Friendship takes High Desert couple to Supreme Court over controversial cross

Yucca Heights resident Henry Sandoz holds a painting of J. Riley Bembry's encampment, which was several miles away from his World War I memorial cross. His wife, Wanda, holds a painting of the cross. (Jim Steinberg/Staff)

Jim Steinberg, Staff Writer
Redlands Daily Facts

YUCCA HEIGHTS - It was 1974 when two dune buggies with frames made of pipes and powered by Corvair engines roared into a remote encampment in the Mojave Desert where the travelers heard an elderly man lived.

When the recluse in the cabin came out, he was invited to join the group for hamburgers.

"I haven't had a hamburger in six months," said the man, J. Riley Bembry.

And thus began a friendship that would span a decade for Henry and Wanda Sandoz.

Little did the young couple from the tiny community of Mountain Pass southwest of the Nevada state line know that because of this relationship, they would later be enveloped in a legal dispute that would take them into the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Nor did they have an inkling that Henry would be awarded the highest honor from the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars, something that happened last summer at the VFW's annual meeting in San Antonio.

Bembry wanted to be known by his middle name, Riley, not his first name, John, "because he said it was more distinguished," Henry said at the couple's home in Yucca Heights, an unincorporated area near the city of Yucca Valley.

Bembry was an Army medic during World War I, and by some accounts, he also taught soldiers how to use explosives, a skill he would later use to develop mines in the Mojave Desert.

After the war he initially was a butcher in Los Angeles and several neighboring cities. He frequently traveled into the Mojave Desert and over time became hooked on prospecting.

Around the time of the Great Depression, he was living full time in the desert, and an encampment of other World War I veterans grew around his cabin.

Many of them had come to the desert to heal from the various forms of physical and emotional damage caused by the war, the Sandozes said. And in the Great Depression, gold fever wasn't hard to catch.

In 1934, Bembry and some of his neighbors, mostly veterans,put a seven-foot tall wooden cross on a rock outcropping a few miles from his cabin. The site was a granite rock outcropping near Cima Road, about 15 miles south of today's 15 Freeway and 80 miles east of Barstow.

A sign below the cross said, "To honor the dead of all wars erected 1934 by members of Veterans of Foreign Wars, Death Valley Post 2884," according to a history compiled by the office of Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands.

Death Valley Post 2884 no longer exists.

Last week, an 11-year battle with the American Civil Liberties Union over that cross monument came to an end.

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin in Los Angeles signed an order ending the ACLU lawsuit and paving the way for the original memorial site to be transferred from the federal government to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The ACLU had alleged that a cross on federal land violated the separation of church and state.

To make the legal settlement happen, Henry is giving up five acres of Mojave Desert land he has owned for decades in exchange for the one-acre site of the cross on Sunrise Rock, which will ultimately be transferred to the VFW.

"We have been at this a long, long time," said Lewis, who in 2003 championed legislation authorizing the land swap. "People from World War I started this. And people like Wanda and Henry Sandoz and many other marvelous people have stepped up to support this memorial."

Lewis also said, "Few people these days have any idea what the World War I veterans went through in those horrendous times."

Henry recalls the first time he saw the cross in the 1960s. At the time, a railroad boxcar that served as a clubhouse was at the base of the hill. The remains of a concrete patio, once used for dances, were alongside it.

A few miles away, Bembry's compound included an assay office, to determine the quality of his gold and silver samples, and a powder magazine, for dynamite.

He had a propane-powered refrigerator but few other conveniences in his cabin.

Wanda recalled that on that first picnic, she forgot to bring mayonnaise.

Bembry volunteered his opened mayonnaise jar, which had been kept unrefrigerated and was seven or eight years out of date.
"Obviously, we didn't have any," Wanda said.

A "pet" badger lived beneath his cabin for a time, the Sandozes said.

Bembry also fed rabbits, chipmunks and other critters that frequented his cabin, which included a "picture window" made from the windshield of a 1920s Studebaker.

The couple reminisced that once their oldest daughter drove Bembry into Barstow to renew his license for high explosives and to buy more dynamite. And that Bembry's skills as a butcher were appreciated by many during deer season.

Bembry didn't speak much about World War I, Henry said. About the only thing he can recall is that Bembry said he saved soldiers' lives when the 1918 flu pandemic hit camp by giving them whiskey and Bromo Quinine.

