The trees of summer: Smoke trees, cacti and palms have long been revered by desert locals

Palm tree in the desert. (Photo: Palm Springs Historical Society/Special to The Desert Sun)

Tracy Conrad
Special to The Desert Sun

Signaling the end of spring, smoke trees in the desert washes become dotted with tiny bluish-purple blooms at the beginning of summer each year.

The color is deep and distinct and has been revered by desert dwellers for decades. Nellie Coffman herself was known to berate anyone who dared chop down a smoke tree.

Most visitors to the desert had no appreciation for the tree having never seen it in bloom. Visitors evaporated from Palm Springs in May as temperatures increased threatening the coming summer.

But local residents, like Coffman, knew better. Agnes Pelton famously painted “Smoke Tree in Bloom” to be auctioned off to benefit the newly formed Desert Art Center.

Carl Bray, fancied for himself the sobriquet “painter of smoke trees” as they featured regularly on his canvases. Other desert artists like John Hilton, William Darling and Jimmy Swinnerton were captivated by the indigo blooms, buzzing with bees, and memorialized their brief early summer show in paint.

Spring in the desert is spectacular, but summer is even more impressive for the cacti, trees and scrubs that survive it.

Wise and observant desert dwellers had special reverence for the plant species found in this harsh environment.

The village of Palm Springs took its name from the indigenous palms, found in the ravines of the surrounding mountains. The native California fan palm signaled the presence of water to early settlers and Native Americans. The Cahuilla used the fruit of the Washingtonia filifera for food and its fronds for weaving and roofing.

The importation of date palms to the area a century ago started the comparison of the Coachella Valley to the deserts of the Middle East and sparked an agricultural industry. Soon there was cultivation of all sorts of palm species as ornamental trees.

Grand allees of palms would soon line the boulevards of Los Angeles and San Diego. In Palm Springs, Ruth Hardy, owner of the Ingleside Inn and the first councilwoman, campaigned for planting palms along both sides of highway 111, engendering its name of Palm Canyon Drive.

Soldiering trees marched all the way to the Indian Canyons where the native palms could be found in abundance; the basis for the village itself.

The original summer survivor in the desert is, of course, the cactus. Reverence for its diversity was elevated to an art form by Chester “Cactus Slim” and Patricia Moorten. The Moortens famously saved cacti in the path of road construction for use as ornamentals in gardens.

They collected unusual specimens from all over the desert southwest and Baja Mexico, bringing them home to Palm Springs and transplanting them into the garden plot around their new home (purchased from photographer and painter Stephen Willard who was leaving town because it had gotten too crowded.)

A botanist trained at University of Southern California, Patricia published her classic book, “Desert Plants for Desert Gardens” much before the idea of using native plants in a sustainable way became the norm. The magazine Popular Mechanics even featured an article on the Moortens in March of 1960.

The Moortens’ appreciation of cacti was akin to Nellie’s reverence of smoke trees. Locals survived through the tough summers to be rewarded with mild winters and glorious springs, just like native trees, scrubs and cacti.

Locals tried to cultivate an appreciation of the subtleties of desert plants by memorializing the spectacular blooms in postcards and pictures. And they tried to inculcate that appreciation through guidebooks for newcomers.

Melba Bennett, the founder of many Palm Springs institutions including the “Palm Springs Hat,” the Palm Springs Historical Society and the Palm Springs Garden Club, wrote a little book just for this purpose. Meant to help new arrivals cultivate a proper desert garden, her little book had practical advice and was annotated in the margins with little whimsical doodles to emphasize her points. The book contains charming descriptions and recommendations gleaned from years of hard work and experimentation in her garden at Deep Well Ranch.

Plants were chosen for their riot of blooms in springtime and their ability to survive the blistering heat of summer.

The diminutive indigo blooms of smoke trees were complemented by the exuberant deep orange bouquets offered by Poinciana, Mexican bird of paradise.

Bennett counseled a variety of colors and shapes in the composition of a garden, and a rotation of flowering to provide interest in the garden through the coming long summer months.

Smoke trees in full indigo bloom are a desert paradox

Smoke trees.

Words by Ruth Nolan
Photographs by Millicent Harvey
Desert Sun Magazine

When it comes to iconic desert trees, Palm Springs is famous for its palm-filled canyons, while the Mojave Desert is home to the ubiquitous Joshua tree. The sultry smoke tree also fills our washes and age-old flood plains, holding its rightful place as one of the most iconic shrub-like trees of the Coachella Valley and vast tracts of the California and Arizona deserts.

The low-voiced, puff-shaped smoke tree (Psorothamnus spinosus) enchants through different seasons – a winter-long, half-dead appearance of tangled brown branches and scant white-green, tiny leaves, and then this: a short, late spring season of vivid, dark blue-violet colored flowers bursting from its seeming passivity that startle the desert sky and passersby with an unmistakable presence and unanticipated beauty.

Smoke trees in full indigo bloom are a desert paradox. Viewed from a canyon overlook down into a desolate, bone-dry desert wash, the purple hues burst from the trees below, making them sag with top-heavy abundance and the weight of their odd, proliferate beauty. The clusters of vivid color, illuminated by the desert’s fabled light and contrasted with stark, brown canyon walls and barren sand, resemble a bigger version of dark purple Fantasy grapes, grown and harvested in many eastern valley vineyards. They offer a sense of visual abundance and reassurance that this is, after all, a desert of life – as well as promises of ephemeral and lasting, if briefly witnessed, magnificence.

Walk up close to one of these powerfully blooming trees, and you’ll see that the indigo flowers are, individually, quite small, and resemble flowers on a pea plant, to which smoke trees are, incidentally, related. The desert at your feet will be covered with a sweet purple carpet of fallen and quickly drying blooms. This past May, as desert temperatures began to climb into triple digits and most of the seasonal visitors had already departed, smoke trees filled Coachella Valley washes with brilliant indigo hues for a few short weeks before fading back into hushed tones.

These vibrant colors are among the fleeting beauty of all desert flowers, and offer deeply satisfying and inspirational views that keep many of us here, year after year, through unbearably long summers of staggering and dangerous heat, and prolonged months without rain. Smoke trees, in all their full-bloomed glory, offer a long drink of cool beauty to all thirsty souls in the desert who have waited so long to sip.

A wise teacher

Smoke trees don’t announce themselves with the sort of loud, outward pronouncements made by palms or Joshua trees. Instead, they weave their way into one’s consciousness, waiting patiently for the intrepid sort of desert rat or visitor who has time to notice, and maybe explore, the magic held within the smoke.

Inside the rugged, forested feel of a single tree or, more likely, a cluster of trees – spaced, like most desert plants, a respectful distance apart and running predictably up and down the wash or flood plain that nourishes its lifespan and offspring – you’ll see desert light filtering in. It gently touches the brown, seemingly lifeless lower branches and illuminates the iridescent, wintergreen-toned upper branches, bringing the purple flowers to brilliant life as if in a cloud.

Each baby tree, brought to life from the odd but vital process of scarification, in which its seed is scratched from the violent movement of sand and rocks during flash floods, sinks a tap root deep into the earth until it finds water. In this sense, the smoke tree is also a wise desert teacher and flood zone signifier: Seasoned campers know not to set up camp wherever there are smoke trees, although for the vast majority of time, water is not to be seen or found in what appears to be an extremely arid land.

The time of flowering for smoke trees is brief, only a few weeks from mid-May through early June, and like many desert plants, their yearly time of blooming can be either abundant or sparse, depending on rainfall, soil temperatures and other factors. This past bloom in spring was one of the most fantastic in recent memory.

