Agriculture, which "is a small part of the overall California economy, uses something like 80% of the water," he said. "If you expect to have water for high-value uses in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, you have to figure out how to reallocate the water."

In the Borrego Valley, neither the state park nor the fields of citrus have shown many signs of distress thus far. The most conspicuous indication of groundwater decline is a forest of dead and dying mesquite trees. Farmers, most of whom do not live in the area, are particularly anxious about their future. They accuse community leaders of conspiring with developers to turn Borrego Springs into a bedroom community for San Diego.

County officials have "decided that the only thing they're interested in is removing agriculture from the valley," said Reuben Ellis of Ellis Farms. "I really do believe that part of what is behind the emphasis on decreasing water use in Borrego Springs is the desire of certain development and regulatory interests to move farmers out of the way."

In fact, Aaron Barling, a San Diego County planner, said that in most places, the county strives to preserve agriculture by lowering residential density. But in Borrego Springs, he said, "the community" has asked for a higher allowed residential density on farmlands to make it more profitable for farmers to sell out.

But merely replacing farmland with houses won't solve the water problem if there are no curbs on population growth, experts warn. Glennon pointed out that predicted growth in San Diego may lead more people to discover the area -- "and then you've really got trouble."

The Borrego Water District estimates that agriculture uses 70% of the water, golf courses 20% and residences 10%. In addition, agriculture and most of the golf courses depend on private wells, meaning the water district cannot regulate their use.

The aquifer's total yearly overdraft, or how much more water is pumped out than is replenished by rain or snowmelt, is about 14,000 acre-feet. Coincidentally, agriculture -- mostly citrus farms -- uses about that much water. (One acre-foot is roughly equivalent to the amount of water a family of four uses in one year.)

The water district has adopted a measure designed to allow growth while protecting the aquifer. For every acre-foot of new water to be used, two more must be found, whether through recharge projects or the fallowing of farmlands. If this cannot be done, an in-lieu fee of about $4,000 per house must be paid to the district to assist in its efforts to obtain more water.

But recharge projects, which would involve capturing surface runoff, could have a serious effect on natural areas of the park and valley, which depend heavily on runoff from rain, said David Law-head, an environmental coordinator for the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

Several years before the community well ran dry, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Supt. Mark Jorgensen wrote a letter to the district warning that the overdraft could spell trouble for the park's wildlife, including several species of toads and frogs and the endangered least Bell's vireo and peninsular bighorn sheep. Jorgensen was out of the country and could not be reached for comment.

Lane Sharman, a San Diego computer scientist who is related to one of the area's pioneer farming families, has formed the Borrego Water Exchange, in part to formulate a "sustainability" ordinance that would enable a public agency to require certain water use reductions each year, even from private well owners.

Still, Sharman and others believe the valley must find new sources of water -- no easy task in a state gripped by drought.

One possibility is nearby Clark Dry Lake, but tests have showed limited water of poor quality. Another long shot -- finding a source somewhere in Northern California, exchanging it through the Metropolitan Water District and sending it through the Imperial Irrigation District from the Colorado River -- is not only complicated but, for now, too expensive for the district even to study.

A third option would be to store other people's water in the Borrego aquifer in exchange for a portion of the water. The district tried to do that a few years ago with the San Diego County Water Authority, but the lack of local infrastructure put it at a competitive disadvantage with other districts.

Sharman and others worry that public apathy may be an even bigger obstacle.

Eleanor Shimeall, a water district board member, said that despite the well failure, many people are still unaware of the problem. The area, she said, is filled with older "ultraconservative Californians who move away to the desert to not be bothered."

Nonetheless, Robert Mendenhall, president of the water district board, remains optimistic: "If I was discouraged," he said, "I would probably resign tomorrow."