Acres may be fenced off for protection of endangered plant

By KAREN JONAS, staff writer
Barstow Desert Dispatch

NEAR FORT IRWIN • About 14,000 acres of land near Fort Irwin could be fenced off and closed to off-roading in order to protect an endangered plant if a proposed critical habitat plan is approved.

The Lane Mountain milk-vetch is a perennial plant in the pea family that grows only in the west Mojave Desert north of Barstow. Fish and Wildlife Services is proposing to designate a total of 14,069 acres for protection of the plant in two separate areas.

Some off-roading enthusiasts are upset that the land is being fenced off and believe that the desert should not be closed to off-roading.

“Off-roading is the way of the desert,” said Mike McCain of Barstow. “That’s how you get around.”

McCain is a member of the American Motorcyclist Association and has put in a complaint about the potential critical habitat area. He also said that he has found the milk-vetch plant in a different area that will not be considered part of the critical habitat area.

The public comment period on the economic impact of the critical habitat proposal will be open until Dec. 3.

About 21 percent of the land is privately owned, 70 percent is owned by the BLM and 9 percent is owned by the Department of Defense. The designation of critical habitat would prohibit activities that could endanger the milk-vetch plant, including off-roading, surface mining and wind energy development.

The BLM is already in the process of fencing off part of the land in order to prevent people from off-roading in the area. The agency has been working on the fencing for over a year and should be completed with the most critical areas by the spring, according to William “Mickey” Quillman, resource supervisor for the Barstow field office of the BLM.

Quillman said that the fencing is being put in place where excessive off-highway vehicle use has been occurring and that it is being done as funding permits. The area is already designated limited use, which means that vehicles can only travel on designated paths, but there are some who drive across the restricted areas despite the rule.

Most of the year, the milk-vetch exists in a dormant state below the surface, said Ileene Anderson, biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity. The growth period for the plant occurs in the late winter or early spring, which is also a popular time for off-roading.

Anderson said that the milk-vetch was important because it lives in such a restricted area.

“It’s a plant species that has a very, very small distribution on the planet,” said Anderson. “It’s a perennial plant that stays around for a number of years.”

Lois Grunwald, a spokesperson for the Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, said that an endangered species could be an indication that the ecosystem is in trouble.

Anderson also said that the recent milk-vetch surveys show that more plants are dying than sprouting and it was unclear why the plants were doing poorly in spite of adequate rainfall.

Wildlife service believes Fort Irwin plant not endangered

By Abby Sewell, staff writer
Desert Dispatch

FORT IRWIN — Fish and wildlife officials recommended downgrading the endangered status of a rare plant found primarily in and around Fort Irwin.

After completing a five-year review of 16 endangered species in California, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended Sept. 10 that the status of the Lane Mountain milk-vetch be changed from endangered to threatened.

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group that sued the fish and wildlife service in 2007 over its 2005 decision not to designate any critical habitat for the plant, immediately voiced objections to the recommendation.

“The populations are continuing to decline, and it seems antithetical to the Endangered Species Act when you have a species that is listed as endangered and is continuing to decline, that you’re going to downlist it to a less-protected status,” center biologist Ilene Anderson said.

She called the recommendation a politically motivated move on the part of the Bush administration.

Fish and Wildlife Services spokeswoman Lois Grunwald said the five-year review showed that there were considerably more plants in a slightly larger area than officials had believed when the milk-vetch was first listed as endangered in 1998. The Army found 5,700 plants during surveys in 2001.

However, surveys since then have showed the number of plants declining in some areas, according to the five-year summary, which noted that the milk-vetch is sensitive to changes in weather patterns.

Grunwald said that because of the increased numbers since 1998 and because Fort Irwin and the BLM have conservation plans for most of the milk-vetch’s habitat, the species does not appear to be in imminent danger of extinction.

In practical terms, Grunwald said that downlisting a plant species from endangered to threatened does not impact its legal protections.

Downlisting also would not affect an agreement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Center for Biological Diversity that came out of a lawsuit settlement, requiring the wildlife service to reconsider designating areas of critical habitat for the milk-vetch, Grunwald said.

The fish and wildlife service has not yet written a proposed rule that would open up the process necessary to change the plant’s status and Grunwald said the agency has no immediate plans to do so.

Lane Mountain milk-vetch

• The Lane Mountain milk-vetch is an endangered plant species in the pea family that is found only in an approximately 20-mile strip of land north of Barstow, with about half the habitat on Fort Irwin and half on Bureau of Land Management lands.


• The milk-vetch improves the quality of desert soil by converting nitrogen from the air into a natural fertilizer.

Lane Mountain milk-vetch center of controversy between environmentalists and military

By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise


The Lane Mountain milk-vetch lives on land where the Army wants to expand its tank-training grounds north of Barstow. Special to The Press-Enterprise.