Symbol of silence

For most of the year, smoke trees quietly and instinctively scale back their presence, in a process known as “die-back,” common to many other desert plants. While waiting patiently in the rain shadow looming above our canyons and washes, smoke trees take on the brittle appearance of being almost dead, or dying. In fact, the process of dropping most of its tiny light green leaves, except in the top branches of the trees, is what helps the smoke tree survive and even thrive.

The appearance of the smoke tree in winter and other dry months is what has evoked its iconic name: These are times when it appears most like wisps of smoke wafting across canyon floors and washes. But to those who listen, and look, and wait patiently, the very desert-defining presence of the smoke tree comes vividly alive.

The collective voice of these near-invisible trees was certainly heard by the many plein-air, impressionistic desert artists of the earlier to mid-20th century. Dubbed the Smoke Tree School, painters such as Carl Eytel, John Hilton and Carl Bray – whose home and gallery are commemorated along Highway 111 in Indian Wells – brought the smoke tree, in both its more ghostly, silent and wildly blossoming violet-hued incarnations to life, and memorialized the timeless feel of the untouched desert in paintings that emblemize its ubiquitous presence.

The song of this year’s splashy, violet-blue smoke tree super bloom may have faded away, but its melodic imprint remains. Like all desert plant life, its time of flowering is brief, and perhaps memorialized all the more because of its brevity.

The smoke tree remains, at all times of year, a symbol of the silence and adaptability to times of overabundance and drought that are endemic to desert living – and a talisman of renewal, transformation and hope. It represents many qualities that so many of us come here for: a rare, tranquil stillness and the graceful surrender to the splendor of the desert’s wide open and seemingly endless girth, one tempered only by mountains, canyon walls and precious dearth.

Explore More

SMOKE TREES CAN BE FOUND IN ABUNDANCE LOCALLY IN ARABY WASH IN PALM SPRINGS; ALONG HAYSTACK ROAD'S EASTERN SIDEWALK IN PALM DESERT; AT THE LIVING DESERT ZOO AND GARDENS; IN THOUSAND PALMS OASIS PRESERVE AND ALONG MCCALLUM TRAIL IN COACHELLA VALLEY PRESERVE; AND ALONG BOX CANYON ROAD IN THE MECCA HILLS.

Animal Predatory Behavior Decreases Near Desert Wind Turbines, Study Finds

"These findings could be helpful in assisting managers to design future wind energy facilities with species in mind."

Wind turbines overlooking Whitewater Creek and Interstate 10 near Palm Springs, California. (PHOTO: David McNew / Getty Images News / Getty Images)

By Patch CA (Patch Staff)
Patch Banning

PALM SPRINGS, CA – A study conducted at the windmills near Palm Springs showed that predators are less likely to attack prey living near the wind turbines, including desert tortoises that burrow in the Coachella Valley.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis and the U.S. Geological Survey employed motion-activated cameras facing the entrances of 46 active desert tortoise burrows at the 5.2-square-kilometer wind energy facility.

They found that predators are far more likely to visit the tortoises' burrows near dirt roads and far less likely to visit burrows close to turbines.

The five predator species monitored included bobcats, gray foxes, coyotes, black bears and western spotted skunks, who scientists say were not actively hunting the tortoises but seeking smaller prey that frequently live in desert tortoise burrows.

"These findings could be helpful in assisting managers to design future wind energy facilities with species in mind," said lead author Mickey Agha. "There may be benefits to adding space between turbines and increasing the number of dirt roads, to potentially provide habitat for sensitive terrestrial wildlife."

Scientists behind the study -- which was published in the April issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management -- say the findings show that the design of wind energy infrastructure impacts animal behavior, an area of study rarely touched on.

"There is little information on predator-prey interactions in wind energy landscapes in North America, and this study provides a foundation for learning more," said Jeffrey Lovich, USGS scientist and study co-author.

"Further investigation of causes that underlie road and wind turbine effects, such as ground vibrations, sound emission and traffic volume, could help provide a better understanding of wildlife responses to wind energy development," he said.

This California desert town is experiencing a marijuana boom

by Paloma Esquivel
Los Angeles Times

Carlos Bravo, the owner of a tow company here, was at work late last year when a real estate agent came to him offering half a million dollars for 5 acres of undeveloped, brush-pocked desert — five times what he'd paid for the land six months earlier.

"I thought he was joking," Bravo said.

The man came back the next day, making it clear he was not.

A few days after he had signed the paperwork, Bravo said, another man offered him $1 million.

As the first city in Southern California to legalize large-scale medical marijuana cultivation, Desert Hot Springs has been inundated by marijuana growers and developers. They are buying up dusty desert land — some with no utilities or roads — in hopes of cashing in as California's marijuana growers come into the open under new state regulations.

"It's pretty chaotic," said Coachella Valley real estate broker Marc Robinson. "I'm getting tons of calls from all over the world, all over the United States. My newest clients flew over from Germany."

See the most-read stories this hour >>

Despite a sizable need for new infrastructure to support the indoor growing projects, the rush has officials in this downtrodden town dreaming of new income.

"I can only imagine what we can do with the tax revenue," Mayor Scott Matas said. "We're in need of parks, our roads are dilapidated. All around — our sidewalks, curbs, gutters."

The city is pushing hard to help developers get their projects up and running as it increasingly faces competition from a number of desert cities also eager to bring growers to town.

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Desert Hot Springs' foray into marijuana stemmed from financial need, officials said.

The city has long tried to position itself as a Coachella Valley tourist destination alongside its resort-town neighbors south of Interstate 10, but it's never managed to attract the same level of development. Median household income here is $33,500 — far below the state median.

The town's destinations simply aren't enough "for it to become a vibrant and viable city instead of just a dusty little town north of the I-10," said Heather Coladonato, president of the Desert Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, which is working closely with growers.

In 2014, after the city declared a fiscal emergency, the council voted to legalize dispensaries and cultivation. Zones where growing was permitted were established, including on a stretch of barren desert dotted with a couple of churches and auto repair shops.

Since the ordinance passed, officials have approved applications for at least 11 businesses with plans for more than 1.7 million square feet of cultivation operations.

Each year, the city will tax growers $25 per square foot of cultivation space for the first 3,000 square feet and $10 per square foot after that. At least eight other projects are in the approval process.

Police Chief Dale Mondary said he had strong reservations about the city's move toward cultivation.

"Just from a law enforcement standpoint, obviously we're philosophically opposed," he said. "I took the stance: 'I can either pout about it or get on board and at least have my voice heard.'"

The businesses have agreed to hire 24-hour armed security guards and install cameras that police can access remotely, Mondary said. They're also planting what he called "hostile landscaping" — cactus and other plants that could be difficult for intruders to pass.

No cultivators are up and running yet, though a small number could be growing by this summer, officials said.

Growers, many of whom have been quietly practicing their trade in garages and other underground spaces for years, are eager to "come out of the shadows," said Jason Elsasser, who is planning a 2-acre project in town.

The rush to set up shop in cities that permit cultivation was pushed forward by state legislation signed into law late last year. Growers will be able to apply for state licenses by 2018, but they will have to show they have local licensing before they can get a state permit, said Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

The crush of developers in Desert Hot Springs led to a tripling of land prices in the area, real estate brokers said.

But there are signs that the projects — which require intensive lighting and air conditioning — could face long infrastructure delays. In recent weeks, owners learned it could take years just to get sufficient electricity to some of the businesses.

Southern California Edison spokesman Robert Laffoon-Villegas said the utility expects that some growers' power needs could be so large that "it would be like adding a small city to the system."

"In order to do that safely it does require significant study … and it may require significant infrastructure," he said.

