Park Service signs deal to round up Death Valley’s wild burros

A wild burro stands in Death Valley National Park. The agency has entered into a five-year agreement with a nonprofit rescue group to remove all burros from the park. (National Park Service)

By Henry Brean
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Death Valley National Park hopes to be burro-free within the next five years.

The National Park Service said Thursday it has entered into a contract with Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue, a Texas-based nonprofit, to round up and remove up to 2,500 wild burros from the park 100 miles west of Las Vegas.

The animals are not native to Death Valley, but they have made themselves at home there, said park Superintendent Mike Reynolds. They damage springs and vegetation, create a safety hazard on park roads and compete for food and water with desert bighorn sheep and other native animals.

“Burros are not part of the natural California desert ecosystem,” Reynolds said in a written statement. “With this partnership, we have created a win-win situation for the burros, the park and taxpayers.”

Starting later this month, Peaceful Valley will lure the animals with food and water or drive them with wranglers on horseback into temporary pens. The burros will then be trucked out of the park to training centers to be prepped for adoption.

“Our main objective is to protect our wild burros. If they must be removed, we want to ensure that it is done safely with as little stress possible,” Mark Meyers, the rescue group’s executive director, said in a written statement.

“This is what they do,” Death Valley spokeswoman Abby Wines said of Peaceful Valley. “Their main mission is to rescue burros and put them up for adoption.”

Wines said the group has agreed to find room at one of its sanctuaries for any animals that can’t be trained or placed in new homes.

Pleasant Valley also plans to remove up to 2,500 wild burros from nearby Mojave National Preserve in California under the same five-year contract.

The operation is being paid for with private donations and grants to the group. Wines said the cost to the federal government is “pretty close to zero.”

Eliminating wild burros from Death Valley has been the Park Service’s stated goal since the adoption of a master plan for the 3.4 million acre park in 2002, but no roundups have been conducted since 2005.

So why now? “They’re multiplying,” Wines said. “We don’t really know what our population is, but we think it’s in the neighborhood of 2,000.”

The largest concentrations of burros can be found in Saline and Butte valleys and in the Wildrose area, she said, but the animals also have recently shown up in the Black Mountains south of Dantes View for the first time since the 1940s.

The National Park Service is allowed to remove them because it is not bound by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which requires the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to manage and maintain the animals on public land.

The wild burros of today are not related to the larger animals used in the 20-mule teams that famously hauled borax out of Death Valley in the late 1800s, but Wines said they may be the descendants of old pack animals once used by prospectors in the region.

“That’s the foundation of the wild population in the West,” she said.

The Park Service doesn’t expect the upcoming roundup to eliminate the burro problem entirely.

For one thing, Wines said, “it will be very hard to get all of them.”

And there is nothing to stop burros from neighboring parts of Nevada and California from making their way into Death Valley some day.

“We’re not going to fence the park,” Wines said.

Strange Amargosa River creates series of Mojave oases

The Amargosa River winds its way through a canyon near China Ranch Date Farm on its way to Death Valley. (Las Vegas Review-Journal file photo)

By Margo Bartlett Pesek
Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Amargosa River, a strange desert stream that runs mostly underground, meanders 185 miles through the Mojave Desert. Starting in the hills near Beatty, it courses south and loops north to end up in California at Badwater in Death Valley National Park, only about 50 miles from where it began.

Where the river runs on the desert surface, it creates a series of oases with running water, wetlands, lush vegetation, even a waterfall in Amargosa Canyon, a protected 26-mile section between Shoshone, Calif., and Dumont Dunes Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Area.

Set aside by law in 2009, the portion of the river through Amargosa Canyon is listed as one of America's Wild and Scenic Rivers. It is considered an area of critical environmental concern because of several species of endangered animals and plants found nowhere else. Administered by the Bureau of Land Management as the Amargosa River Natural Area, the canyon is open to public use for a wide variety of recreational pursuits compatible with species protection aims.

Off-highway driving is restricted to the high sand mountains and extensive sand seas that make up the Dumont Dunes south of the protected area. This attraction draws crowds of enthusiasts during cool-season weekends and holidays. The nearby Amargosa River Natural Area and other public lands are closed to off-roaders. Motorized vehicles must stay on roads and trails marked for their use. There are many miles of paved and unpaved tracks open to scenic touring and exploration in the area.

