Assemblyman blasts park service interference in solar projects

By MARK WAITE
Pahrump Valley Times

Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, fired off a scathing letter to National Park Service Regional Director Jonathan Jarvis, saying Jarvis' objections to building solar power plants on public lands was "totally out of step with national policy to create jobs through clean energy and increase national security."

The letter, dated April 27, said Jarvis' letter to Amy Leuders, acting state director of the Nevada Bureau of Land Management, is a "misguided attempt" to influence BLM and U.S. Department of Energy policies.

Jarvis' letter said the National Park Service supports BLM efforts to promote renewable energy. But he added, "The NPS asserts that it is not in the public interest for the BLM to approve plans of development for water-cooled solar energy projects in the arid basins of Southern Nevada."

Solar power plants using water-cooled technology would use large amounts of water, Jarvis wrote. He urged the encouragement of air-cooling and photo-voltaic technology.

Areas with high solar energy potential also are areas of scarce water resources, he wrote.

Jarvis asked the BLM to consider regional impacts of large-scale solar projects on National Park Service facilities like Devil's Hole, Lake Mead National Recreation Area and the Mojave National Preserve.

Jarvis said affects that should be evaluated include water availability, degradation of visual resources like the night sky, air quality impacts from construction and operations, sound impacts if turbines or cooling towers are used and interruption of wildlife habitat.

"Depending on the location of these projects, large-scale concentrating solar energy projects in Southern Nevada that require large amounts of water potentially face several water rights-related obstacles in obtaining the necessary water for their projects," Jarvis said. "These obstacles are based around several rulings and orders that the Nevada State Engineer's office has issued in recent years."

In particular he referred to Amargosa Valley, where the state engineer ruled the basin is over-appropriated by 18,000 acre feet per year and applications for new water rights will be denied.

Goedhart said state engineer's ruling 1197, issued last November, precludes moving points of diversion for water rights in Amargosa Valley closer to Devil's Hole, home of an endangered pupfish.

But Goedhart added, "Farmers who sell or lease their existing water rights can keep the existing wells in place by piping the water to the solar project site. Indeed some water right diversions will be moved north and away from Devil's Hole, mitigating any current effects on Devil's Hole."

"I personally have spoken to the governor's office, and Nevada will not stand in the way of converting agricultural water to commercial water for the purposes of power generation, a higher, value-added, economic benefit," Goedhart wrote.

Jarvis said the state engineer issued an order holding in abeyance applications for water rights in basins north of Lake Mead National Recreation Area, where solar energy projects were proposed pending further studies.

Jarvis quoted ruling 5115 pertaining to that water basin, which states, "The state engineer does not believe it is prudent to use substantial quantities of newly appropriated ground water for water-cooled power plants in one of the driest places in the nation particularly with the uncertainty as to what quantity of water is available from the resource, if any."

"Please note that the deputy engineer does not set policy. We in the Nevada State Legislature, in conjunction with the governor, set policy," Goedhart wrote.

Goedhart said a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory showed the construction of 2,000 megawatts of solar power plants in Nevada would create $500 million in taxes, 5,900 construction jobs for six years and 1,200 full-time operation and maintenance jobs.

Goedhart said Nevada's economy is struggling with the contraction of gaming, real estate and tourism.

"Any, and I repeat any attempt to override Nevada water law and compromise its sovereignty over the waters of the state of Nevada will be vigorously opposed," he wrote.

Park Service warns of solar projects' impacts to Mojave Desert

By SCOTT STREATER, Greenwire
New York Times

A National Park Service official has warned the Bureau of Land Management that approving dozens of solar power plants in southern Nevada could dramatically impact water supplies across the arid region.

An estimated 63 large-scale solar projects are proposed for BLM lands in the region, and the plants are expected to use a large amount of groundwater to cool and wash solar panels, according to the Feb. 5 memorandum sent by Jon Jarvis, director of the Park Service's Pacific West Region, to BLM's associate state director in Nevada.

Jarvis also wrote that the Park Service is concerned that the projects could produce air and light pollution, generate noise and destroy wildlife habitat near three NPS properties: the Devils Hole section of Death Valley National Park, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area and the Mojave National Preserve.