Meda Thompson, a real estate broker who advertises on fliers decorated with marijuana leaves, said the issue has caused some properties to fall out of escrow.

To help address the concerns, the city manager is now preparing to hire a project manager who would oversee infrastructure issues for growers.

In the meantime, the city is facing increasing competition.

In nearby Cathedral City, officials recently began accepting applications from growers and dispensaries. So far, they have received about 20, said Community Development Director Pat Milos.

In San Bernardino County, Adelanto began accepting applications from growers late last year.

That city, which has been on the brink of insolvency in recent years, has asked applicants to sign a statement acknowledging its financial hardship and agreeing to "support, and not oppose, any initiative that the city or the voters of the city initiate to raise business taxes and business license fees."

So far, it has approved at least 30 applicants who have proposed operating more than 1.2 million square feet of cultivation space. Some, like in Desert Hot Springs, would be in now-vacant desert plots.

The city of Coachella, meanwhile, has opened an area to growers previously zoned for auto wreckage yards.

Mayor Steven Hernandez said he expected the businesses to bring better-paying jobs to the city's low-income residents, particularly migrant farmworkers.

"I've got a lot of people working in the fields every day," he said. "If I can get those guys into the middle income … they can buy themselves a nice house in Coachella and maybe not have to work so much."

::

Calabasas attorney Bob Selan is leading an effort by several dispensaries to build a 380,000-square-foot cultivation business park in Desert Hot Springs.

The challenges of building from the ground up in the desert have been great, he said.

"The way you have to design these things for climate control and conserving water and conserving energy, it's very hard to do it, and it's very expensive," he said. "We have consultants, engineers, architects, lawyers, accountants, you name it … on top of that we have all the cannabis experts."

Though the scramble to establish large-scale facilities has been influenced by the possibility that Californians may legalize recreational use of marijuana this year, Selan said his facility would do fine even without such a law.

"The demand for medical products was so high, this was just to fill the need for that," he said.

Elsasser, who is planning the 2-acre project, had a successful real estate company in Yucca Valley until the housing crash. The downturn left him with several vacant homes, in which he used to grow marijuana.

"Cannabis cultivation kind of saved me," he said.

On a recent weekday, he walked through an empty steel-shell building on Little Morongo Road that he plans to soon begin converting into a cultivation facility.

"This is going to be all built out into a high-tech, 40-light grow right here," Elsasser said, using the number of overhead lights the facility will contain to indicate its size.

Pointing to a chain-link fence surrounded by brush, he added, "Back there is going to be all greenhouses."

Then Elsasser gestured toward a handful of buildings down the road that were owned by other growers and developers.

"Those are all going to be cultivation," he said.

Little Morongo Road will eventually be the backbone of a bustling warehouse zone, packed to the brim with growers, Elsasser said.

"This property is right on Park Avenue," he said, waving toward the desert brush and dusty road and imagining the swanky New York thoroughfare. "It may not look like it. But it is."

Coachella Valley aquifer decline continues

Water from the Colorado River flows into a percolation pond at the Thomas E. Levy Groundwater Replenishment Facility in La Quinta. (Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

Ian James
The Desert Sun

NASA researchers have studied the aquifer beneath the Coachella Valley and concluded that while flows of imported water have helped boost groundwater levels in places, much of the aquifer has continued to decline.

Scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory analyzed trends in the measurements of groundwater levels in wells between 1960 and 2013.

They found that inflows of water from the Colorado River have helped raise the water table in areas near groundwater replenishment ponds in Palm Springs and La Quinta, but that the aquifer’s levels have been falling across the middle of the valley, in places from Thousand Palms to Indio, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and Indian Wells – areas that are farther away from the ponds.

The study was published online last week by the journal Water Resources Management. The scientific findings fit with the results of The Desert Sun’s analyses of groundwater data in 2013 and 2015, which showed significant long-term declines in water levels in much of the valley even as imported water has helped partially counteract that trend. The study points to a need for the Coachella Valley’s people, businesses and water managers to better safeguard the aquifer to preserve water supplies for the future.

Hydrologists Brian F. Thomas and Jay Famiglietti used data for more than 300 wells to compare trends in different decades.

During the 1980s, for instance, the area received large allocations of surface water, and as a result groundwater levels rebounded around Palm Springs. In the 2000s, the valley received little water and the aquifer’s levels predominantly declined.

For decades, water has been heavily pumped from wells across the desert to sustain growing cities, farms, more than 100 golf courses and lush resorts with acres of grass and artificial lakes.

Since the 1970s, the Coachella Valley’s water agencies have been using water from the Colorado River Aqueduct to help recharge the aquifer near Palm Springs. The water has come in exchange for the local water districts’ allotted amounts from the canals and pipelines of the State Water Project, which ends in Lake Perris and doesn’t reach the valley.

During the past decade, water from the Colorado River has also been routed through the Coachella branch of the All-American Canal to a series of ponds in La Quinta, pushing up groundwater levels there.

Despite those efforts, average groundwater levels are approximately 19 meters, or 62 feet, lower than in 1960, the scientists said in the study. They noted that during periods when large amounts of surface water have flowed into the area, groundwater levels have risen. But during drier times, such as the 2000s or the current drought, “unsustainable groundwater practices in the region resulted in groundwater declines.”

The changes in groundwater levels over time, they said, “fail to exhibit characteristics of a resilient management strategy.”

“The scenario of continued unsustainable groundwater use in a region that relies heavily on groundwater resources to meet water demands has important implications for the region,” the researchers said, “especially given the uncertainty in future climate changes and the likelihood of increased droughts… and the uncertainty of future allocations from the Colorado River.”

In short, Thomas said, the findings point to a need for people to use and manage water differently in the Coachella Valley.

“They need to conserve water,” Thomas said in a telephone interview. He said he thinks the Coachella Valley also should manage the aquifer as the area’s primary water source and not rely so heavily on outside sources of surface water as it has in the past.

The Colorado River provides water for more than 35 million people across the West and irrigates vast stretches of farmland from the Rocky Mountains to Mexico. But its flows have been shrinking during a historic drought that’s now in its 16th year. Global warming is projected to put additional strains on the over-tapped river by shrinking the snows in the mountains and unleashing more severe droughts.

Flows of water to Southern California through the State Water Project have also dwindled during the drought.

Thomas said the trend in the 2000s, when groundwater levels were declining across the Coachella Valley, is similar to the situation now.

“And I think that’s really the future of the Coachella Valley,” he said. “When you look at the uncertainty of climate in the Southwestern U.S. and the uncertainty of surface water allocations coming out of the Colorado River basin, I think the reality of the situation for the Coachella Valley is what they saw in the 2000s. … It was depletion throughout the valley.”

The study focused on “sustainable groundwater management” and didn’t deal with the question of how much water remains in the aquifer – something experts aren’t sure of because it hasn’t been studied in detail.

Water agencies have calculated the cumulative overdraft since the 1970s at more than 5.3 million acre-feet of water. That's enough to fill more than 2.6 million Olympic swimming pools, with each acre-foot equivalent to 325,851 gallons.

As groundwater levels have declined, there have been costs. Pumping from deeper underground requires more electricity, and in some areas new wells have been drilled.

A study by the U.S. Geological Survey last year found that as groundwater pumping has led to declines in portions of the aquifer, the ground sank from between 9 inches to 2 feet from 1995 to 2010 in parts of Indian Wells, La Quinta and Palm Desert. That has caused damage in other parts of the Coachella Valley over the years, cracking the foundations of some homes and damaging swimming pools, roads and other infrastructure.

The USGS found that the Coachella Valley Water District's efforts to recharge the aquifer are having a positive effect near the groundwater replenishment ponds in La Quinta.