To reach the region from Las Vegas, head south on Interstate 15 to state Route 160, the road to Pahrump Valley. Watch for the turnoff from Route 160 onto the Old Spanish Trail Highway toward Tecopa and Shoshone, named for the famous overland route between Santa Fe, N.M., and Los Angeles used during the 1800s. You can also continue to Pahrump and turn on state Route 178 to reach Shoshone at the junction with state Route 129, then turn south to reach Tecopa. Some travelers continue south on I-15 to Baker, Calif., then turn north on state Route 129 toward Shoshone, a route often preferred by off-roaders heading for Dumont Dunes.

Humans have been living in and traveling through the Amargosa area for thousands of years. Visitors today see signs of their passing in occasional petroglyphs, grinding holes pockmarking stone in traditional camping areas, scattered rock chips from making stone points and tools and roasting pits where food was cooked in the ground. Early hunters and gatherers followed the water to find game and the natural foods that grew along the ancient stream. The Amargosa River has been cutting its way through ancient layers of stone in this area for a long time as it carved its deep little canyon.

The plants, birds and animals remain attractions drawing humans to this area, but today they come to watch, admire and photograph the creatures drawn to the oasis. Visitors walk, hike, climb, ride horses and mountain bike along trails in the area. At least 250 kinds of birds have been sighted, both residents and migrants. Many rabbits, rodents and other small creatures live there. Nighttime brings out myriad stars, several kinds of bats and nocturnal hunters such as owls, coyotes, foxes and bobcats.

The old grade of the long-defunct Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad now provides pathways to points of interest along the river, including the 6-mile Amargosa River Trail with its trailhead at China Ranch, a date farm in a side canyon south of Tecopa Hot Springs off Furnace Creek Road.

Ask at China Ranch how to reach the 4-mile round-trip Slot Canyon Trail. Allow yourself time to sample the baked goods, dates, gifts and milkshakes at China Ranch.

The Grimshaw Lake Watchable Wildlife site is near the old railroad grade, about a mile along a dirt road west of the highway halfway between Tecopa Hot Springs and the community of Tecopa. Private and public bathhouses and resorts are a draw at the hot springs. Details for hikers, climbers and rockhounds can be found at blm.gov/barstow/amargosa.

San Bernardino County’s national parks face huge repair backlog

"The potholes on the road in the (Mojave) National Preserve are so bad that people are getting flat tires."

Joshua Tree National Park saw more visitors in 2014 than any other year. (Staff file photo)

By Jim Steinberg
San Bernardino Sun

Going into the 100th Anniversary of the National Park Service, the nation’s 59 national parks have $11.5 billion in deferred maintenance — a record amount.

Three areas run by the NPS that are in at least partially in San Bernardino County have a combined $351 million backlog, says a recent NPS report on its collective deferred maintenance.

“The last big influx of money into the National Parks was under the Mission 66 program under the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s and 1960s,” said David Smith, superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park, where the deferred maintenance budget is $83.2 million, primarily for roads, as is the case for the National Parks system as a whole.

Up and down California the deferred maintenance backlog has hit $1.7 billion, said John Gardner, director of budget and appropriations for the National Parks Conservation Association.

“The budget and appropriations system has broken down in recent years. ...We are unable to come to agreement to preserve one of America’s most prized assets,” he said.

“If Congress does not address the national parks’ infrastructure, they are going to fall into irreparable disrepair,” Gardner said.

At Joshua Tree National Park, which had a banner year last year with 1.6 million visitors, $70 million of the backlog is for roads.

Other deferred items:

• $3.8 million for trails.

• $3 million for building improvements.

• $1.5 million for campgrounds.

Death Valley has a backlog of $159 million, with $141 million for roads.

The Mojave National Preserve has a $109 million backlog, of which $103 million is for roads, Gardner said.

Every dollar invested in national parks generates $10 in economic activity, according to NPS research.

Yet the Park Service budget represents one-fifteenth of 1 percent of the federal budget, costing the average family roughly the same as a cup of coffee each year in tax dollars, according to the National Parks Conservation Service.

Ahead of the celebration of the NPS Centennial in 2016, NPS Director Jonathan B. Jarvis, told members of the House subcommittee on Interior that visitors to America’s national parks are “too often”... “greeted by facilities in disrepair instead of a seasoned ranger ready to answer their questions.”

