Mojave Desert not ideal for massive solar project

Soda Mountain is a proposed solar project seen from the air on Wednesday, February 5, 2014. Several big solar and wind energy projects are moving forward on environmentally sensitive public land despite government land use planning efforts designed to focus such projects on less important habitat. (Kurt Miller)

OPINION

By CURT SAUER and J.T. REYNOLDS
The Press-Enterprise

The father of American conservation, Aldo Leopold, said, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” If so, the proposed construction of the Soda Mountain Solar project one quarter mile from the boundary of the Mojave National Preserve, our third largest national park site in the contiguous 48 states and a biologically diverse gem, is dead wrong.

The potential damage the proposed Soda Mountain Solar Project stands to inflict on Mojave National Preserve’s fragile desert ecosystem has been well-chronicled. The 4,000-acre development would block bighorn sheep from moving between nearby desert mountain ranges and preclude reestablishing a critical wildlife corridor between the South and North Soda Mountains. Migrating and resident birds, attracted by the area’s numerous seeps and springs, would likely be injured or killed if they collide with photovoltaic panels.

Unobstructed views from the Mojave National Preserve, which surveys demonstrate are one of tourists’ key reasons for visiting the California desert national parks, would be marred. Desert tortoise habitat would be bulldozed. The project’s groundwater pumping could dry up springs along Zzyzx Road that are used by bighorn sheep, as well as harm the water quantity and quality of Soda Spring, threatening the survival of the federally endangered Mohave tui chub.

As planned, the project would include a 350-megawatt solar power facility, with a solar array spanning approximately 2,000 acres of the Mojave Desert, straddling northern and southern points of Interstate 15, west of Baker. According to the project’s website, the facility would produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of 170,000 homes. However, the project proposal has not identified a buyer for the electricity and some of the transmission lines running through the area are already at maximum capacity.

However, there has been little focus on the project’s adverse impacts to the Zzyzx Desert Studies Center and the Mojave National Preserve’s environmental education programs. The Desert Studies Center is managed by California State University and is nestled in a refuge of natural desert ponds, dry lakes and foothills just to the east of the proposed project. It draws students and experts from around the world to conduct research, teach about the wonders of the Mojave Desert and experience the pristine desert environment. As former superintendents of Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks, we are well aware of the benefits of such hands-on educational programs in building stewardship and teaching people about the value of the desert.

The Mojave National Preserve also uses this facility for environmental education programs that reach underserved schoolchildren from the Barstow area. Elementary and middle school children search for scorpions with ultraviolet lights, learn about the special adaptations of desert plants and animals, acquire knowledge about Native American cultures and gaze up in wonder at the dark, starry night skies.

Consider for a moment that if the Soda Mountain Solar Project is built, these young students will escape the urban environment of Barstow only to encounter an industrial zone next to a national park. Is this really the message we want to send to our youth, especially when better options exist?

The project harms the very resources that are the foundation and instructional basis for these programs. Soda Mountain Solar would create light, glare and thousands of acres of photovoltaic panels, marring scenic vistas and night skies. Air quality stands to be diminished by fugitive dust from construction. Drawdown of critical seeps and springs would impair the fragile desert ecosystem. The Soda Mountain Solar Project’s impact to the human dimensions of the desert ecosystem has not yet been thoroughly examined.

Aldo Leopold thought that one of our outstanding scientific discoveries was not technological, but our understanding of the complexity of the land. Leopold aptly observed, “Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.” Far from being harmonious, the Soda Mountain Solar Project strikes a dissonant chord with those of us who have worked hard to preserve and protect special places like the Mojave National Preserve because it threatens this country’s considerable investment in our desert public lands and national parks.

We ask U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze and state BLM Director Jim Kenna to relocate the project to an area that will not adversely impact our desert communities, educational programs, or ecosystems.

Curt Sauer was superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park from 2002-10 and J.T. Reynolds was superintendent of Death Valley National Park from 2001-09.

Park service says project would harm Mojave preserve

Soda Lake in the Mojave National Preserve is the point where the Mojave River, which flows from the San Bernardino Mountains, reaches its end. A commercial solar project planned within a mile of the lake bed has triggered worries about water depletion in spring-fed ponds and the fate of an endangered fish, among other concerns. (DAVID DANELSKI)

By David Danelski
Riverside Press-Enterprise

The National Park Service has lodged strongly worded objections to a proposed 6.5-square-mile solar development about a half-mile from the Mojave National Preserve, saying the project would harm wildlife and suggesting that it be built elsewhere.