“We have to give credit to the water agencies. They’re actually employing very smart strategies,” Thomas said. “It’s obviously having a positive impact on groundwater resources. It’s just that (the impacts) are not extensive when you look at the entire aquifer system as a whole.”

CVWD General Manager Jim Barrett said when contacted about the research that he had just learned of the study and couldn’t comment on the findings.

John Powell, Jr., president of the CVWD board, has said the agency is evaluating potential sites for new groundwater replenishment ponds in the middle of the valley in order to reduce pressures on the aquifer in that area.

The long-term declines in the aquifer fit with a larger trend of groundwater depletion in much of California, and in various parts of the world.

Famiglietti, a UC Irvine professor and senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, recently co-authored another study that found more than half of the world’s largest aquifers are declining, and more than a third of them are being rapidly depleted.

Thomas, a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology, said he thinks that for the Coachella Valley, improving the water picture starts with coming up with ways to use less.

“If it were up to me, people would not have lawns in Palm Springs,” Thomas said. “Lawns, that’s something that is not necessary in a desert environment. And that’s just one of the things that’s key to a conservation strategy.”

In the acknowledgments in their study, the scientists credited The Desert Sun’s coverage “for alerting us about the growing concern over groundwater overdraft in the valley.”

Thomas spoke about his research last year to an audience at UC Riverside’s Palm Desert campus.

"There's no easy answer,” he said during the event. “Everybody has to give up a piece of their water use to get to sustainability."

Find array of wildflowers in Palm Canyon Wash

Look out for Prickly Poppy. (James Cornett)

James Cornett
The Desert Sun

Spring is not over; at least not yet. There are places where wildflowers are still in bloom.

In fact, one of the most impressive wildflower displays in years is happening right now in Palm Canyon Wash north of the Bogert Trail Bridge in Palm Springs.

When I say impressive I am speaking about diversity, not dense concentrations. We are, after all, in the third year of a drought. Surface water has been present, however, in Palm Canyon Wash for a record eight months as a result of last summer’s mountain wildfires. Seeds of dozens of species, including some usually found at much higher elevations, can be found in bloom, most in small pockets along the high-water mark of the September floodwaters that followed the fires. Three mountain chaparral plants growing in the wash are Golden Eardrops (Dicentra chrysantha), Yellow-Throated Phacelia (Phacelia brachyloba) and Bush Lupine (Lupinus longifolius). Never before have I found these three species growing on the floor of the Coachella Valley.

You must go soon if you wish to see dozens of wildflower species still in bloom. Parking is limited so make sure you locate your vehicle well away from the bridge and where parking is not prohibited. To see all the wildflower species walk from the bridge south for nearly a mile then turn around and head back when you reach the concrete water drop structure. Walk south up the left or east side of the wash. Then, when returning, walk down the left or west side of the wash. I recommend arriving as early in the morning as possible, wear a hat, bring a quart of water and wear high-top shoes to keep sand out. Remember, it is wildflower diversity, not density, that I am touting at this location. The flowers are tucked away in small pockets along the wash.

If you go, make sure and check out the Cliff Swallows nesting under the bridge. Their spectacular aerobatics alone are worth the trip.

Plant species found in Palm Canyon Wash

Annual Mitra, Apricot Mallow, Brittlebush, Brown-eyed Primrose, Bush Lupine, Canchalagua, Cardinal Monkeyflower, Castorbean, Cat’s Claw Acacia, Chuckwalla’s Delight, Common Sunflower, Creosote Bush, Desert Canterbury Bells, Desert Lavender, Desert Rock-Pea, Desert Tobacco, Desert Willow, Fiddleneck, Forget-me-Not, Fringed Amaranth, Golden Eardrops, Ground Cherry, Jimson Weed, Pale Primrose, Prickly Poppy, Puncture Vine, Rabbitbrush, Rattlesnake Weed, Rose Mallow, Rose Mint, Rush, Sandpaper Plant, Shrub Tamarisk, Smoke Tree, Sonchus, Spanish Needle, Stiff-haired Lotus, Sweetclover, Tiquilia, Viguiera, Whispering Bells, Yellow Milkvetch, Yellow-throated Phacelia, Yerba Santa, White Nightshade.

James Cornett lives in Palm Springs and is the author of “Coachella Valley Wildflowers.” Contact him at JWCornett@aol.com.

Interior secretary says Obama may bypass Congress on monuments

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell says she may advise Obama to act alone to create new national monuments if Congress doesn't act.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell says she may recommend that President Obama act unilaterally to create new national monuments if Congress remains gridlocked. She recently visited some sites in California. (Dan Joling / Associated Press / September 3, 2013)



By Julie Cart
Los Angeles Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Interior Secretary Sally Jewell says she will recommend that President Obama act alone if necessary to create new national monuments and sidestep a gridlocked Congress that has failed to address dozens of public lands bills.

Jewell said the logjam on Capitol Hill has created a conservation backlog, and she warned that the Obama administration would not "hold its breath forever" waiting for lawmakers to act.

"The president will not hesitate," Jewell said in an interview in San Francisco last week. "I can tell you that there are places that are ripe for setting aside, with a tremendous groundswell of public support."

Congress has not added any acreage to the national park or wilderness systems since 2010. Jewell blamed ramped-up rhetoric in Washington for the impasse. She said the appetite for preserving American historic and cultural sites remains high but some officials seek to avoid the appearance of publicly embracing more government protection.

Jewell, who has been on the job scarcely six months, came to California to promote several initiatives and tour a site that could be added to a national monument along the Mendocino coast.

She began with a meet and greet at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. On a bright day with gulls wheeling against a backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge — the velvety green Marin headlands in the distance — Jewell stood in one of the nation's most-visited national parks and made the case for the value of public lands.

Among the public events on Jewell's schedule was a visit to the 1,255-acre Stornetta Public Lands site on the Mendocino County coast, north of Point Arena. Several members of the California congressional delegation have proposed adding the site to the California Coastal National Monument.

It's one of many pending federal bills that would conserve land in California. One bill would expand the boundary of Yosemite National Park, and another would create a national monument in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has proposed sweeping legislation that would add thousands of acres to Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks and the Mojave National Preserve, protect 74 miles of waterways as wild and scenic rivers, designate 248,000 acres as wilderness and create the Sand to Snow National Monument running from the floor of the Coachella Valley to the peak of Mt. San Gorgonio.

The conservation community has a long list of places that it believes require protection, but activists complain that with sequestration budget cuts on top of congressional reluctance to promote conservation, little is getting done.

"It's been nearly impossible to figure out how to get more funding for conservation work, whether it's just getting money to run agencies or getting full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund," said Kristen Brengel, who lobbies Congress for the National Parks Conservation Assn. "There is almost no hope for the wilderness or monuments bills — they are being held up."

Brengel said Jewell's willingness to recommend that Obama act unilaterally, using powers granted to presidents under the Antiquities Act of 1906, gives hope to conservationists who see the administration as indifferent to environmental issues.

"The take-away is she's kind of teed herself up to make those recommendations to the president," Brengel said. "They are capable of making decisions on conservation. They just haven't made many of them."

The Antiquities Act gives presidents authority to name new monuments — a power generally residing with Congress. Presidents going back to Theodore Roosevelt have used the act to set aside natural wonders, including the Grand Canyon in 1908, which was later named a national park against the wishes of local officials.

But use of the act in recent years has sparked strong protest. Most notably was President Clinton's decision to designate the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah in 1996, putting one of the nation's largest coal reserves off limits to mining.