Not one soldier taking his "medicine" died in the epidemic, which claimed between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide, Henry recalls Bembry telling him.

Bembry, who took his own "medicine," did not contract this highly contagious flu, even though he cared for many soldiers infected with it, Henry said.

As two roadrunners and numerous quail raced across their backyard, the Sandozes recalled how in the spring of 1983, Bembry showed up at a previous residence near the Molycorp mine where Henry worked, saying he wanted to stay with them for a while because he wasn't feeling well.

"He ended up staying a week," Wanda said.

They didn't realize until much later that Bembry had probably suffered a small heart attack.

In the fall of 1984, Bembry became ill and asked a neighbor to drive him to his daughter's home in Norwalk. The Sandozes kept thinking he would recover, but he never did.

His daughter brought the cremated remains to the Mojave Desert cabin, where more than 100 attended the funeral.

Many at the funeral believed it was time to bring back the sunrise services on Easter, which had been a tradition for decades but had lapsed.

That tradition has continued most years since Bembry's death.

"As a little girl, my wife remembers going to Easter services there," said Pastor Larry Craig, 58, a missionary based in Newberry Springs who for some 27 years has traveled 110 miles to conduct sunrise Easter services at Sunrise Rock.

Although Bembry may not have attended Easter services at the cross he helped install, ranch hands, miners and others from a wide area across the Mojave Desert had a long tradition of attending Easter services at the World War I memorial site, Craig said.

Reflecting on the journey in the long battle to retain the memorial site veterans created in 1934, Henry, 72, said giving up the land wasn't an option.

"I owed it to Riley and to the veterans for all their sacrifices," he said.

Technology reviving mine

Molycorp winds up in position of power

Scott Honan, environmental manager for Molycorp Minerals, talks about the Molycorp rare earth mine near Interstate 15 in Mountain Pass. (LaFonzo Carter)


Wesley G. Hughes
Redlands Daily Facts

MOUNTAIN PASS - No one was on their way to Vegas 1.3 billion years ago when a large, high-quality deposit of rare earths formed here.
Molten rock was pushing up through the Earth's mantle in eastern San Bernardino County and leaving a sizable deposit of the metals just poking its nose through the planet's surface.

Uranium hunters stumbled across it around 1950 - rare earths are often found in the company of heavier radioactive metals - and eventually it came under the ownership of Molycorp, a Colorado mining company.

Today, according to Molycorp CEO Mark A. Smith, "potential buyers are beating down the door to get those rare earths," which Molycorp stopped mining in 2002 because of environmental problems - and China could do it cheaper, anyway, he said.

Things change. China has virtually cut the world off from its supply of rare earths.

The Asian nation has the world's largest deposits, but Mountain Pass is No. 2, experts say, and Molycorp is back in the race.

Why should we care?

Rare earth metals - or oxides - are vital commodities for a range of products, from smart phones to smart bombs.

And the company's Mountain Pass Mine promises to make lots of money for Molycorp.

It's potential customers can breathe a sigh of relief now that there is another source of the elements. They are so relieved they have pushed Molycorp from a 52-week low of $12.10 on the New York Stock Exchange to a Jan. 5 high of $62.10. It has moderated a bit since the high and closed at $42.99 on Friday, down $3.55 on the day.

Molycorp is tearing down its old plant and building a $500-million operation about 15 miles from the Nevada border to mine and process the ores.

The company celebrated earlier this month with a groundbreaking and barbecue for the board of directors, top management and employees at the site. They are calling it Project Phoenix, Smith said.

But not everyone is happy with the operation.

A national environmental group, Western Watersheds project, criticized Molycorp's 8.6-mile proposed gas pipeline, which it says traverses protected desert tortoise habitat.

Western Watersheds filed a complaint Jan. 14 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeking to halt the Ivanpah Solar Project, which it says got an inferior examination in its Environmental Impact Statement to help it meet a deadline. That deadline has been extended a year to Dec. 31, and Western Watersheds wants a proper EIS done, which it predicts will halt the power project being built by BrightSource Energy.

"We want it to go away," said Michael Connor, California director for Western Watersheds.

He was unfamiliar with Molycorp's core project, but the pipeline was mentioned in the complaint his group filed.

Still, the Mountain Pass project is gaining interest from potential customers, cut off from China's rare earths but interested in what's in Molycorp's huge open-pit mines.