“I’m particularly sensitive to the deferred maintenance backlog in our National Parks system,” said Rep Paul Cook, R-Apple Valley. “My district has a number of National Park Service areas, including the Mojave National Preserve, that have experienced a significant amount of infrastructure deterioration over the years. The public must have access to public lands and without adequate roads, this is nearly impossible.”

Said Gardner: “The potholes on the road in the (Mojave) National Preserve are so bad that people are getting flat tires.”

Since 2005, the total budget for the NPS has declined by nearly half a billion dollars, or 22 percent in today’s dollars, Gardner said.

“To address this growing problem,” Cook said Friday, “I’ve signed on to a letter with several of my colleagues in Congress calling on the Appropriations subcommittee on Interior to augment current maintenance funding levels in the 2016 budget. This is an important step towards ensuring the public’s ability to recreate in our National Park Service land for years to come.”

“Preserving and maintaining our National Parks is important to our community and regional identity,” Rep. Pete Aguilar, R-Rancho Cucamonga, said Friday in a statement . “The lack of adequate funding prevents members of the community from enjoying the beauty and character of the Inland Empire. I absolutely believe we need to do a better job maintaining our National Parks.”

A new push for protecting public lands in the desert

Joshua Tree National Park, Wednesday, October 29, 2014. (Jay Calderon)

Ian James
The Desert Sun

Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act, turning Joshua Tree and Death Valley national monuments into national parks, creating the Mojave National Preserve, and establishing more than 3.6 million acres of wilderness areas across the Mojave Desert.

On the anniversary of those sweeping changes, conservationists are rallying around a plan by Sen. Dianne Feinstein to relaunch legislation that would further expand protected areas in the desert and create two new national monuments – one of them stretching from the desert oases of the Whitewater Preserve and Big Morongo Canyon to the alpine forests of the San Bernardino Mountains.

The Democratic senator introduced the original California Desert Protection Act, which was enacted on Oct. 31, 1994, and calls the law one of her proudest legislative accomplishments. Feinstein plans to join the 20-year anniversary celebrations speaking at a Nov. 6 event hosted by The Wildlands Conservancy at the Whitewater Preserve.

"The 1994 law was a great first step, but there is broad consensus that more needs to be done," Feinstein said in a statement ahead of her visit. "I plan to introduce an updated bill in the new Congress that will balance the needs of this land, protecting the most fragile regions, setting aside other land for recreation use and allowing the state and local communities to benefit from this bill."

The legislation, which is expected to be introduced in January, is an updated version of a bill that Feinstein has been promoting since 2009.

While the details have yet to be announced, the proposal centers on creating two new national monuments covering more than 1 million acres. It would establish the Sand to Snow National Monument, stretching from near Joshua Tree National Park to Mt. San Gorgonio, as well as the Mojave Trails National Monument, between Joshua Tree and the Mojave Preserve, including a historic stretch of scenic Route 66.

That status would heighten the level of protection for vast areas of desert with a rich variety of plants and animals ranging from desert tortoises to bighorn sheep. The bill would also designate additional federal lands as protected wilderness and would designate four areas as recreational sites for off-road vehicles.

Those steps will ensure wildlife "corridors" and help keep ecosystems intact, said April Sall, conservation director of The Wildlands Conservancy.

"It's a pretty important ecological hotspot, and it's a great opportunity to highlight that and at the same time create a tourist attraction and provide great access points for the public to enter the wilderness," said Sall, whose organization administers the Whitewater Preserve and is supporting the creation of new wilderness areas.

The national monuments proposed by Feinstein would include areas that are also separately proposed for protection under the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which would divide 22.5 million acres of the desert into zones for solar and other energy projects, conservation lands, and recreation sites.

David Lamfrom, associate director of National Parks Conservation Association, said that by creating additional national monuments, Feinstein's bill would make an area that has already grown increasingly popular as a tourist destination even more attractive.

"As the world gets smaller, our wide open spaces and our starry skies become really what everybody else is looking for," Lamfrom said.

The lure of Joshua Tree for visitors has grown markedly since it became a national park and was expanded under the California Desert Protection Act. The numbers of visitors have grown from less than 1.2 million in 1994 to what is expected to be a record 1.5 million visitors this year.