Preserve Superintendent Stephanie Dubois submitted an eight-page letter to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the public land where the Soda Mountain solar project is planned and which is handling the environmental analysis of the development.

A subsidiary of the Bechtel Corp., one of the world’s largest construction companies, wants to put solar panels on both sides of Interstate 15 about six miles south of Baker and just outside the northwest corner of the national preserve, where the bright white Soda Lake is a striking landmark. The lake, mostly dry, is bordered by springs, seeps and ponds, providing a small oasis for wildlife.

Dubois' letter says the BLM failed to adequately examine the project's potential to harm groundwater, threatened and endangered species, and scenic views, among other issues. The project would be detrimental to the desert tortoise, bighorn sheep and protected birds in the area and could reduce water supplies that support one of the few populations of an endangered fish, she wrote.

“We urge the BLM to reconsider the potential for this project to be sited on other BLM lands, private lands, or other degraded lands where renewable energy projects would present fewer adverse impacts to natural and cultural resources,” Dubois wrote in her March 3 letter to the BLM.

BLM spokeswoman Martha Maciel said Dubois’ letter is just one of many written comments the agency received as part of the process to evaluate Bechtel’s requests for a right-of-way permit the company needs in order to build on public land.

"We will consider all the comments and adjust our analysis where appropriate," said Maciel, reached by phone at her office in Sacramento.

National Park Service Slams Solar Project Near Mojave Preserve

Part of the Soda Mountain Solar Project site (Courtesy © Michael Gordon)

by Chris Clarke
KCET.org

The National Park Service isn't happy about a proposal to build a large solar facility on almost 4,200 acres next door to the Mojave National Preserve. The agency is citing the project's threats to wildlife, rare plants, groundwater, air quality, and wilderness characteristics of the 1.6 million acre unit.

The Soda Mountain Solar Project, which would be built by Bechtel on either side of Interstate 15 along the northwest edge of the Preserve, would pose serious threats to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, migratory birds, and one of the rarest fish in the world, according to a comment letter on the project's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) filed by Preserve Superintendent Stephanie Dubois.

The project would generate a maximum of 350 megawatts of power by putting solar panels on more than half the project's total footprint: about 2,200 acres. But environmental advocates are saying that the project's damage to the Preserve isn't worth the energy the plant would generate -- especially considering no one seems to be interested in buying the power.

Due in part to the project's remoteness and lack of transmission capacity despite two lines running near the site, Bechtel has been unable to secure an agreement with any utility to buy power from the Soda Mountain project. "We believe this is the poster child for ill-sited projects in the California desert," said National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) representative Seth Shteir in an interview with Greenwire's Scott Streater. "We think this project has so many negative impacts to the natural resources in the Mojave National Preserve and adjacent wilderness study areas that it sort of defies common sense to site the project there."

Among the issues identified in the National Park Service comment letter are blocking a future migration corridor for the Preserve's bighorn sheep into the North Soda Mountains. Pointing out that bighorn sheep tend to avoid any kind of human-built infrastructure even in the absence of humans themselves, NPS states that "[i]f the project moves forward, bighorn sheep migration between the north and south areas of the project will likely be permanently impeded."

That's a problem, as the bighorn herd south of the project site, in the hills near the Desert Studies Center at Zzyzx, are one of a handful not yet exposed to the pneumonia currently ravaging sheep populations elsewhere in the Preserve. Sealing off the sheep's possible northern migration corridor could seal their fate if the pneumonia epidemic approaches from the south.

NPS also expressed concern about the project's effect on the endangered Mohave tui chub, whose sole native, non-transplanted population can be found in MC Spring a few miles downhill from the project. There are more of the chub in the artificial pond Lake Tuendae at Zzyzx. Bechtel intends to pump up to 60 acre-feet of groundwater from the project site each year to use for washing solar panels: if that affects the flow of groundwater that supplies MC Spring and Lake Tuendae, that's a problem for the fish.

The BLM argues in the project's DEIS that since it's not known what effect pumping would have on local groundwater, that there won't be a problem. NPS disagrees. "Without conclusive knowledge about the hydrology of the Soda Mountain Valley aquifer," says Dubois in the Park Service's comments, "the Project risks the consequence of irreversible damage to the habitat and the viability of this highly endangered species."

NPS also criticizes the project's likely impact on air quality from fugitive dust emissions, dark night skies, and risk of all those solar panels to the flocks of migrating birds regularly drawn to the area's permanent and ephemeral wetlands.