Utah lawmakers, led by then-Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, a Republican, bitterly complained that federal authorities failed to consult with local communities before elevating protections on 1.8 million acres of rugged red-rock canyons. Further antagonizing opponents, Clinton signed the act while sitting at a ceremonial desk placed on the rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Clinton used the Antiquities Act more than any other president. Obama has used the law to designate nine new monuments, focusing mainly on historic sites such as the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument in Maryland and the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Kern County, which is poised to become a National Historic Park.

State Lauds Mitigation Deal For Ivanpah Solar Project

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (Photo: Craig Dietrich/Flickr/Creative Commons License)

by Chris Clarke
KCET Rewire

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has announced that the finishing touches have been crafted on a deal to preserve 7,000 acres of land in the Mojave Desert as mitigation for the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System near the Mojave National Preserve. But not everyone's happy with that.

The land, whose acquisition and management has cost Ivanpah's owners $11.4 million dollars, was purchased through the state's Advance Mitigation Land Acquisition Program (AMP), started in 2010 by the passage of Senate Bill 34. That program streamlined previous mitigation programs in which developers had to work on their own to acquire parcels of land for protection to "mitigate" the habitat destruction their projects entailed. Under the AMP, CDFW does the legwork of finding suitable mitigation land and developers need only write a check.

A press release on CDFW's website describes the land being preserved to mitigate Ivanpah, though with a significant error:

The lands are comprised of 163 separate parcels in the Chuckwalla Desert Wildlife Management Area (DWMA) in San Bernardino County, and the Fremont-Kramer DWMA and Superior-Cronese DWMA both in Riverside County.

The Chuckwalla DWMA is actually in Riverside County east of the Coachella Valley. The Fremont-Kramer and Superior-Cronise DWMAs are in San Bernardino County; the first is near Boron and the second north of Barstow along the southern edge of the Fort Irwin Army base.

Each individual parcel of the newly acquired lands will be managed either by the Transition Habitat Conservancy, based in Pinon Hills near Hesperia, or the Joshua Tree-based Mojave Desert Land Trust.

The Ivanpah project occupies about 3,500 acres of land, meaning that the ratio of mitigation land to developed land is about 2/1. Ivanpah is owned jointly by developer BrightSource Energy and investors NRG Energy and Google. "Working through the State's Advanced Mitigation Program has proven to be an effective alternative for satisfying the Ivanpah project's mitigation land requirements," said Marc Sydnor, BrightSource's director of environmental affairs, in the CDFW press release. "We've also been able to achieve a project goal of ensuring that the land purchased is used for the highest possible purpose -- to protect our state's natural legacy."

Other observers are less sanguine about the deal. Ileene Anderson, biologist and Public Lands Desert Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, lauded the land being preserved but told ReWire that better development strategy would avoid the need to replace the tortoise habitat at Ivanpah:

While these acquisitions are in important areas for desert tortoise conservation, future solar projects would be best developed on already disturbed lands and rooftops, so that desert tortoise habitat is not impacted and therefore there is no need for mitigation.

Meanwhile, blogger Shaun G. at Mojave Desert Blog, a long-term critic of utility-scale desert solar projects, was even more unsparing about the trade-offs:

[W]hat benefit did we achieve in Ivanpah? Approximately 392 megawatts of solar energy. Companies in the United States installed far more solar panels on already-disturbed lands and rooftops during the Ivanpah Solar project's construction period. And Germany added thousands of megawatts of mostly rooftop solar. All while we watched BrightSource destroy a true natural treasure in the Mojave.

Banning, Beaumont Assemblyman Wants Salton Sea Restored

"There was a time when the Salton Sea attracted more visitors per year than Yosemite," Nestande said. "I want to empower the Salton Sea Authority so they can return the area to the recreation and destination site it once was."

North Shore Yacht Club, Salton Sea. (Photo: Renee Schiavone)

By Renee Schiavone
Banning-Beaumont Patch

Palm Desert's assemblyman has proposed legislation this week to spur action on restoring the shrinking Salton Sea by allocating $50 million for projects overseen by the Salton Sea Authority.

Assemblyman Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert, introduced Assembly Bill 709 ahead of a hearing Friday in Mecca, during which representatives from government and private organizations will address the sea's needs.

"The issues surrounding the restoration of the Salton Sea have been going on for far too long," Nestande said. "State and federal inaction has stymied restoration progress. We need to return control to the Salton Sea Authority as the lead agency so they can move forward."

AB 709 would require that $50 million in Proposition 84 bond revenue be earmarked for sea improvements and would direct the California Wildlife Conservation Board to apply for matching federal funds in support of restoration.

The Salton Sea Authority would take charge of all projects under Nestande's bill. Currently, the SSA -- composed of officials from Riverside and Imperial counties -- acts primarily in an advisory capacity.

"There was a time when the Salton Sea attracted more visitors per year than Yosemite," Nestande said. "I want to empower the Salton Sea Authority so they can return the area to the recreation and destination site it once was."

According to the assemblyman, the SSA would have to develop a concrete restoration plan that passes muster with the state Legislative Analyst's Office, after which funds would be made available.

Nestande's bill follows several proposals introduced last month by Assemblyman Manuel Perez, D-Coachella, that address funding for a restoration feasibility study and mitigation measures necessary to prevent environmental damage that might result from changes to the sea.

The 365-square-mile body of water -- the largest part of which lies in Imperial County, with the north portion stretching to within a few miles of Thermal -- has been plagued with increasing salinity over the last 40 years, to the point that some of the sea's deeper places are saltier than the ocean.

According to studies, nutrient compounds from agricultural runoff have created a "eutrophic" condition where high levels of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia kill fish and produce gagging odors.

Water reclamation plans by local agencies and Mexico, as well as a reduction of Colorado River supplies, will shrink the sea in the coming years, according to the Salton Sea Authority.

Assemblyman Nestande serves the communities of Banning, Beaumont, Cabazon, Calimesa, Cherry Valley, Hemet, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, San Jacinto, White Water, 29 Palms, Joshua Tree, Landers, Morongo Valley, Pioneer Town, Yucaipa, and Yucca Valley.

California desert aquifers contain high chemical levels

Sunset at the New York Mountains in the Mojave Desert. (Courtesy National Park Service)

The Associated Press
Tribune - San Luis Obispo

MOJAVE, Calif. — More aquifers in the Southern California desert contained high levels of arsenic, boron, fluoride and other naturally occurring elements compared with the rest of the state, a study released Wednesday found.

Federal scientists only looked at the presence of contaminants in raw, untreated groundwater and did not analyze tap water. Water agencies typically treat groundwater supplies to make drinking water and to comply with health standards.

Trace elements were found in high concentrations in 35 percent of groundwater used for public supply in the desert, compared with 10 to 25 percent elsewhere in the state.

One reason is that groundwater pumped from the desert tends to be older than groundwater pumped from other parts of the state, allowing more time for it to mix with elements found naturally in rocks and soil.

The study was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists tested groundwater samples from wells in the desert - including the Antelope Valley, Coachella Valley, Indian Wells Valley, Owens Valley, Mojave area, and the Colorado River basin - and around the state between 2004 and last year.

State and federal regulators and water agencies have long known about the existence of these elements in desert aquifers, but this is the most comprehensive assessment of groundwater quality in the desert.

Groups "are actively working to manage local groundwater resources and assure that water delivered to consumers meets water-quality standards," Miranda Fram, who heads the USGS groundwater monitoring program, said in a statement.

Besides studying the presence of naturally occurring contaminants, researchers looked at the role of human activity and found little impact on groundwater quality: High levels of solvents, pesticides and nitrates, typically associated with runoff from industries, agriculture and homes, were found in less than 1 percent of desert aquifers.

The USGS continues to monitor water quality in more than 100 groundwater basins around the state.