"In cases where plans of development have been submitted, the vast majority of these projects propose to use utility-scale, concentrating solar power technologies" that "can be expected to consume larger amounts of water" for cooling than other technologies, Jarvis wrote.

"In arid settings, the increased water demand from concentrating solar energy systems employing water-cooled technology could strain limited water resources already under development pressure from urbanization, irrigation expansion, commercial interests and mining," he wrote.

As such, the proposed solar plants "potentially face several water-rights related obstacles in obtaining the necessary water for their projects."

BLM officials did not publicly respond to the issues raised in the memo, although Linda Resseguie, a BLM project manager in Washington, said there is "great sensitivity" within the agency to concerns over solar power plant siting.

The bureau is conducting a programmatic environmental impact statement to be released this fall that will gauge the effects of proposed solar power development on Nevada and five other Western states, and discuss management strategies for how best to address the issue.

Avoiding sensitive lands

Environmental groups welcomed the Jarvis memo, which was disseminated this week by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Critics say they hope the memo will prompt the Interior Department to develop an overarching plan for siting renewable energy projects like solar arrays, wind farms and geothermal plants in environmentally sensitive areas.

"We think the greater significance has to do with the fact that the Interior Department has no plan for solar energy development on public lands," said Jeff Ruch, PEER's executive director.

The Nevada controversy highlights the emerging conflict between the Obama administration's plans to greatly expand the use of renewable energy and the concerns of those who fear solar arrays, wind farms and geothermal plants could disrupt or destroy wildlife habitat and soak up precious water supplies in the arid West.

While environmentalists say they support the expansion of alternative energy, some groups have raised objections to large solar arrays and wind farms that would displace endangered animals and plants and damage their habitats. They also have raised concerns about environmental damage caused by the expected build out of thousands of miles of new transmission lines necessary to bring the electricity from remote regions to power-hungry customers.

The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes massive federal incentives and tax breaks to encourage the build out of a new power grid and associated infrastructure for renewable energy development.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that developers will build dozens of wind farms, solar arrays and geothermal plants over the next four years with an estimated 7,574 megawatts of electricity generation capacity -- enough to power roughly 6 million homes for a year.

Many of the projects will be built on public land in the West.

Kim Delfino, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, said her group welcomes the renewable energy investment as long as projects are sited in areas that have already been disturbed. Suitable sites could include the more than 250,000 abandoned mines on public lands across the West, she said

BLM, the Forest Service and other agencies have indicated they are studying such proposals, including locating renewable energy projects on EPA-designated brownfields.

"The degraded places are probably just as hot, and probably get just as much sunlight, as the pristine places," PEER's Ruch said. "As long as you're in the region the exact locations should not matter much."

Targeting the West

Federal lands currently support an estimated 20 wind farms, solar arrays and geothermal energy plants across 5,000 acres managed by BLM and the Forest Service. An additional three renewable energy plants have been approved for 3,000 acres of public land in Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. In total, the existing and approved renewable energy projects promise 577 megawatts of capacity -- enough to power 460,000 homes (Land Letter, Feb. 5, 2009).

But that number could swell dramatically over the next few years, as BLM and the Forest Service work through an estimated 400 applications for new wind and solar projects for federal land. If approved, those projects would cover 2.3 million acres in seven Western states and generate an estimated 70,000 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power more than 50 million homes.

"I think like many others, the BLM has been caught off guard by the sheer volume and intensity of what's happening," Delfino said.

Meanwhile, energy companies have targeted the expansive Mojave Desert on the Nevada-California border as an emerging hub of solar energy development.

The area includes millions of acres of undeveloped, federally managed land that receives high solar intensity year-round. But the Mojave Desert is also home to a wide array of wildlife, including desert tortoises and rare plants like the Rusby's desert-mallow, the cave evening primrose and the Mojave milkweed, said Sid Silliman, energy chairman for the Sierra Club's San Gorgonio Chapter based in Riverside, Calif.

"I think sometimes the perception is the desert is barren, and that's just not true," Silliman said. "It's a very fragile environment, very diverse."