Those hikers, climbers, campers and others have brought a growing economic boost to communities such as Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree, where motels, restaurants, and gas stations depend largely on out-of-towners during the cool winter months.

"The protection of the desert land all around us is extremely important because visitors come to escape urban America," said Vickie Waite, executive director of the Joshua Tree National Park Council for the Arts, which is coordinating a series of events celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 1994 law.

The anniversary events include hikes, speeches, receptions and the unveiling of a new mural in communities across the desert.

Those attending the anniversary events will include Pat Flanagan, a naturalist who leads nature walks at the Oasis of Mara.

"Something as monumental, congressionally monumental, as this should be celebrated, and every 10 years is a good time to do it," Flanagan said.

She praised Feinstein's work in backing the legislation 20 years ago, and recalled that those changes took years to win approval after an initial version was introduced by Sen. Alan Cranston in 1986.

"This is not easy work, and you have to have a long vision," Flanagan said.

The work of creating Joshua Tree National Park and the other desert wilderness areas goes back a century and has involved many contributors.

Minerva Hamilton Hoyt for years championed the creation of a national park before President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Joshua Tree National Monument in 1936. By 1950, the size of the park had been reduced significantly to make room for mining of iron and gold.

During the past two decades, the national park has been expanding, though it remains significantly smaller than the original national monument created by FDR. That gradual expansion has been boosted by the Mojave Desert Land Trust, a nonprofit formed in 2005, which has bought 123 properties totaling 7,500 acres.

Danielle Segura, the organization's executive director, said the 1994 law guides its work and is "a hallmark for protecting open spaces for the public."

At the park headquarters, Superintendent David Smith has a series of maps on his wall showing how the boundaries of Joshua Tree National Park have changed since 1936.

"This is the boundary that FDR created for the park, in his opinion, working with conservationists at the time," Smith said, standing beside the map. "He thought this was a realistic appraisal of what the park should be. I think we're trying to replicate that. We're looking at more, broader ecosystem management."

Smith said that includes working on ways to link the national parks and other protected areas to allow for migration corridors, and also working with other agencies to protect wilderness areas outside the park.

Those tasks take on even greater importance, he said, as the park plans for threats including global warming and fires fueled by invasive weeds – which scientists predict could lead to the disappearance of Joshua trees in much of the park by the end of the century.

"It's a bigger picture. It's more than just the boundaries around the park," Smith said. "Yeah, we've come a long way in preserving some of these desert places, but now we've got to look outside."

Suspect identified in 8 graffiti vandalism cases in National Parks

Casey Nocket identified as prime suspect In 'Creepytings' national parks vandalism (Modern Hiker)

By Steve Gorman
Reuters

LOS ANGELES — Federal officials have publicly identified a woman suspected of graffiti vandalism in at least eight national parks across the West, including Yosemite and Death Valley in California, and credit social media for helping pinpoint the alleged culprit.

Casey Nocket of New York state has not been arrested or charged but was confirmed Thursday as “the major suspect” in an investigation of one of the most widespread acts of serial vandalism documented in the National Park System.

The case was brought to light in a series of photos obtained and posted by the Internet blog Modern Hiker and furnished to the National Park Service picturing numerous graffiti drawings, all signed “Creepytings” and dated 2014.

One shows a woman the blog identified as Nocket putting the finishing touches on an acrylic drawing of a cigarette-smoking figure scrawled on a canyon wall at Utah’s Canyonlands National Park in June.

Others show drawings of a woman with blue hair on a ledge overlooking Oregon’s Crater Lake and a bald man with a snake protruding from his mouth on a trailside rock in California’s Yosemite National Park.

The Park Service said initially it was investigating such vandalism in at least 10 Western national parks.

But agency spokeswoman Alexandra Picavet said Thursday that Nocket had been tied as a suspect to graffiti in eight parks: Yosemite, Death Valley and Joshua Tree in California; Crater Lake in Oregon; Zion and Canyonlands in Utah; and Rocky Mountain National Park and Colorado National Monument in Colorado.

Although instant gratification afforded by social media exposure was cited in a New York Times report last year for a rise in graffiti defacings on public lands, Picavet said social media in this case played a key role in the investigation.

The Modern Hiker said its photos were gathered earlier this month by screen shots taken of the suspect’s Instagram and Tumblr accounts, which have since been set to “Private.”