Stinky L.A. smell tied to dead fish in the Salton Sea, officials say

Dead fish along the Salton Sea shoreline in southern California. The South Coast Air Quality Management District acknowledged the possibility that dead fish at the Salton Sea are partially to blame for the rotten-egg smell reported all day Monday. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

Los Angeles Times

Regional air-quality managers on Tuesday said that the rotten egg odor that hit Southern California on Monday came from dead fish in the Salton Sea.

Air samples collected in the Coachella Valley, near the Salton Sea and elsewhere clinched inspectors’ suspicions of the 376-square mile, murky body of water as the source of the pervasive smell. Atwood said AQMD inspectors collected air samples which contained hydrogen sulfide.

Inspectors found concentrations of the gas, a product of organic decaying matter, heaviest close to the Salton Sea, with a pattern of decreasing concentration farther away.

“We now have solid evidence that clearly points to the Salton Sea as the source of a very large and unusual odor event,” said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

How unusual? As late as Monday night, AQMD officials weren’t even sure it was scientifically possible for a malodorous scent to trek the distance the Salton Sea’s fumes did. So they asked an air-quality modeler to use sophisticated computer modeling to find out if it was “theoretically possible” for a stench to travel that far.

“I think we’ve shown it was theoretically possible,” said Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the AQMD. “But this is just something we did not expect.”

Inspectors ruled out landfills, oil refineries and a natural springs site as possible sources.

“The air samples were the final piece of the puzzle,” Atwood said. “Our inspectors did go out to the Salton Sea and did smell some very strong odors at the sea, as well as at the locations leading up to it.”

But it took the might of a powerful storm blowing from the southeast to bring the stench of the Salton Sea to L.A. All in all though, L.A. got lucky, compared with the town of Mecca, just north of the Salton Sea, and Indio, which received larger doses of the gaseous, funky odor.

“The storm originated in the Gulf of California and the Sea of Cortez and hit the Imperial Valley and Salton Sea,” said Tim Krantz, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Redlands. “We had huge squalls and pretty heavy winds in the Coachella Valley. The winds pull the surface layers of the sea off from the southeast to northwest, and that surface water is replaced from the depth.”

And those depths are all kinds of stinky.

Experts said the winds from the Sunday night storm unsettled the fetid layers of water near the bottom of the sea, bringing them to the surface.

Andrew Schlange, general manager of the Salton Sea Authority, said that in the last week, a large number of fish died in the body of water, likely exacerbating the problem. But he said the fish die-off, which is a normal occurrence, was not significant enough on its own to explain the well-traveled odor.

Rather, he said, the storm upset an anaerobic—or oxygen-deprived—lower layer of the sea, where organic material lays decomposing, releasing the noxious hydrogen sulfide gas, with its distinct rotten egg smell.

The good news was that by Tuesday the odor had greatly diminished. As of about 5:30 p.m. Monday, there had been 235 complaints about the smell, Atwood said. Since then, there have been less than 10, though the “sulfur-type” odor still lingered in some parts of the region.

Atwood said a meteorologist for the AQMD has looked at the thunderstorm reports, and that along with wind-measuring instruments in the Coachella Valley, they determined that winds of more than 60 mph blowing from the southeast probably blew the rank odor to the L.A. Basin.

“That’s unusual because usually the winds are blowing in the opposite direction,” he said.

The Salton Sea has lost much of its depth. It's about 50 feet at its deepest point, with an average depth of about 30 feet, Schlange said. That means it doesn’t take as potent a weather event as it did in the past to cause an upswell that sends the water near the bottom to the top.

Schlange said the Salton Sea is losing much more water through evaporation than is being replenished through agricultural runoff and other sources. If water wasn’t flowing into the sea, it would lose a depth of about 4 to 6 feet a year through evaporation.

If something isn’t done to better replenish the Salton Sea, Schlange said issues with far-flung odors could be more common in the future. He said there’s a plan to do mitigation work on the sea, but money to fund it is lacking.

“All of a sudden Sunday evening, we had all these conditions that came together to allow something like this to occur,” Schlange said. “It’s occurred before, but not at this magnitude.”

Storms flood parts of Vegas, Navajo land, Calif. desert communities, Utah town

University of Nevada students Ryan Klorman, left, and Markus Adams relax on inflatable pool toys in floodwater in a parking lot at UNLV in Las Vegas on Tuesday. (John Locher / Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

By NBC News
wire services

Residents in four Southwest states were drying out Wednesday after thunderstorms flooded Las Vegas streets, stranded Navajo families in northern Arizona, left two mobile home communities in Southern California deep in water and caused a dike to fail in a Utah town.

In the Las Vegas area, the Tuesday storms delayed flights, snarled traffic and prompted helicopter rescues of stranded motorists. A golf course worker was reported missing and a search for the man resumed Wednesday, NBC affiliate KSNV-TV reported.

Television news video showed school buses inching along roads after school east of downtown Las Vegas, and muddy water up to the lower sills of windows of stucco homes in other neighborhoods.

In southeast Las Vegas, authorities urged the residents of about 45 homes damaged by flooding to leave in case electrical fires are sparked.

Dozens of cars were swamped by water up to their headlights in a parking lot outside the Thomas & Mack sports arena at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Firefighters responded to more than 20 calls about people in stalled cars .

A Las Vegas police helicopter was dispatched during the height of the storm to pluck several people from swamped vehicles on roadways.

More than 1.75 inches of rain were reported in downtown Las Vegas. The rainfall amounts put the region on pace to exceed the 4.5 inches of rain it normally gets in a year.

Tuesday was also the wettest September day on record in Las Vegas, weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen reported.

Calif. mobile home parks hit hard

In California's Coachella Valley, a thunderstorm on Tuesday dropped more than the average annual rainfall there in one night alone, settling for six to eight hours over Mecca and Thermal, desert towns 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

In Thermal, the downpour flooded the Desert Mobile Home Park better known as Duroville, a community of mostly migrant workers with about 1,500 people, including 900 children, that has long been the subject of legal fights as Riverside County officials attempt to relocate residents.

More than a foot of water stood in the southern end of the park, knocking out power to about 800 people for much of the day.

"None of us had ever been through anything like this," said Tom Flynn, the court-appointed receiver for Duroville. "That much water in a dilapidated mobile home park was something to see."

The lack of power knocked out electric motors on both of the park's wells, leaving no fresh water until one was revived and county workers brought several tons of bottled water.

The park has no paved streets or drainage, and health officials were concerned about overflow from two ponds that serve as the community's sewers.

Between 60 and 80 people had evacuated from the park and were spending the night at a high school. "The poorest of the poor were hit the hardest," Flynn said.

St. Anthony's Mobile Home Park in Mecca also was affected, but fared better than Duroville. Video clips showed residents wading through knee-high water and cars creeping through flooded residential streets.

The storm dropped 5.51 inches of rain near Mecca and 3.23 inches of rain near Thermal, meteorologist Mark Moede said. The average annual rainfall in arid Thermal is just shy of 3 inches, he said.

"That's an amazing amount of rain," Moede said. "It's unusual anywhere to get a storm that sits stationary for five to eight hours."

Arizona and Utah flooding

On the Navajo Nation reservation in northeastern Arizona, many of Tuba City's roads were underwater and residents stuck in their homes. State Route 264, one of two main arteries in and out of town, was closed after a bridge washed out about a mile outside of the community, Tuba City Chapter Manager Benjamin Davis said.

Flooding was reported in some homes but no residents were displaced, Davis said.

Meanwhile, a dike that broke during heavy morning rain flooded nearly four square blocks in the southern Utah city of Santa Clara. More than 30 homes and business were evacuated after the break.