The potential loss of such habitat is driving new concerns about a proposed solar array for San Bernardino County near the Mojave National Preserve -- one of the three NPS sites Jarvis said could be at risk from large-scale solar projects.

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project, as proposed by Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy Inc., would cover 4,065 acres and produce enough electricity to power nearly 200,000 homes.

The plant would use an air-cooled system that requires less water, according to officials familiar with the proposal. But it is one of more than 100 energy projects proposed for the Mojave region, most of them solar projects. Just east of the Ivanpah site is another proposed 4,000-acre solar plant, Delfino said.

"It's great there's interest in developing renewable energy," she said. "We just need to take a deep breath and think more about what we're doing and how best to do it."

Park Service Protests Big Solar Expansion in Nevada Desert

National Parks Will Suffer from Water Withdrawals, Pollution and Habitat Loss

PRESS RELEASE
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

Washington, DC - The National Park Service is sounding an alarm about plans for scores of big solar power plants in Southern Nevada, according to an inter-agency memo posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). NPS predicts harm to national parks in the region due to water scarcity, habitat disturbance, air pollution, sound pollution and light pollution lightening night skies.

The February 9, 2009 memo from NPS Pacific Regional Director Jon Jarvis to the Acting Nevada U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Amy Leuders details concerns about 63 utility-scale solar projects slated for BLM lands in southern Nevada. Jarvis cites potential negative impacts for Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Mojave National Preserve, and the Devils Hole section of Death Valley National Park.

Above all, Jarvis stressed the lack of water to operate the solar facilities:

"The NPS asserts that it is not in the public interest for BLM to approve plans of development for water-cooled solar energy projects in the arid basins of southern Nevada, some of which are already over-appropriated, where there may be no reasonable expectation of acquiring new water rights in some basins, and where transference of existing points of diversion may be heavily constrained for some basins."

"Except for the sun, there is little that will be 'green' about mega-solar plants in the desert," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that a key dilemma is that the places of greatest solar potential are also the most arid. "There is not enough water in the desert to run utility-scale water-cooled solar plants."

Concerns about the negative impacts of big solar facilities and the transmission corridors they require to deliver power to market has led U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) to propose the creation of a new national monument covering more than a half-million Mojave Desert acres to exclude BLM solar leases.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has promised to assemble a comprehensive energy plan that will presumably minimize these inter-agency conflicts. In February, Secretary Salazar suspended BLM oil and gas lease sales in Utah following protests from NPS about negative effects on nearby national parks.

"A comprehensive energy plan is needed but cannot depend solely on public lands," added Ruch. "America's deserts should not become national sacrifice zones for energy farms."

PEER is urging alternative approaches such as rooftop solar installations. Southern California has vast areas of open roofs that do not require huge new transmission corridors. In addition, there are large private lands, such as degraded cotton and alfalfa farms, that have little current ecological value. On public lands, BLM should limit "Big Solar" power-plants to desert areas that have already been despoiled, such as toxic waste sites and abandoned mines. Co-locating solar plants with already compromised lands not only minimizes loss of wild habitat but also reduces the maintenance burden on BLM of keeping these damaged lands in exclusion.

Desert clash in West over solar power, water

Advocates of alternative energy stymied by overtaxed aquifers, tiny fish

Associated Press



Mike Bower, left, a biologist with the National Park Service, with Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor Cynthia Martinez in Devil's Hole, the endangered Devil's Hole pupfish's only natural habitat, in Death Valley National Park in Nevada.

OAKLAND, Calif. - A westward dash to power electricity-hungry cities by cashing in on the desert's most abundant resource — sunshine — is clashing with efforts to protect the tiny pupfish and desert tortoise and stinginess over the region's rarest resource: water.

Water is the cooling agent for what traditionally has been the most cost-efficient type of large-scale solar plants. To some solar companies answering Washington's push for renewable energy on vast government lands, it's also an environmental thorn. The unusual collision pits natural resources protections against President Barack Obama's plans to produce more environmentally friendly energy.