"We are getting attention - a lot of attention," Smith said on the day of the barbecue.

He expects the new plant to be operational by mid-2012.

SAFER MINING?

Jim Sims, Molycorp's director of public affairs, and Scott Homan, the company's environmental manager, explained to visitors at the mine how environmental problems that played a role in halting production back in 2002 have been eliminated by new technology.

Before Molycorp halted production, the company piped liquid residue - mostly salt water - to evaporation ponds in Ivanpah Dry Lake - a scant 10 miles from Mountain Pass.

During a process of putting rinse water through the 8-inch plastic pipeline, pressure got too great. The pipe burst in several places. A buildup of radioactive material inside the pipe led to contamination of the aquifer under the dry lake.

That raised a public outcry that included concerns from county regulators and environmentalists and the shutdown.

During earlier operations, Molycorp had been the biggest user of hydrochloric acid west of the Mississippi River, Sims said. The acid was used to separate the rare earths from the ore. In order to stop the acid's action after separation, Molycorp neutralized it with sodium hydroxide and the product of the combination became salt water.

But by using electricity with chemistry, a process known as electrolysis, to treat the salt water, Molycorp found they could change it back into its original hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide.

Voila! The chemicals could be re-used almost endlessly. No longer will 15 to 25 tanker trucks full of acid be arriving each day at Mountain Pass and no longer will the salt water be piped to Ivanpah Dry Lake for evaporation. Nor will it get the chance to build up radioactive scale inside the miles of drainpipe.

In addition, Molycorp will no longer buy the most expensive electric power Edison sells. It will generate its own. Another 8-inch pipeline is to be built to carry low-polluting natural gas, which will be used for power generation and to reduce the use of diesel at the mine.

For Molycorp, these moves have given immense benefits: The company has dramatically reduced its environmental impact and has led it to claim it has cut its costs to half those of the Chinese today. And Sims said that soon Chinese costs are likely to double because of environmental changes Chinese miners are being forced to make. More good news for Molycorp.

CONCERNS

All that could be jeopardized by Western Watershed's complaint.

Molycorp said repeatedly that it had "crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's" and it had no more hoops or hurdles for the project.

That said, the company faces a hearing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, it was learned Friday. A Molycorp spokesman could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

And there's still environmental concerns over the tortoise and the pipeline.

When Connor - the California director of Western Watersheds - was told about some of Molycorp's efforts to be environmentally friendly,he said: "That doesn't help the tortoise."

BENEFITS FOR THE COUNTY

County officials are excited about the project.

They are predicting it will have long-time benefits for the county through new jobs, for business and for property and sales taxes.

Most of the 700 construction jobs for the new plant will come from near and far. Most of the 300 permanent jobs will most likely be filled by Las Vegas residents, because it is closer to Mountain Pass than population centers in California.

But First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, whose district includes Mountain Pass, called the project "great news. It's been a long time coming.

"I think we will put a lot of people to work. I just don't have the numbers. It's a major mining operation that will use a lot of trades and professions."

Mitzelfelt also predicted Molycorp will be buying supplies locally.

Sims, Molycorp's director of public affairs, confirmed that.

"Molycorp is trying as much as possible to buy equipment and supplies in San Bernardino County," he said.

SUCCESS?

Molycorp officials say that they don't know the full extent of the rare earth to be found at Mountain Pass. They won't know until they dig for it, they assert.

Since 1865, various minerals have been mined in the historic Clark Mining District, where Mountain Pass is located, according to the project's environmental review.

For 57 years, Molycorp and its predecessors have recovered bastnasite, which contains 14 rare earth elements.

Its initial use was as a concentrate called mischmetal, which was used as flints for cigarette lighters and in some metallurgical applications.

In the 1960s, the EIR continued, additional mineral recovery operations were added to allow separation and recovery of individual rare earth elements, including europium, a critical element for making color television.

At the time, Mountain Pass was the world's only commercial source of europium.

Subsequent rare earth elements were produced, and Molycorp plans to mine more, bringing to 10 of 14 rare earth elements that will be produced at what is now a 55-acre site, with plenty of room to expand.

The 55 acres is part of more than 2,000 owned by the company, which also has federal mining claims for the next 30 years on another 8,000 acres.

With a limited world supply of rare earths, Molycorp is in a good financial position, said Christopher Reed, chemistry professor at UC Riverside.