The Park Service ends its comments by asking for a meeting with BLM staff to discuss the project further. The group Basin and Range Watch reports partway down this page that the BLM's maps of the Soda Mountains project used in public meetings last month didn't show the boundaries of the Mojave National Preserve, so it's probably a good thing that NPS reminded BLM that they, and the Preserve, exist.

Oasis of The Quack

Desert Rattler




By Ken Layne
LA City Beat



Soda Springs. Photo by Ken Layne

Just a few miles south of Interstate 15 and its spastic weekend traffic of creeping truckers and cretin Vegas tourists, there is an oasis out of some cheap Saharan dream. It sits at the end of a gravelly road that wraps along the glossy brown volcanic rock piles to the west, as the desert gives way to saltbush and actual wet marshland, thick with cattails and tall green reeds, busy with dragonflies and hidden water birds.

This is Soda Springs, where mineral waters are forced from the Earth at the western edge of a vast dry lakebed circled by the jagged mountain ranges that run across Mojave National Preserve. Out of this wild panorama rise neat rows of palm trees – monster California and Mexican fan palms, six decades of dead fronds reaching to the ground. The palms lead to a small village from another time.

The lonely boulevard is divided by a wide median stocked with more trees, an old nesting box for owls or bats, and park benches facing the small lake ringed by willows. The coots have the run of the pond, a half-dozen of the goofy white-billed black creatures gliding across the water.

On a steamy still day as the season’s last monsoon thunderstorms cook up over the eastern mountains, I walk down the empty street in the 104-degree heat, stopping in the shade of huge smoke trees. The town, abandoned on this Saturday, consists of a handful of white plaster buildings along the grandly named Boulevard of Dreams – rows of dorm-style guest rooms are across the way, with small shared patios between them. The grandest building, also closed up, has an outdoor dining room with the whole Eastern Mojave for a backdrop, a crescent of those giant Mexican palm trees framing the scene.

This is, ultimately, the reward for living in this desert with its foreclosed exurbs and off-road motorcycle morons and campaign yard signs warning against gay marriage when neither marriage nor gays seems to exist in these strip-mall trailer-park pawn-shop wastelands: The most stunning parts of the Mojave, the ones that still remain, are always empty of people.

I walk back along the water and kneel down for a look. Just below the pond’s surface, handsome little fish dart around – Mohave tui chub, the last pure specimens, accidentally saved from extinction or cross-breeding by a curious character who introduced the rare critters from a nearby spring, their last natural existing refuge, when he built his little acre-and-a-half lake.

For 30 years, from 1944 to 1974, the self-appointed doctor and preacher lived out here, presiding over his arid empire of health potions and faith. He was “The Reverend” Curtis Springer, “Doc Springer” to his friends, and anybody who mailed an envelope of cash to the world-famous Zzyzx Mineral Springs was indeed his friend.

To build his Moroccan-inspired oasis, Springer bused in Los Angeles winos from skid row – they got food and a bunk for their troubles, but most headed back to Fifth Street once they figured out booze wasn’t part of the menu.

When his hotel and cross-shaped soaking pool and radio studio were completed, Springer broadcast his invitation to anyone with the means to travel out to Soda Springs and take his many cures. Generous donations were expected. To those who couldn’t afford a visit to his enchanting resort on the desert but listened to his sermons carried by more than 300 radio stations, he offered mail-order cures both commonsensical and absurd – it’s hard to argue with carrot juice and mineral baths, but his “Mo-Hair” baldness cure consisted of rubbing Soda Lake salts on the scalp while hanging your head upside down and holding your breath.

The quack complaints eventually made their way to the Law, in the late 1960s, after Springer had plied his weird trade for a quarter century. In 1969, while another Mojave mystic prepared to bring his Family back from Death Valley to Hollywood, Doc Springer went on trial for selling bogus medicine. He served 49 days but his troubles weren’t over. The Feds went after him for squatting on Bureau of Land Management property – he had nothing but a mining claim on the 12,000 acres, and he was selling Zzyzx Springs residential lots to his loyalists.

But why Zzyzx? It was the last word in the English language, Springer claimed, so it was the last word in health. Go to the Kelso Deport museum in the Mojave National Preserve and you can hear recordings of Springer’s smooth bullshitter’s voice.

Doc Springer was forced off his creation in 1974, and died in Las Vegas a dozen years later. He was an old-time crook who never really hurt anybody and provided some adventure for bored, gullible Americans during our long-gone Era of Prosperity.