The solar hopefuls are encountering overtaxed aquifers and a legendary legacy of Western water wars and legal and regulatory scuffles. Some are moving to more costly air-cooled technology — which uses 90 percent less water — for solar plants that will employ miles of sun-reflecting mirrors across the Western deserts. Others see market advantages in solar dish or photovoltaic technologies that don't require steam engines and cooling water and that are becoming more economically competitive.

The National Park Service is worried about environmental consequences of solar proposals on government lands that are administered by the Bureau of Land Management. It says it supports the solar push but is warning against water drawdowns, especially in southern Nevada. In the Amargosa Valley, the endangered, electric-blue pupfish lives in a hot water, aquifer-fed limestone cavern called Devil's Hole.

"It is not in the public interest for BLM to approve plans of development for water-cooled solar energy projects in the arid basins of southern Nevada, some of which are already over-appropriated," Jon Jarvis, director of the Park Service's Pacific West Region, wrote to the BLM director in Nevada.

'Water is a big concern'

Jarvis' e-mail from February, obtained by The Associated Press, noted that the rare pupfish's dwindling numbers prompted Nevada to ban new groundwater allocations within 25 miles of the pool.

Jarvis urged the BLM to promote technologies that use less water and hold off on permits until it finishes its assessment of the solar program next year. The BLM tried suspending new applications last year but relented under pressure from industry and advocates of renewable energy.

"Water is a big concern and the desert tortoise is a major concern, and the amount of site preparation is a concern," said Linda Resseguie, a BLM project manager. The government in reviewing each project wants to make careful decisions over what it considers "a potentially irreversible commitment of lands," she said.

Water is among the complications in deserts where more than 150 solar applications have been submitted for hot spots in Nevada, California, and Arizona, plus a few in New Mexico.

Companies are wrestling with routes for long-distance transmission lines and habitat for the threatened desert tortoise. They also are worried about a proposal being developed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., for a Mojave national monument, which could put up to 600,000 acres off-limits alongside already protected park and military lands. It could affect at least 14 solar and five wind energy proposals.

The Spanish-owned energy company, Iberdrola, has submitted 12 applications in four states. Its solar managing director, Kim Fiske, said her company is planning to use photovoltaic technology in Amargosa Valley but elsewhere will evaluate each site's feasibility for water. Photovoltaic systems use conducting material to convert sunlight directly to electricity and need only nominal amounts of water to wash their solar panels, compared with the traditional steam-turbine solar that uses much larger volumes of water for cooling towers.

"Water usage is becoming the larger issue. Some companies still want wet cooling and say it's less efficient to do dry cooling, and they need 10 percent more land to get the same output," said Peter Weiner, an attorney representing solar companies. Some are exploring hybrid systems that use water during the hottest part of the day.

Plans in flux

The government won't say how much water would be needed by applicants because those proposals are still in flux. But National Park Service hydrologists last fall tallied more than 50,000 acre feet per year — nearly 16.3 billion gallons — proposed by applications in Amargosa Valley alone, or enough to supply more than 50,000 typical American homes. Nevada previously said the basin could support only half that. Since then, some companies have dropped out or switched to photovoltaics, making that estimate of 16.3 billion gallons outdated.

Nevada's policy and legal mandates restrict water in the driest areas. California regulators warn that wet-cooled projects face an uphill climb. The two under review there so far on government land use minimal water. First up is Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy's five-square mile, air-cooled, mirror complex near the Mojave National Preserve.

In Arizona, most solar proposals are away from populous areas with the most water restrictions.

Water is "a hot button for everybody," said Fiske. "Everyone is concerned about water. It's probably one of the biggest issues."

Order bans moving water rights closer to Devil's Hole pupfish

COUNTY PROTEST SEEN AS LIKELY

By MARK WAITE
Pahrump Valley Times

State Engineer Tracy Taylor officially drew a line in the sand, ruling his office will deny any applications to change the point of diversion for water rights within 25 miles of Devil's Hole, home of the endangered pup fish.

The Nov. 4 order only pertains to the Amargosa Desert Hydrographic Basin, which is considered an overappropriated basin. That means the permitted water rights exceed the perennial yield.