City Manager Edward Dickie said the dike along a retention pond sent a deluge of water into downtown.

"It didn't just breach. It broke. It's gone," he said, adding that the flooding quickly receded as water drained into rivers and creeks.

Such a wide area across the Southwest was hit, Wiltgen told NBCNews.com, because moist, unstable air interacted with a disturbance in the upper atmosphere.

"The disturbance helped to trigger the scattered thunderstorms that popped up across a broad swath of the Southwest," he said, "and these storms translated that very moist air into flooding downpours."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kit foxes fall victim to distemper near new solar site

State, feds team to find source; construction not affected

A desert kit fox warms itself in the sun near its burrow. California Department of Fish and Game is investigating the deaths of seven desert kit foxes in the past two months near the Genesis solar project near Blythe. The deaths are the first documented cases of canine distemper in wild desert kit foxes. (BLM)

Written by K Kaufmann
The Desert Sun

An outbreak of canine distemper among desert kit foxes near the Genesis solar project off Interstate 10 east of the Coachella Valley has triggered a state and federal investigation to find the cause of the disease and protect the animals near all solar projects in the region.

Since last October, a total of seven kit foxes dead or dying of the disease have been found on or near the Genesis site, said Deana Clifford, a wildlife veterinarian with the California Department of Fish and Game.

The deaths are the first documented cases of canine distemper in wild desert kit foxes, she said.

“What we've seen, they are declining very quickly and don't appear to live very long,” Clifford said.

Two kit foxes suffering from distemper were rushed to The Living Desert in Palm Desert in November and December, respectively, she said.

“The first animal was brought from the Blythe area and died before it got it here,” said Dr. Kevin Leiske, staff veterinarian at The Living Desert, which does not have kit foxes in captivity.

“The second animal was comatose and near death when it arrived and the only humane course of action was to euthanize the animal. Canine distemper is a devastating disease. The only true prevention is vaccination.”

Considered one of the desert's unique species, kit foxes can survive in dry climates because they get all their water from food. The animals are not endangered, but are a focus for wildlife conservation efforts, Fish and Game officials said.

A virus causes canine distemper, which affects both domestic and wild animals. Puppies, if not vaccinated, are particularly vulnerable, Clifford said.

It affects the animals' breathing and digestive system, causing coughing, diarrhea and dehydration, as well as brain swelling and seizures, she said.

It can cycle naturally through wild canine populations, she said, but also can be transmitted to and from domestic animals that come in contact with wildlife.

Trapping, tagging

In response to the outbreak, Fish and Game and the Bureau of Land Management have launched an investigation involving the trapping, tagging and vaccinating 39 kit foxes.

Earlier this month, they trapped foxes at four sites over a 10,000-acre area between NextEra Energy's Genesis — 20 miles west of Blythe — and Desert Sunlight in Desert Center and near the site of the Colorado substation south of I-10.

The outbreak may have briefly slowed construction on both sites as Clifford ordered the developers to halt activity near active kit fox burrows and to create wide buffer zones around them.

It's too early to say if there is any connection between the outbreak and the disruption of the fox habitat by the solar projects, she said.

“Habitat disturbance can cause stress and when animals are stressed, they may be more vulnerable to the disease,” Clifford said.

A nearby I-10 rest stop where people stop and let their dogs run could be another possible source of the virus, she said.

To find out, disease samples from the dead animals has been sent to Cornell University in New York, where experts will try to identify the particular strain of distemper and its possible origin, she said.

Distemper, like other viruses, can have different strains and some may be “hotter,” more virulent, than others, Clifford said.

Meanwhile, onsite biologists at both projects are monitoring 12 kit foxes that now wear radio collars, Clifford said. If an animal stops moving for more than six hours — a sign it may be sick or dead — the collar emits more beeps, she said.

The other 27 foxes were given a distemper vaccine deemed safe for wild animals. More animals would have been tagged, but the radio collars were not available, she said, and with the foxes going into their breeding period — which runs through May — the effort had to be organized quickly.

“We have been very proactive and cooperative working with the BLM and Department of Fish and Game; we have followed the agency directives,” said Steve Stengel, a NextEra spokesman.

Construction on the site is continuing with no major disruptions, he said.

“There are no visual signs of distemper in any of the kit foxes on the Desert Sunlight project site at this point, so we are encouraged by that,” said Alan Bernheimer, a spokesman for First Solar, the Arizona company building that project.

Genesis and Desert Sunlight are the only two solar projects under construction in the Riverside East solar zone, a swath of public land stretching from Joshua Tree National Park to Blythe.

As the investigation continues, Clifford sees the lack of extensive knowledge about desert kit foxes in general as a major challenge.

“We don't have a lot of details about the state of their health, their population, their ecology,” she said.

“I hope this will provide momentum to do some nice work on desert kit foxes.”

Ensuring all domestic canines get distemper vaccinations is also important in helping protect kit foxes and other wild animals.

“Although we do not know if this outbreak was started by an infected domestic animal, it is important for people to vaccinate their pets regularly,” she said.

About kit foxes

The desert kit fox lives in the deserts, though other kit foxes live in arid lands of western North America.

In the U.S., the foxes' habitats can be found from Southern California to western Colorado and western Texas, north into southern Oregon and Idaho.

The mostly nocturnal, burrowing canines, which typically weigh six pounds or less, also live in Mexico and mostly eat small animals. Source: California Department of Fish and Game

Finding a fix for dying Salton Sea

After years of inaction by state, lawmaker wants to put regional group at helm

Pelicans fly to Mullet Island, one of the four Salton Buttes, small volcanoes on the southern San Andreas Fault, after sunset on July 2 near Calipatria. Scientists say Mullet Island, the only place for many thousands of island-nesting birds to breed at the Salton Sea, will become vulnerable to attacks by predators such as raccoons and coyotes if the water level drops just a couple more feet. (David McNew/Getty Images)

Marcel Honoré
The Desert Sun

NORTH SHORE — As state lawmakers held their first summit in more than four years on the looming death of the Salton Sea, Sonia Herbert gazed out the window at the North Shore Beach & Yacht Club marina, where squawking seabirds swooped across the glassy sea surface, fishing for tilapia.

Like most of the 60 people who attended Monday's hearing, Herbert, who has lived in Bombay Beach since the 1970s, fears the worst: that time is running out on efforts to repair the sea and sustain its wildlife, and that overwhelming public health and economic crises will follow.

“All we've seen is studies, studies, studies and nothing has been done,” a visibly frustrated Herbert told Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez and two Assembly budget committee members. “What's going to happen if we don't do something?”

The state remains broke, and its preferred $9 billion sea restoration plan has languished since 2007.

Sticker shock over the restoration cost has led to political paralysis, but Pérez, a Coachella Democrat whose district includes the sea, has called its restoration his top priority for the rest of his legislative tenure.

At the hearing, which Pérez's office organized, he listened to county supervisors, residents and environmental advocates call for the state to relinquish control and to let locals settle on the best plan to restore the sea and the best way to pay for it.

“The sea needs help and it needs it now. The answer isn't big brother riding to the rescue, because he's not coming. There is no rescue,” Imperial County Supervisor Gary Wyatt told Pérez and two other Assembly members, Republican Brian Jones of Santee and Democrat Richard Gordon of Menlo Park.

“We need to drive this train,” said Wyatt, quoting longtime Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson, who died in 2009.

Wyatt and others pushed public-private partnerships on new geothermal and solar energy projects at the sea as a realistic way to tap dollars for Salton Sea restoration.

Wyatt proposed taking a 7,000-acre former military test site at the sea's south shore, now controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management, and converting it into a renewable energy depot that he said could provide 700 megawatts of power and produce at least $40 million a year in restoration funds.