The marketplace - whether its for oil, gold or rare earth elements - is full of cut-throat players, Reed said.

As for Molycorp, he said, "Time is on their side. In the longrun, they really can't fail."

Snow, traffic and isolation can't stop CHP officer

Shupe patrols sparsely populated, heavily traveled northern border of county

By DAVID HELDRETH, staff writer
Desert Dispatch

California Highway Patrol officer Larry Shupe stands with his patrol vehicle Tuesday afternoon. Shupe is one of six officers that live and patrol the Mountain Pass area. (Staff Photo by David Heldreth)

MOUNTAIN PASS • Officer Larry Shupe has become the go-to man for people in Mountain Pass.

Shupe is one of six California Highway Patrol officers who are voluntarily assigned to patrol the Mountain Pass area from Halloran Summit Road to the Nevada state line. Shupe has spent the last 17 years living at the CHP residence post off of Bailey Road, 100 miles north of Barstow, or Sandy Valley, Nev. and working the Mountain Pass area.

Shupe’s years of experience in the area were tested during a snow storm that hit the Barstow area on Dec. 18 of 2008. Several motorists were trapped on Interstate 15 when it was closed for 18 hours due to two-foot snow drifts across the freeway in Mountain Pass. Shupe, who has the only four-wheel drive patrol vehicle, made several trips to take the stranded people between the freeway and the Moly Corporation Minerals mine on Bailey Road where a shelter was set up.

“The snow was coming down so bad you couldn’t see anywhere,” Shupe said. “I almost hit a few cars actually. After I found the first people I realized there was more than I could take so I promised them I would come back. I had to mark the spots with my GPS so that I could find them again.”

Shupe received a commendation from the CHP for his work that day. Cpt. Rick Linson said that Shupe often goes beyond the normal call of the job.

“When it gets that cold and people are stuck it can be dangerous,” Linson said. “His efforts may have saved lives that day. He is a great example to any officer.”

Shupe’s knowledge of the area was even useful when the Mojave National Preserve was created in 1994. He said he often had National Park Service rangers visiting him for directions and asking him to show them around the preserve during its first few years of existence.

Hiking and rural living are nothing new to Shupe. He grew up cattle farming in a rural area outside of Twin Falls, Idaho. He now lives in Sandy Valley, a town of 1,800 people about 15 miles west of Interstate 15.

“I kind of always lived out away from people all my life,” Shupe said. “When I got out of the academy I picked to come to Barstow. I’m bilingual so I got a bit more of a choice were I was located. I chose Barstow over a metropolitan area. I prefer the peace and quiet.”

Shupe’s preference has meant that a shopping trip or piano lesson for his kids requires a 50 mile trip to Las Vegas. Shupe’s three children who still live at home — he has five total — go to school in Sandy Valley, but he said that when he lived at the residence post his kids would take a bus 35 miles to Baker to attend school.

“If you get in your car to go somewhere you have to plan for a 100-mile round trip,” Shupe said. “You have to plan things a little bit more, but it works out. The kids didn’t really seem to notice it until they started getting to junior high school and high school and started getting driver’s licenses and things.”

Shupe said despite the drawbacks the post has its upsides, such as easy access to hiking, hunting and off-roading areas.

“After 21 years as an officer there isn’t a spot in the state I couldn’t get assigned to at one point,” Shupe said. “I want to be here and I take pride in my work here. When I first was moving people said I would miss the trees, lakes, snow and water, but over the years the area has grown on me. I think I became a desert rat. I go out hiking and explore the area often.”

California metal mine regains luster

Fears of a shortage of rare-earth minerals used in high-tech applications has bolstered an effort to reopen production at the Mountain Pass Mine in the Mojave Desert.

The pond that fills the bottom of the Mountain Pass rare-earth metal mine reflects the terraces. Digging is expected to resume by the second half of 2011 after the water is pumped out. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

By Martin Zimmerman
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Mountain Pass, Calif. - Fear of a shortage of rare-earth metals used in high-tech military and industrial products has spawned global efforts to reopen abandoned mines, including the formidable Mountain Pass Mine in California's Mojave Desert.

Discovered in the 1940s by uranium prospectors, Mountain Pass contains an array of rare earths, including cerium and lanthanum, in concentrations almost double those found at the world's biggest rare-earth mine, China's Bayan Obo.