A ruling in a federal lawsuit specifies the water level to be maintained at Devil's Hole. Taylor said information provided at an administrative hearing Sept. 5-6, 2007, showed the water level was only 0.6-0.7 foot above that threshold.

There are three exceptions to the order: applications that keep the existing place of use of water rights; applications to appropriate two acre feet per year or less; and projects requiring changes of multiple existing water rights that could be used to compare the net impact to Devil's Hole.

A companion ruling by the state engineer noted the National Park Service expressed concerns about the cumulative impact of moving water rights closer to Devil's Hole, changing the pumping center in the Amargosa Desert Hydrographic Basin. The state engineer found neither the NPS nor the dairy was able to clearly demonstrate the effects of regional pumping on Devil's Hole water levels.

Nye County Hydrologist Tom Buqo said hopefully the order will get rid of a concern over water rights applications that have been pending a long time.

"However, there's a little thing called the law of unintended consequences and I don't know if this thing has been thought out that well. We don't know how it affects domestic wells. Once a water right is moved, it can't be moved back. So there's a concern there's going to be land in Nye County where someone sells the water rights and then the land has no water," Buqo said.

The 25-mile radius from Devil's Hole would include much of Amargosa Valley past Lathrop Wells.

Buqo said any one order issued by the state engineer shouldn't be viewed independently of other rulings. He noted the impact of this order with a previous ruling which doesn't allow Nye County to file on water rights at the Nevada Test Site.

"What this says is: Nye County, you're not getting any additional water in the southern part of the county," Buqo said.

Developers proposing solar energy projects in Amargosa Valley would have to pipe water to the location unless they could buy or lease water rights, Buqo said.

A property owner with land near Devil's Hole who transfers water rights farther away leaves the original property unusable, he said.

The county hydrologist, however, found some advantage in the order, providing some clarity to the individual rulings handed down by the state engineer.

"Now that they've established this policy, that should clear things up. People are going to find very quick they won't have to go through the protest rule. The state engineer will just rule, and if they're moving water rights closer to Devil's Hole, they will be denied," Buqo said.

Nevada District 36 Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, said the 25-mile radius would cover all of Pahrump as far south as Mountain Falls, if the Pahrump hydrographic basin were included. He charged the order discriminated against Amargosa Valley.

Goedhart said the state engineer keeps expanding the zone around Devil's Hole. He said the order amounted to a taking of private property rights.

"There's no financial reimbursement for the loss of a person's valuable property rights," Goedhart said.

"It could also have grave and consequential consequences to the fledgling solar industry we would like to locate between Pahrump and Beatty if you can't move the water where you put your solar projects," Goedhart said. "I just got a call from Solar Millenium. They're looking at a $1 billion project. This has made them wonder whether to engage in anything in southern Nye County."

Solar developers plan on leasing water rights from long-term farmers in Amargosa Valley, he said.

Research cited by the state engineer shows the water level in Devil's Hole went down 2.4 inches in 20 years, Goedhart said.

Goedhart said the dairy spent $140,000 on experts includling hydrogeologists and attorneys to argue their point at the September 2007 administrative hearings.

The order leaves the possibility of property owners moving water rights farther away from Devil's Hole, to the north and west of Amargosa Valley. Goedhart said property owners at the northern and western end of Amargosa Valley may have nowhere to transfer their water rights.

"This is going to completely take away the ability for growth to happen here in Amargosa Valley," he said.

Nye County Commissioner Gary Hollis said, "I would imagine we're going to protest it."

Number of Devil's Hole pupfish increasing

The tiny fish, found only in a small, deep pool near Death Valley, has been on the brink of extinction for years

Devil's Hole pupfish.

By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times

The tiny Devil's Hole pupfish, found only in a small, deep pool in the desert near Death Valley, has been teetering on the brink of extinction for years. In the spring of 2006 there were only 38 of them, down from roughly 500 in the mid-1990s.

The reasons for the decline are unclear. But government scientists trying to reverse the trend appear to be enjoying a bit of success. The autumn count of the iridescent blue fish has risen for three years, to 126 this fall, the first steady increase in more than a decade.