It's a wispy plant with cream to purple flowers that grows only in a small pocket of the Mojave Desert.

The Lane Mountain milk-vetch is also in danger of going extinct. And like the threatened desert tortoise, the plant lives on land where the Army wants to expand its tank-training grounds north of Barstow at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. And like the lumbering reptile, the milk-vetch has become a sticking point between environmentalists and the military.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed last month to issue another critical habitat designation for the milk-vetch, a move that can restrict activities and development on land considered essential to the plant's survival.

The agreement was reached with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit against the federal wildlife agency after it decided the plant's habitat required no additional protection.

"That is basically biologically indefensible," said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the center.

A member of the pea family, the milk-vetch is a perennial that grows through shrubs and helps nearby plants thrive in desert soils by converting nitrogen in the air into usable fertilizers, Anderson said. Much of the plant's habitat is threatened by off-road vehicles, mining and development.

In this case, a habitat designation would not affect training or the Army's expansion plans, said John Wagstaffe, an Army spokesman. Troops from across the country go to Fort Irwin for monthlong tank-training stints.

Like many military bases, Fort Irwin has a natural resources management plan that spells out how the Army will prevent harm to any endangered species, he said.

"We believe that we're OK here," Wagstaffe said.

Connie Rutherford, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said no critical habitat was designated for the milk-vetch in 2005, partly because of concerns the accompanying maps would lead to vandals destroying the plants, or collectors picking them. Plus, she said, Fort Irwin's plan now sets aside two conservation areas for the milk-vetch and another area where no digging is allowed during training.

Anderson said those types of plans may conserve the plants that now exist but don't typically help a species to thrive and move off the endangered list like critical habitat is expected to do.

"Critical habitat identifies areas that federal biologists recognize as being essential for a species not to just survive, but to give them room to grow so they can recover," she said.

Endangered plant

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will take a new look at designating critical habitat for the Lane Mountain milk-vetch.

2010: Proposed decision due

2011: Final decision due

Wildlife agency agrees to revisit protections for rare Mojave Desert plant

By Abby Sewell, staff writer
Desert Dispatch







BARSTOW — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed Monday to consider new protections for the habitat of a rare plant that grows only in the Mojave Desert in and around Fort Irwin.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit environmental advocacy group, sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in an attempt to make the department reconsider an April 2005 decision not to designate any critical habitat for the Lane Mountain milk-vetch plant, a flowering perennial in the pea family. The plant, which was placed on the endangered species list in 1998, grows only in a 20-mile strip of land, a majority of which is located within the newly expanded boundaries of Fort Irwin, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

In April 2005, the Fish and Wildlife Service released its decision not to designate any critical habitat for the plant. Designating areas as critical habitat would require more evaluation of the activities that could take place on parts of Fort Irwin and on Bureau of Land Management land where the milk-vetch grows.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in late 2007, stating that the decision not to designate critical habitat violated the Endangered Species Act. Anderson said the milk-vetch is important to the desert ecosystem because it converts nitrogen into a natural fertilizer that enriches the dry desert soil.

“That is a really important component, particularly in the desert soil, where there’s just not a lot of nutrients in the soil to begin with,” she said.

In its response to the complaint, the Fish and Wildlife Service admitted the value of the Lane Mountain milk-vetch to the desert ecosystem but denied that the survival of other desert plants depends on the milk-vetch or that failure to designate critical habitat would result in the milk-vetch going extinct.

Connie Rutherford, plant listing and recovery coordinator with the Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, said no critical habitat was designated originally, partially because Fort Irwin had already completed a resource management plan outlining how it would protect the milk-vetch. The BLM has also taken measures to protect the plant, including closing some roads, she said.

Anderson said her group would like to see the milk-vetch habitat off limits for training exercises involving heavy equipment at Fort Irwin.

“We would like Fort Irwin not to run over the plants with tanks,” she said.

Fort Irwin already has a Fish and Wildlife Service-approved natural resources management plan in place, which lays out ways in which the base will attempt to protect the milk-vetch, spokesman John Wagstaffe said. Because of that, he said a critical habitat designation would not affect the base in its operations. Wagstaffe said he believes that training exercises in the milk-vetch habitat area are currently limited.

In addition, Anderson said her group would like to see a reduced number of roads on the BLM land in the milk-vetch habitat area to restrict access by off-roaders.

The settlement signed by the Fish and Wildlife Service is not a promise to designate critical habitat but simply a commitment to reexamine its April 2005 decision. The agency agreed to come out with a final critical habitat designation in April 2011.

Fish and Wildlife Service representatives said the final decision may or may not be any different from the one released in 2005.

“We’re willing to start with a fresh slate here and look at any information submitted by the public and by the agencies involved,” Rutherford said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service also agreed to pay $6,762 to cover the Center for Biological Diversity’s attorney’s fees and other costs of litigation.