Unlike redevelopment funds, that money would be exempt from state seizure, Wyatt said after the meeting.

“The interest is here, not there,” Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit said, referring to Sacramento. “What we need is the authority. If we fix this sea… the economic advantages to this area (are) nearly unlimited.”

Pérez said he hoped the hearing would help drum up support in the Legislature for his AB 939 bill, a proposal to switch the authority from the state's Salton Sea Restoration Council — a body that has never met — and place it in the hands of the local Salton Sea Authority, a joint-powers authority of the local counties and local water districts, along with some state presence.

“I'm optimistic that we can find a way if we work together and there's a political will from all levels of government including grassroots,” Pérez said. “Part of the reason why we have not been able to move forward is we're all moving in so many different directions. We need to find consensus to what the issues of the Salton Sea are.”

As runoff from irrigation and other water transfers evaporate, the Salton Sea's salinity has risen while its mass has shrunk. By the end of this decade, its retreat will be even more dramatic.

Created by flooding in 1905 and without a new source of water to replenish it, California's largest lake will grow uninhabitable to fish and the thousands of migratory birds that feed on them.

The exposed lakebed and the dust it generates could be disastrous in an area that already has one of the nation's highest rates for youth asthma, officials say. It also would damage agriculture and tourism.

State budget analysts at the hearing Monday reported that tens of millions of dollars in state bond funds from Propositions 50 and 84 have been spent on proposals for the sea's multi-billion-dollar fix, though exactly where the money went wasn't made clear.

“We've spent more than half our bond money … We don't have much to show for it, frankly,” said Kimberley Delfino, California program director of the national nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife.

“This is shameful and frightening,” Delfino said. “When you've lost 95 to 98 percent of the wetlands in California, the birds don't have any other place to go. The situation at the Salton Sea is grim and the stakes are high. We need a new governance structure, now. There isn't a lot of time left.”

As for the immediate next step, Pérez said he hopes for a meeting between Defenders of Wildlife, the Salton Sea Authority, the state's Legislative Analyst's Office, and other stakeholders.

“The sea still has its strong supporters, fighters and believers,” Wyatt said. “There are ways to make the revenues happen.”

Pioneertown Locals Fight Potential Wind Farm

KPSP-TV

Palm Springs - Leaders in our Valley are looking toward clean energy jobs to get people back to work - that means more solar and wind power.

However, just up Highway 62, a group is fighting a potential wind farm in Pioneertown. That's where Portland-based Element Power is already leasing 4,030 acres from the Bureau of Land Management for green-energy production.

The proposed project is still very early in the testing phase - for now the company is only allowed to place four 60-meter tall meteorological testing towers to check the wind viability in the area but local residents are already furious about the project.

Pioneertown local Elyzabeth Turvey built her home overlooking the mesas surrounding the tourist destination.

"It's peaceful, it's beautiful, the stars at night are clear and the shooting stars are amazing - and the views," Turvey said. The meteorological towers have her worried about the development of the land.

"With that, it means roads and fencing and everything else involved with it," Turvery said. "I do not want it to look like Desert Hot Springs."

The project manager from Element Power, Jackie Kossman, says the project still has about two years of testing before the company will decide whether building a farm in the area is worth the investment. Then, it is up to the Bureau of Land Management to approve any projects. While the BLM is allowing Element Power to test the site, any project proposal will be accompanied by environmental reports and public comment.

"People have ample opportunity - well, maybe not ample, but they certainly have an opportunity to contribute their voices to this project," said Mickey Quillman, of the Barstow Field Office.

Quillman says he has been inundated with emails about the project. He encourages locals to get involved in the public process.

'Smoketree painter' Carl Bray dies at 94

Artist Carl Bray with author and friend Ann Japenga

Written by Coburn Palmer and Mariecar Mendoza
The Desert Sun

Carl Bray, a famous desert artist and “smoketree painter” who lived in Indian Wells and built the Carl Bray house and gallery along Highway 111, died Saturday morning from natural causes in Banning. He was 94.

J. Patrick Bray called his father “absolutely complex,” and said while he remembers his father painting, he also said Carl Bray easily could have been an engineer.

“He built a crazy steam car out of an old golf cart he bought that we thought was going to blow up on him one day, but no, it never did, and he just drove it around the house,” he said, laughing.

Bray was born in 1917 in Prague, Okla. He studied art during the Great Depression at Miami College in the Dust Bowl state, while working on farms to pay his tuition.

He moved west to find work in 1936 and landed a job with the railroad in Southern California, where he worked for more than 40 years.

He married his wife, Luella, in 1939 and moved 20 miles east of Niland.

The railroad job took Bray and his wife to the Los Angeles area during WWII, where they bought property in rural El Monte, built a house and started their family of four.

In the early 1950s, Bray bought a Highway 111 frontage lot in Indian Wells for $1,000. Working weekends and vacations, he built a house and gallery, and the family moved to the desert in 1953.

At the time there was little development in Indian Wells. The Brays' neighbors included a few cabins, a dance hall, two small groceries, two gas stations, a dance hall and a café.

Bray continued working for the railroad while his wife ran the gallery. In the early 1960s, the Brays started to spend summers in Taos, where he had a gallery on the plaza for several years.

Bray retired from the railroad and continued to paint. His paintings are owned by celebrities and held by the city of Indian Wells in its permanent collection.

The couple sold their Indian Wells property at the turn of the century and moved to Banning.

His wife Luella died in 2008, and the 50-year-old property in Indian Wells, with its signature paint palette sign, was demolished in 2010. The Indian Wells City Council is still discussing plans to replace it with a memorial park.

“Carl was a person that you kind of felt that you'd always known very well,” said Adele Ruxton, president of the Indian Wells Historic Preservation Foundation

The funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at the Fellowship in the Pass Church, 650 Oak Valley parkway in Beaumont.

He is survived by his children Mary Weinhold (Bill), Sylvia Bray (Bernardo Larque), J. Patrick Bray (Linda), Michael Bray (Patt); nine grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

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/

Demolition crews take down Carl Bray house

The Carl Bray House and Gallery was demolished and will soon be replaced with an “interpretive exhibit” to showcase artifacts from the historic site. (Courtesy of the City of Indian Wells)

Mariecar Mendoza
The Desert Sun

The last of the Carl Bray House and Gallery has been torn down to replace what the Indian Wells City Council called an “attractive nuisance” with a safer alternative.

Demolition of the more than 50-year-old building began last week, with final work completed Wednesday, Indian Wells officials said.

On Nov. 4, the City Council approved the demolition and gave the green light for city staff to move forward with work on an “interpretive exhibit” to showcase artifacts from the historic site.

The demolition was the result of more than a year of debate between city officials and residents who wanted to preserve the historic building.

The building was named after Bray, an artist known nationally for his desert landscapes and smoke tree paintings and has been a staple of the city since the early 1950s.

The city purchased the 14,148-square-foot site in January 2009 for nearly $260,000 claiming the structure posed a “safety hazard.”

The city spent $56,000 for the environmental impact report and legal services needed to ensure a vetted process.

The demolition cost about $58,000, said Community Development Director Corrie Kates.

Had the city decided to rehabilitate the building, city officials said it would have cost an estimated $960,000.

“We tried our best to save something of old Indian Wells,” said Adele Ruxton, president of the Indian Wells Historic Preservation Foundation, who fought to preserve the historic site.

“I hope that whatever appears as the interpretive exhibit on the Carl Bray site really depicts not only the artist who lived and worked there, but tells the story of old Indian Wells when it was but an Indian Village.”