Convinced that the pupfish problems are tied to a shortage of nutrients, biologists took the unusual step of feeding the fish. "It was not done lightly," said Bob Williams, Nevada field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "When you start to artificially augment a wild population, it is a sign the species is really in trouble."

The high-nutrient fish food, made at a federal research lab in Montana, is based on a mix given to Rio Grande silvery minnows in a New Mexico hatchery. The Devil's Hole feeding started last fall and continued over the winter and into spring to try to maintain an adult spawning population.

Winter is the most difficult time for the pupfish, and Williams said supplemental feeding will probably be considered in the coming months.

Devil's Hole is a detached piece of nearby Death Valley National Park, just over the California border. The water-filled cavern is more than 500 feet deep, dangerous enough that, years ago, two scuba divers drowned exploring its depths.

The pupfish are an isolated colony that has survived in the hole for at least 10,000 years, a remnant of wetter times in the desert. They have been found as deep as 66 feet but forage and spawn on a rock shelf near the pool's surface.

Devil's Hole was the subject of a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, when justices recognized its water rights and restricted nearby agricultural pumping that was lowering pool levels to levels lethal to the fish.

Pupfish make big ripple to survive

Recovery coordinator Paul Barrett visits the small thermal pool that is the only natural habitat for the Devils Hole pupfish. Robyn Beck, AFP/Getty Images


By John Ritter
USA TODAY

AMARGOSA VALLEY, Nev. — It's 110 degrees, hardly a heat wave for Death Valley. And in a small, bathtub-warm pool below a steep, rocky incline, small fish appear to be at play, darting and chasing each other through patches of algae.

These are Devils Hole pupfish and, aside from the strangeness of finding fish in the middle of North America's harshest desert, they're about as remarkable to the naked eye as a fat tadpole.

But this particular fish species is revered for helping galvanize public opinion and government efforts to save endangered species. The fish was the focus of a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that became a cornerstone of Western water policy.

Today, the Devils Hole pupfish population has dwindled to 38, confirmed by government divers in their spring count, and the fish has become the object of intense study by federal agencies and private groups to stave off extinction. It also figures in broader research to map a vast aquifer under Nevada and parts of Idaho and Utah and to determine how that groundwater is to be allocated in a fast-growing region that includes Las Vegas.

This pupfish, which numbered nearly 600 in 1994, finds itself in a class with some of America's rarest creatures, including the Florida panther and, before its recovery, the whooping crane.

A pioneer in animal rights

"We don't know why it's collapsing. It's a conundrum," says Paul Barrett, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.

State and federal agencies have spent an estimated $750,000 since 2005 trying to figure out the cause of the fish's decline, Barrett says. Even many critics of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, such as former California congressman Richard Pombo, agree that the pupfish is worth saving.

"You will find people who argue that there's no value in recovering a species like this, but I've never made that argument because, quite frankly, we don't know," says Pombo, whose effort to rewrite the act focused on guarding property rights when they conflict with endangered species' niches. The Devils Hole pupfish was one of the first species put on the endangered list.

Other pupfish are abundant in the West, but the Devils Hole variety is found nowhere else. The 10-foot-by-70-foot thermal pool, hundreds of feet deep, is thought to be the world's smallest known habitat for a vertebrate animal, says Mike Bower of the National Park Service.

In 1952, as a way to protect the fish, President Truman added 40 acres around Devils Hole — actually a crack in the Earth that opened 60,000 years ago — to what later became Death Valley National Park.

When the pupfish population collapsed in the 1960s, the Interior Department sued a developer who had pumped so much water from the aquifer that the level at Devils Hole dropped too low for the inch-long fish to thrive. The Supreme Court ruled that the pupfish was entitled to enough water to survive.

Jim Deacon, a retired University of Nevada, Las Vegas, ichthyologist, says publicity about the fish's plight in the 1960s and 1970s, including an Emmy-winning NBC documentary, kindled the fight to preserve vulnerable plants and animals.

"The pupfish became an icon of the movement," he says. "It's had a lot to do with the development of a conservation consciousness."