Today, Zzyzx is the Desert Studies Center, part of Cal State Fullerton and home to UC Riverside’s occasional extended education outings for the peculiar few who want to spend a weekend learning about rocks and bugs. There are no services for the traveler and no reason to exit the interstate.

Local fish species on the rebound

Bob Hilburn, a Bureau of Land Management volunteer site steward and educator, checks the water temperature of an aquarium full of Mohave tui chub on Saturday. Photo by David Heldreth

By David Heldreth, staff writer
Desert Dispatch

BARSTOW — The Mohave tui chub is just looking for a home.

The Mohave tui chub is the only fish that is native to the Mojave River system, but it can’t be found there anymore. They were even one of the first animals protected when the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973.

However, you can get a glimpse of the rare fish at the Desert Discovery Center on Barstow Road. While there you might even catch Bob Hilburn, a volunteer site steward and educator for the Bureau of Land Management, during a feeding.

“We have three aquariums at the Discovery Center,” Hilburn said. “Two have the Mohave tui chub and one has the Arroyo. I just do what the scientists tell me to, feed them and take the water temperature.”

The Mohave tui chub lost their original home to predators, competition with introduced fish species and possibly hybridization according to Debra Hughson a science advisor for the Mojave National Preserve. Hughson and a group of scientists are working on a new study at the DDC. The goal of the study is to create a stable Mohave tui chub population and determine if they could hybridize. The study has several steps and could take more than seven years.

“We’re in the first stages now,” Hughson said. “We need to see if the Mohave can create hybrids, and if they do are the hybrids viable. They could be sterile like other hybrids such as a mule. If so it would be easier to reintroduce the Mohave.”

The Mohave tui chub were thought to have bred with the Arroyo Chub, an introduced species, and no longer exist in a pure form. However, a little luck and the development of the field of genetics have proven that to be untrue. A small population of fish were discovered by Curtis Springer, the founder of the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa, in the nearby waters in the 1940s. Springer then introduced some of those fish into his manmade Lake Tuendae at Zzyzx. Sixty years later genetic testing proved that the fish Springer found were pure Mohave tui chub.

It is believed that one of the times the Mojave River flooded a group of Mohave tui chub were carried into the Zzyzx area, and were stranded there as the waters receded creating the refuge. All Mohave tui chub in existence today are descendants of the fish Springer found.

“It is pure chance that Springer took care of the Mohave,” Hughson said. “The introduction of the Arroyo chub pushed them out of the river. Curtis Springer saved them from complete extinction without knowing what he was doing.”

The study being done at the DDC is also part of the first step toward down listing the Mohave tui chub from endangered to threatened. A species needs to have at least six stable populations for five years before it can be down listed. There are currently three populations in existence with one at Zzyzx, one at Fort Cady and one at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Hughson said as the study at the DDC expands it should produce enough Mohave tui chub to be considered a population and only two more would be needed.

Having the study at the DDC also allows for the public to get to know the Mohave tui chub better. Hilburn has been part of that effort. Hilburn said the DDC has been working on a curriculum to teach elementary kids about the fish to try and instill the importance of preservation.

The Desert Discovery Center is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Mojave National Preserve community meeting

29 September 2007. Saturday. Our correspondent attended the Mojave National Preserve community meeting at the Hole-in-the-Wall Fire Station.

There was somewhere between 40 and 50 people in attendance, but the small meeting room was so crowded it was difficult to get an accurate count.

Dennis Schramm, superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve, was there in charge. Quite a number of other NPS people.

The atmosphere of the meeting was very civil - friendly almost. There were a couple of statements by participants giving compliments to MNP NPS for their recernt response to emergencies.

First Emergency at Gold Valley Ranch: Bob Pelligrino and friend went out hiking. Gone from 8;00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Had plenty of water. Drank it. Didn't have anything to eat. Bob suffered major heat stroke after he got home. Doubled over, vomiting from both ends, &c. Ambulance from Needles and trip and overnight at Needles hospital. IV rehydrated him.

Second Emergency at Gold Valley Ranch (just this last Tuesday): Bob Pelligrino was doing something with propane ... I believe hooking it to a heater. There was a fire. He got the fire put out. Second degree burns on hands and arms and one ankle. Trip to ER hospital in Needles. Treated and released.

MNP NPS played a role in these emergencies for which the victims were grateful.