Park Service investigators also received numerous photos and other information from members of the public outraged over the defacings, Picavet said.

Vandalism is a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine, although prosecutors could decide to bring more serious charges.

“This is an open investigation,” Picavet said.

Yosemite spokeswoman Kari Cobb said vandalism occurred there occasionally but was “not common.” She added: “As far as a widespread case like this, it’s the first one I’m aware of.”

Death Valley Mystery Solved

Santa Barbara Team Discovers Wind and Ice Behind the Racetrack’s “Sailing Stones”

HOW THE HECK? A sailing stone leaves a trail after it scooted along The Racetrack. (Scott Beckner)

by Matt Kettmann
Santa Barbara Independent

In a landscape dominated by marvelous natural oddities, no location fascinates more visitors to Death Valley National Park than The Racetrack, a cracked-earth playa where rocks big and small magically move from place to place, leaving distinctly smooth tracks across the otherwise uniform lake bed as their only evidence. For decades, if not centuries, the phenomenon mystified even the most diligent researchers, becoming a standard passage in geology textbooks, prompting more than one dozen scientific inquiries, and provoking all manner of possible causes, from tricks by frat boys to the handiwork of little green men.

The mystery is no more, thanks to Santa Barbara native Jim Norris, who ​— ​along with his cousin, Richard Norris, and a team of mostly S.B.-based volunteers ​— ​discovered through a mix of amateur investigation and lucky happenstance exactly how these stones sail. In a paper published this week in the scholarly journal Plos One, Norris and company reveal how last winter ​— ​amid a very rare convergence of freezing temperatures and a standing playa pool of recent rain and snowmelt ​— ​they documented football-field-sized sheets of windowpane-thin ice being floated by wind across the slick, muddy playa and pushing the rocks, some as far as 700 feet.

“We watched it happen,” said Norris, who started monitoring Racetrack movements in 2012 as part of a “recreational science” experiment and was on-site for routine equipment maintenance in late December when the event occurred. “The sheets of ice start ramming into the stones and bulldozing them along. It’s all ultra-slow-motion.” The discovery, which has been sought scientifically since at least 1948, when the first academic paper was published about the rocks, is quickly making waves in the annals of popular science, with reports published this week in the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, and Nature, among other publications.

Norris first visited The Racetrack in the 1960s with his father, the late Robert Norris, who was a professor of geology for many years at UCSB. The younger Norris, a graduate of Vieja Valley, San Marcos High, and San Diego State, became more intrigued in 2008, when he started scouring existing reports. He enlisted his cousin Richard, a paleobiologist at UC San Diego, in the completely self-financed hunt, and they set about equipping research-ready rocks with GPS tracking devices, which are one of the things that Norris makes for his engineering company, Interwoof. The first rocks were laid in early 2012 with National Park Service blessing, and the team made trips there every six to eight weeks.

In late November 2013, a brief rain and snowstorm formed a three-inch-deep pool on the playa, which was still there when the Norris cousins arrived in late December. Surprised by the pool and unable to enter the playa due to the “complete slop” of mud that sat on the surface, the cousins worked the northern part of the area and noticed that the pool seemed to be blowing uphill toward the playa’s mudflats as the winds increased. Soon, their rocks were actually moving for the first time.



“We started documenting it hard, not really understanding exactly what it meant,” said Norris, who determined what was happening over the next couple of days and subsequent trips, thanks to more observations and camera footage. “I think other people have probably been there when it happened, but they can’t tell,” said Norris. “It’s slow and so far away and at an oblique angle.”

The news throws a wrench into theories related to magic, magnetism, or Area 51. “I’ve even seen a wonderful photograph of a horned lizard pushing a stone,” said Norris, with a laugh. “It’s pretty amazing what the public will come up with.” But most in the scientific community figured the phenomenon was somehow reliant on ice and wind, so the Norrises had also erected a weather station as part of their project and were prepared to spend more than 10 years before reaching any conclusions. But despite the technology, had they not been on-site to witness the sheet ice bulldozers, the Norrises might still be scratching their heads, even with data in hand, especially since the movement occurred with relatively light wind rather than the hurricane force gales widely suspected.