The species is a tough one for recovery scientists. It has a short life span of about a year. Many adult fish die in winter when food is scarce because no sunlight reaches the hole to fuel algae production.

The fish can't spawn in the hole's deep area because its 93-degree temperature is too warm. Fertilized eggs hatch only in shallow water that cools at night over a small rock "shelf" at one end of the hole.

But the shelf is vulnerable to nature's whims — water and debris that pour in during flash floods, wind, even earthquakes that slosh water around. The 2004 earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Asia created 9-foot swells inside the hole, Bower says.

Gene pool's delicate balance

Scientists have only recently concluded that a gate, fences and platforms installed at the hole during early efforts to protect the fish might unintentionally have messed up its habitat. They now think those structures blunted effects of natural weather cycles that wash away silt and deposit gravel and cobble on the shelf, critical to spawning and food production.

Years ago, Deacon would have to roll back a thick mat of algae to count the fish. Last month, Barrett and Bower were pleased that algae seemed to be growing, though it was sparse by comparison.

Other pupfish can tolerate wide temperature swings and water saltier than the sea, but not those in Devils Hole. That limitation complicates efforts to breed them in captivity, a strategy should some catastrophe wipe out the wild fish.

At Willow Beach National Fish Hatchery on Lake Mojave, a male-female pair of Devils Hole pupfish produced six young this spring. The female died soon after.

"The juveniles are growing very rapidly and they're healthy right now," says Mike Childs, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. "We really hope at least one of them, maybe more, will be female."

One theory for the pupfish's demise is that its gene pool narrowed. Another is that a natural change in the hole's algae variety somehow affected food sources. "The only prudent thing to do is hedge our bets and move forward on as many fronts as we can," Bower says.

Last winter, the park service fed the fish artificially for the first time, and they seem healthier and more robust, Barrett says. "But any action has risks, including doing nothing."

Rare Pupfish In Mojave On Brink of Extinction

In the best of times, the desert's a tough place for a fish. At Devil's Hole, times have been better.

By Louis Sahagun, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times



GUARDIAN: David Ek of the National Park Service points to a pupfish in Devil’s Hole, Nev. Two years ago hundreds of the fish lived in the pool, part of the Death Valley park. Fewer than 80 remain. (Stephen Osman / LAT)

SHOSHONE, Calif. — The imperiled Devil's Hole pupfish, which has been clinging to existence in a remote rock tub in the Mojave Desert since the Ice Age, may not survive another year, federal biologists warned.

Regional groundwater pumping, mysterious changes in mating behaviors and habitat disruptions inadvertently caused by scientists who have been trying to protect the pupfish are being blamed for decimating the species, long regarded as a symbol of the desert conservation movement.

In a tragedy that was not publicly announced, scientists two years ago accidentally killed 80 of the iridescent blue fish — about one-third of the population at the time. Fewer than 80 of the inch-long fish still swim in the spa-like turquoise waters of a small pool at the bottom of an isolated limestone depression that became part of Death Valley National Monument — now a national park — by proclamation of President Truman in 1952.

Only two years ago, the fish, whose plight escalated into a highly publicized U.S. Supreme Court battle in 1976, numbered in the hundreds.

"We're definitely concerned that the population has fallen to so low a number it may not be able to rebound," said Cynthia Martinez, assistant field supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Southern Nevada office. "This is the lowest number ever. It's a very serious situation."

David Ek, an assistant chief with the National Park Service in Death Valley, put it this way: "If they don't breed this spring — the height of the breeding season — they'll be gone in a year, year and a half."

On Thursday, a special recovery team is expected to convene in Las Vegas to weigh possible emergency measures, then make recommendations to Fish and Wildlife managers and National Park Service Regional Manager John Jarvis.

Options include capturing fish and breeding them in controlled conditions elsewhere, then restocking Devil's Hole with the offspring, or just leaving the site alone in hopes the fish can rebound without human help.

Time is running out, biologists said, because of the precarious life cycle and population dynamics of what ichthyologists call one of the rarest fish in the world in one of the world's most restricted habitats.