1. Superintendent Dennis Schramm has been in Washington, D.C. for two months. NPS is developing ambitious plans for celebration of their 100th anniversary in 2016. Anticipating billions of dollars for new construction and heavy maintenance. Bills in congress now. Looking forward to the prospect of having a Democrat back in the White House.

2. Larry Whalon is now deputy superintendent of Mojave National Preserve.

3. They have lost their chief ranger, Denny Ziemann, recruiting for another one. Interviewing for that position now.

4. They have some plus-up in their budget. They anticipate raising the number of law enforcement rangers to ten.

5. Only one major construction project in 2008 budget and that is to install solar at Zzyzx. That will eliminate the last diesel operation in the preserve.

6. Much talk about roads and reference to the county's law suit which they see as being disruptive and disfunctional. Can't do anything major on roads until this is settled.

Comments of Linda Slater, who is now in charge of interpretation.

7. There'll be new interpretive panels in the preserve ... like at Piute Springs, Zzyzx, and Kelso Depot and others.

Comments of Steve Carlson, who is in charge of maintenance.

8. They have reroofed seven buildings at Zzyzx and done concrete repairs.

9. They'll be putting more gravel on Wildhorse Canyon Road and on the last one-half mile of the road out to the Kelso Dunes.

10. They are planning to hard surface the road from I-15 off-ramp down to Zzyzx with asphalt grindings.

11. Much talk about fence replacement to replace fences burned during the fire to contain 7IL cattle.

12. Some talk about doing repair work on some road over toward Piute.

13. "We don't do road improvement or maintenance - we do some road repair."

14. In talking about repairing roads they said the public could help with repairs like around washouts as long as they use only hand tools.

15. A number of the attendees complained about the County.

16. The law suit of the County vs. MNP NPS is in the "discovery" phase. Of course we knew that. "This has to be resolved before we can spend federal funds on the roads."

17. There is talk about developing "site plans" on how to manage Kessler and OX Ranch HQ sites. There'll be a chance for public input.

19. Much talk about how to get services in an emergency. Dial 911 first and then the dispatch center. Some rangers have EMT training. One is a "first responder." Dispatch office 909-383-5651. You must call both 911 and the dispatch office.

20. It is suggested we get to know our rangers. They do not have rangers on duty 24 hours, but they always have rangers "on call."

21. It was emphasized MNP NPS has no jurisdiction on private land.

22. It can be useful for someone call in in an emergency to have GPS coordinates. Rangers can handle GPS. The ambulances that come up from Needles cannot.

23. There was recently a fireworks issue. People setting off fireworks in the preserve. Locals called for help. Rangers responded and caught the people and ticketed them. They paid the ticket. Turns out all the offenders were off-duty sheriff deputies from LA county!

Comments of Bob Bryson.

24. He's been in charge of the fence replacement issue. They've replaced 9-1/2 miles at a cost of $100K. Also paid one contractor $18K for 400 feet.

15. Lots of talk about volunteer groups. Apparently they have lots of volunteers.

25. Dave Nichols, who used to be a "seasonal," is now the preserve archeologist. He has bought Adrienne Knute's place in Round Valley and is living there.

26. They have a new wildlife biologist named Neil Darvey. I think I got that right?

27. Concerns about water distribution. They are going to reestablish one water source and do studies.

28. They are concerned about the Mohave chub that lives at Zzyzx. Looking for other spots to start populations. Like upper narrows on Mojave River near Victorville or in the pool at the bottom of the pit at Morning Star Mine.

29. Much talk about the desert tortoise. MNP NPS critical about the whole program. Spent more than $100,000,000 on desert tortoise recovery and it hasn't helped. GAO discovered that a couple of years ago.

20. Preserve is being pressured to put up tortoise fencing. They don't want to do it.

21. Irony aired about the fact that the office of the Desert Tortoise Recovery program is in Reno where there ain't any tortoises.

22. As to the desert tortoise "We've had a million starts and a million stops with no results."

23. The preserve has a chief scientist - Debra Hewson. She wasn't at the meeting. Praise for their scientist.

24. There was a reference to the new Ivanpah airport to be constructed between Primm and Jean as thought it is a done deal.

25. Talk about working with people interested in guzzlers.

26. Bighorn sheep herd on Old Dad Mountain doing well. Population flights estimate 300 animals.

27. They are going to install high tech GPS collars on mule deer so they can tell where they go.

28. They have 20-some cameras out at water holes so they can tell who is coming in for a drink.

In general it was a peaceful meeting. Someone who has been at all the recent good neighbor meetings said this one was more relaxed and peaceful.