Norris admits feeling “a little wistful” at having pulled the curtain off of Death Valley’s beloved mystery and knows there will be some public dismay. But he hopes it may shed light on processes elsewhere in the universe ​— ​important planetary scientists, for instance, have researched The Racetrack before ​— ​and he believes knowing is more important than supposing. He explained, “It’s hard to be a scientist, and I’m just an amateur scientist, and not want to figure stuff out and not get joy out of going, ‘Wow, that’s how this works!’”

California Desert Protection Act turns 20, celebrations planned

“Queen Valley” by Yucca Valley photographer Mike Fagan. (Courtesy Joshua Tree National Park Council for the Arts)

By Joe Nelson
San Bernardino Sun

The Joshua Tree National Park Council for the Arts, in cooperation with Death Valley National Park and the Mojave National Preserve, will be sponsoring a series of events this fall in celebration of the 20-year anniversary of the California Desert Protection Act, which expanded protection of California desert land by 8.6 million acres.

Events are planned from Oct. 31 through Nov. 15 from the Coachella Valley to Death Valley.

The Council for the Arts has launched a website, caldesert20.org, which includes a calendar of planned events that will updated regularly and a link to the summary and text of the California Desert Protection Act.

Adopted on Oct. 31, 1994, the California Desert Protection Act established the Mojave National Preserve and designated Joshua Tree and Death Valley national monuments as state [sic] parks while also expanding their footprint. It also established 69 wilderness areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Feinstein said in a statement Friday that the California Desert Protection Act has allowed millions of Americans to enjoy 7 million acres of pristine California desert.

“Since that bill passed 20 years ago, I remain absolutely convinced that preserving this pristine desert land is the right thing to do,” Feinstein said. “That’s why I will soon introduce new legislation that will protect lands donated to the federal government by creating a new national monument while allowing recreation and renewable energy development to occur in other desert lands where it is more appropriate.”

She said there are not many spaces that are as pristine, as beautiful and worthy of protection than the California desert.

“I’m proud to have a wide array of allies in this pursuit, and I am eager to continue my work to preserve this land,” Feinstein said.

The Council for the Arts is working with the city of Twentynine Palms, the town of Yucca Valley and the unincorporated Joshua Tree and Morongo Valley to promote events to be held in mid-November that include a Desert Dinner featuring local elected officials and the national park’s new superintendent, a mural unveiling in Twentynine Palms, wilderness walks and hikes at Joshua Tree National Park and art exhibits, said Vickie Waite, executive director of the Joshua Tree National Park Council for the Arts.

Waite encourages local organizations and members of the community to get involved by contacting her via email at director@caldesert20.org.

In Ridgecrest near Death Valley, visitors can experience the first ever Ridgecrest Petroglyph and Heritage Festival in November, which will highlight American Indian rock art in desert mountains and the Indian Wells Valley, said Doug Lueck, executive director of the Ridgecrest Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Huge solar project questioned

The proposed Silurian Valley solar project would install photovoltaic panels such as those pictured here at the First Solar is project near Desert Center. The project would cover 11 square miles of public lands north of Baker, dwarfing the mammoth Brightsource Solar project near Ivanpah Dry Lake. (David Danelski)

David Danelski
Riverside Press-Enterprise

Worries about possible environmental damage from another large-scale solar project proposed for the Southern California desert has prompted the federal government to give people more time to submit comments on the proposal.

The Silurian Valley solar project would go on 11-square miles of public land in San Bernardino County, about 10 miles north of Baker, between Death Valley National Park and the Mojave National Preserve.

The project calls for erecting thousands of photovoltaic panels that would generate a peak of 200 megawatts of electricity -- enough for more than 35,000 homes. The panels would be arranged in several arrays and connected by 44 miles of new roads.

Art Sasse, a spokesman for the developer, Iberdrola Renewables, said the location was chosen because of its ample sunshine and proximity to power lines. The company is the United States subsidiary of Iberdrola SA, which is based in the autonomous Basque region of northern Spain.

The project is one of many large-scale solar plants proposed in Southern California deserts. The Obama administration has approved six commercial-scale solar projects on public land in the deserts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Three already are operating. An additional eight are in the planning stages.

After people raised several concerns about the Silurian Valley solar project during a public meeting in Barstow last month, Sasse said his company supported extending the public comment period by a month. The new deadline is May 28.

“The public needs more time to express its interest in the project,” he said.