"Threats abound," said Death Valley biologist Linda Manning. "This fish is almost infertile, with females laying up to 10 eggs in their 10-month life span. So we're hoping there are enough fish of breeding age to begin spawning."

Scientists from California and Nevada have worked for decades to save the fish. About 30 miles north of this Mojave Desert village, Devil's Hole is part of Death Valley National Park, even though it lies in Nevada outside the main park boundary.

Carl L. Hubbs, known as the father of Western ichthyology, persuaded Truman to have the unique fish and its pocket ecology added to Death Valley as a protective measure.

"I like to call these unique specimens 'pupfish' because they play just like puppies," Hubbs said at the time.

There are other kinds of pupfish in the desert, but the Devil's Hole species is unique — as is its unlikely home.

The "hole" is a large, sloping depression with a pool of water at the base. The pool is just 10 feet across and 70 feet long but amazingly deep. Divers have ventured down 468 feet without reaching the bottom.

Key to the pupfish's survival is a 23-square-yard slab of rock that juts out into the pool, just a few inches below the surface. The fish spawn on the slab, which often is covered with layers of gravel and pebbles washed into the pool by rain.

Water temperatures average about 93 degrees, and the fish's primary food source, a thin blanket of green algae, grows here.

On a recent weekday, a dozen pupfish could be seen browsing among the submerged algae meadows, paddling slowly or darting off to chase away invaders. This habit of nipping at each other's tails is what reminded Hubbs of puppies when he named them.

Beyond the shelf, where the pool becomes deep, the water is tinted blue by high concentrations of minerals, including calcium carbonate.

In ancient times, the Timbisha Shoshone tribe regarded Devil's Hole as a mythical home of the child-swallowing giant called Tso'apittse. Later, Death Valley 49ers liked to bathe in the warm mineral waters shared by the tiny fish that tickled their toes.

The Devil's Hole pupfish thrived until the late 1960s, when the water level and pupfish population began to fall precipitously because of irrigation pumping.

The population crash triggered a classic environmental clash between conservationists, who wanted to stop the pumping to save the fish, and locals who placed a higher value on economic growth.

Two popular bumper stickers at the time were "Save the Pupfish" and "Kill the Pupfish."

The conflict ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was resolved in favor of the pupfish. Later, federal authorities tried to secure the creature's future by surrounding the hole with barbed wire fences and radio antennas.

But the pupfish's troubles were far from over.

Over the last decade, "for as yet unknown reasons, we've seen a gradual decline in population," said James Deacon, a University of Nevada emeritus professor of environmental studies and the leading expert on the pupfish. "It may be because a larger percentage of fish have been laying their eggs in the deeper water, where they can't develop as well."

Deacon has also discovered that security fences rimming the Devil's Hole have prevented gravel and pebbles from washing into the pool. Such infusions are needed to renew the pupfish's habitat.

He's also concerned that a metal walkway, suspended over the pool and used by federal divers to avoid stepping on the rock shelf, has somehow affected the fish's environment.

Then there was the pupfish crisis of Sept. 11, 2004: Empty fish traps had been stacked by researchers on dry land, but a flash flood sent them tumbling into the pool. The traps, made of glass jars outfitted with inverted funnels, were used by researchers who caught, studied, then quickly released the fish.

"A week later, we returned to discover jars floating on the shelf, or broken," recalled Manning. "Many of those intact had expired fish in them. We lost about 80 fish.

"It was a stunning, horrible, nauseating discovery," she said.

The incident was immediately reported to park officials, who said they did not announce the accident to the public at the time because they were overwhelmed by flood-related problems throughout the park.

Biologists fear that, given their short lifespan and troubled breeding cycles, as few as 50 pupfish will remain in the pool by the time mating season arrives.

About 40 more Devil's Hole pupfish are being studied in artificial conditions at a Fish and Wildlife facility at Hoover Dam. Those fish, too, however, are steadily declining in numbers.

Surveying a dozen survivors meandering about in the hole on the southern flanks of a isolated and barren crimson mountain, Ek said, "Doing nothing doesn't seem a realistic alternative.

"But with the population so low and in decline, we don't have much room for error," he said. "Whatever we do, we have to do it quickly."