It had been advertised that obtaining food serve at the Kelso Depot would be discussed. It wasn't. Nobody asked about it.

Native fish returns to Victor Valley

Mohave tui chub will return to the Mojave River


The Mohave Tui Chub, is the area’s only native fish, and endangered.

by Hillary Borrud
Victorville Daily Press

APPLE VALLEY — A small, endangered fish that has disappeared from the Mojave River seven decades ago will return to the carea this fall in a refuge to be constructed at the Lewis Center.

The day when the Mohave tui chub, which disappeared because of predators and hybridization, might return to the actual river remains unknown.

The new refuge is the product of several years of work by students and a teacher at the Lewis Center. Employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Fish and Game praised the center for bringing the project to fruition.

Mohave tui chub are humble looking fish, but they can grow to a foot long and live up to 36 years, said Steve Parmenter, a senior fishery biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game.

A recovery plan written in accordance with the Endangered Species Act calls for six refuges to be created before the Mohave tui chub can be downlisted from endangered to threatened, said Judy Hohman, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife office in Ventura.

“That will get us closer to our goal of downlisting the chub,” she said.

The three existing refuges are at China Lake, Camp Cady and Lake Tuendae in the Mojave National Preserve.

The fish cannot be removed from the endangered species list until it is returned to the river, a proposition that is unlikely to happen anytime soon because of the many non-native predators still in the waters of the Mojave River, said Parmenter.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is contributing $25,000 from its budget to the Lewis Center refuge, Hohman said.

Students and teachers at the Lewis Center will be contributing elbow grease and working to get the community involved, said Matthew Huffine, the middle and high school science coordinator at the Lewis Center.

“Efforts like these only really take off when the community gets involved,” said Huffine, who needs help with fencing, grading and signage.

The Lewis Center has a small pond where the fish will be released this fall, until the larger pond can be built.

Students at the Lewis Center will be involved with experiments related to Mohave tui chub recovery and water quality. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service generally does not manage land, so finding areas 'for refuges can be difficult, Hohman said.

“We continue to look for more sites where we could put this fish,” Hohman said. “We would like to downlist it and eventually take it off the list.”

Renovation begins at former health spa

Chuck Mueller, Staff Writer
SBSun.com


ZZYZX - More than three decades have passed since radio evangelist Curtis Howe Springer left this desert oasis and spa, which he called "the last word in health care."

Its cluster of buildings, which Springer opened as a resort with indoor mineral springs and a cross-shaped pool, have weathered the desert wind and heat since the Bureau of Land Management evicted him in 1974, saying he didn't have a valid claim for the property.

Deteriorated by time and the elements, the structures are now being shored up.

"We're reroofing all the historic buildings from the Springer era, and stabilizing others," said Rob Fulton, who manages the 30-year-old Desert Studies Center at the site, five miles off Interstate 15 near Baker.

The $500,000 project is being carried out by the National Park Service and the California State University system, which operates the center under a cooperative agreement.

"Buildings used for classrooms, office, and dining room are getting new roofs," Fulton said. "The Sunrise Building, which contained 10 guest rooms, is being stabilized along with the old pool and spa."

The site, known as Soda Springs before Springer opened his 12,000-acre Zzyzx mineral-springs resort, was used for hundreds of years by Indian tribes and as a stagecoach and then rail stop on the old Tonapah and Tidewater Railroad, according to the Park Service.

Learning of springs in the area, Springer decided in 1944 to open a health spa at the site, recruiting laborers from Skid Row in Los Angeles to construct the resort's buildings.

"Springer broadcast his daily religious programs from his powerful radio station," said authors Cheri Rae and John McKinney in their book, "Mojave National Preserve: A Visitor's Guide."

Widespread response to the broadcasts turned Baker into California's busiest post office. Springer stayed 30 years at Zzyzx, catering to thousands of visitors.

A lake at the site is home of the endangered Mohave tui chub fish.

In 1995, passage of the California Desert Protection Act created the Mojave National Preserve, which incorporated Zzyzx and its cluster of 12 buildings into the park.

The historic buildings have been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district, the Park Service reports in its management plan for the preserve.

About 6,000 students and researchers, half of whom are from other states and foreign countries, use the Desert Studies Center annually, Fulton said.

It accommodates about 80 students or researchers at a time. They focus on subjects as diverse as archaeology and wildlife biology.

The consortium of California State University campuses running the center are in San Bernardino, Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Northridge and Pomona.