David Lamfrom, the California desert program manager of the National Parks Conservation Association, said the project is “poorly sited” and well outside a solar energy development zone set in 2012 by the Obama administration to avoid environmental conflicts.

The project would mar what is now a scenic, 30-mile drive on Highway 127 between Death Valley National Park and Mojave National Preserve, he contends.

”We know this site is critical for kit fox and golden eagle, and is a stunning landscape enjoyed by millions of residents and (park) tourists alike each year. We know there are better places for these projects,” Lamfrom said.

The project area also may have cultural significance. The site is near trails used by Native Americans and it’s close to the Old Spanish Trail, which was the route Mormons and other white settlers took after crossing Death Valley, said Joan Patrovsky, a real estate specialist for the BLM.

Sasse said Iberdrola is following a stringent environmental review process designed for projects that fall outside the solar designation zones and these reviews will address all concerns raised about the project.

He added that projects outside solar zones also are needed to bolster the nation’s alternative energy supply that’s needed to cut the carbon emissions associated with global warming.

He also said the company wants to be transparent and is working with the BLM to publicly release biological surveys and other reviews and studies commissioned by the company during the past three years.

The BLM asks that comments about the projects’ impacts on views, air quality, recreation, wildlife, cultural resources and any other issues be sent to: Katrina Symons, BLM Barstow Field Manager, 2601 Barstow Road, Barstow, CA 92311 or by email to Silurian_Valley_Solar@blm.gov.

Feds Declare 2 Endangered Death Valley National Park Plants Recovered

Eureka Valley evening primrose (USFWS/Flickr/Creative Commons License)

by Chris Clarke
KCET.org

Two plants found only in Death Valley National Park that have been on the Endangered list since 1978 have since recovered, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is proposing to remove them from the list.

The Eureka Valley evening primrose and the Eureka dunegrass have been successfully protected, says USFWS, from the main threat that prompted their inclusion on the Endangered Species list 36 years ago: off-road vehicle riders trampling the Eureka Dunes. The plants are found only on those dunes, which have been part of Death Valley National Park since the passage of the California Desert Protection Act in 1994.

Though USFWS says the plants still face threats from climate change and from competition from exotic weeds, especially tumbleweeds, the agency says those threats aren't dire enough to keep the plants on the Endangered list, and is proposing to delist both species.

The proposal, which will be published in the Federal Register on Thursday, follows a 2010 petition from the Pacific Legal Foundation that urged USFWS to remove the two species from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). (Both plants only grow in federally designated wilderness within Death Valley National Park, so the likely boon to PLF's conservative constituency in getting the plants delisted would seem purely symbolic.)

The biggest threat to the Eureka Valley evening primrose (Oenothera avita eurekensis) and the Eureka dune grass (Swallenia alexandrae), disturbance from off-road vehicle use and the associated campsites in the dunes, came to a halt even before the Eureka Valley was added to Death Valley National Park. The Bureau of Land Management declared the dunes and the surrounding area off-limits to off-road vehicles in 1976, in response to the proposed listing of both plants as endangered under ESA. In 1980, the BLM declared the Eureka Dunes area an Area of Critical Environmental Concern, an administrative designation that allows the BLM to better protect the landscape.

Soon after the dunes were transferred from the BLM to the National Park Service in 1994, the whole area was declared a federal wilderness area, permanently keeping vehicles off the dunes. An October 1997 article in Esquire on the new sport sandboarding identified the Eureka Dunes as a choice destination for the sport, raising concerns that boarders would crush plants. The Park Service prohibited the sport on the dunes in 2002.

The Park Service isn't as able to prohibit the spread of tumbleweeds, a.k.a Russian thistle (Salsola). The invasive plant has grown on the dunes since the 1970s, likely brought in by livestock in the north end of the valley. But while Salsola is a serious threat to other native plants throughout the west, the evening-primrose and the dune grass seem to do fine even in the presence of tumbleweeds.

Despite the symbolic victory for the anti-environmental Pacific Legal Foundation, environmental groups are applauding the proposed delisting as well. "These two unique California plants join the long list of species the Endangered Species Act has saved from extinction," said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. "From the blue whale to Eureka dune grass, this remarkably successful law has prevented the extinction of our country's most vulnerable wild heritage for 40 years now."

The USFWS delisting proposal now launches a 60-day public comment period.