"You're looking at the greatest rare-earth deposit in the world," says operations manager John Benfield as he ushers a visitor around the 2,200-acre site 60 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Benfield's employer, Molycorp Minerals in Colorado, has just begun a two-year effort to restore Mountain Pass to its former role as a leading global producer. Those plans were given a boost recently amid fears that China was poised to ban exports of some of the scarcer rare-earth metals and to sharply limit shipments of others.

Although the Chinese government has sought to allay those concerns, a possible ban served as a reminder that the Asian nation is nearly the sole source worldwide for rare-earth metals and is likely to remain so for at least the next two years.

"You always want multiple sources for your raw materials," said Jim Hedrick, commodity specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "There could be a natural disaster that significantly disrupts the supply, or there could be geopolitical issues. . . . All it takes is for one person to antagonize another."

The reopening of the mine and related processing facilities would create about 900 jobs at Mountain Pass -- about 100 people work there now -- and provide U.S. companies with a reliable source for many key rare-earth metals.

These minerals, such as samarium and neodymium, are prized for chemical properties that make them indispensable in a variety of industrial and military uses including polishing glass, oil refining and manufacturing missile guidance systems.

They also play a crucial role in the development of "green" technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Heat-resistant magnets made with rare-earth alloys are key components of the electric motor in the Toyota Prius, for example. And lanthanum, one of the most abundant rare earths found at Mountain Pass, is used to make the car's nickel-metal hydride battery.

Mining operations ceased at Mountain Pass in 2002 amid environmental concerns and cut-rate competition from China, though processing of previously dug ore continues.

On a recent Friday, as the weekend traffic flowed on Interstate 15 toward Las Vegas and the temperature hovered around 110, the ore processing facilities hummed with activity. But the crushing mill and the conveyors that fed it with rock from the mine were silent.

The mine itself is about 1,500 feet across -- impressive to the uninitiated but smallish compared with the mile-wide behemoths around the globe where copper, gold and other minerals are excavated.

There's no giant earthmoving equipment rumbling about. Most of it was sold off when the mine was shut down. A small pump floats on the surface of the brackish green water 300 feet below. The only other signs of life in the pit are red-tailed hawks circling the mine's terraced sides in search of lunch.

Molycorp hopes to generate big profit at Mountain Pass by building an integrated manufacturing chain that starts with raw ore and ends with finished products ready for market.

"We don't want to be just a supplier of basic materials to other industries," said Benfield, the operations chief. "We want to develop our own technologies so we can determine our own destiny rather than rely on others. We're not just a mine."

The U.S. was once the world leader in rare-earth metal production. But low-cost competition from China has given that nation a near monopoly on rare-earth exports. In addition, China is becoming a key producer of rare-earth magnets.

That worries some analysts who fret that China could dominate the market for next-generation clean-energy technology in much the same way that a handful of oil-rich nations now control the bulk of world oil supplies. The fact that China and the U.S. are currently engaged in a trade tiff over tire imports hasn't soothed matters.

"They've been reducing exports of rare-earth metals for years," commodities analyst Jack Lifton said. "A few years ago, they exported 50% of their production. Now they're down to 25%. They could be down to zero by 2015 because their own demand is going up."

Rare-earth anxiety has spurred a global hunt for the minerals and is bringing back into production mining operations that have been closed for years, such as Mountain Pass.

Toyota Motor Corp. and other big users of rare-earth metals, such as Hitachi Ltd., are exploring ways to reduce their dependence on Chinese exports. They're using smaller amounts of rare-earth metals, recycling more, testing alternative materials and looking for new sources of supply.

Most of the rare-earth metals aren't all that rare. "Almost any rock you pick up has rare-earth elements in it," noted Thomas Monecke, a geology professor at the Colorado School of Mines.

The most common, cerium, is more plentiful than copper. The two rarest, thulium and lutetium, are 200 times more common than gold.

But unlike coal, iron and other industrially useful minerals, they are difficult to separate and can be mined profitably only when found in dense concentrations, such as at China's Bayan Obo mine and in clay deposits in that country's southern region.

The only other place on earth known to harbor such dense concentrations is Mountain Pass.

Molycorp, a former Chevron Corp. subsidiary, was sold to a group of private equity investors last year. Chevron had acquired the mine when it bought Unocal Corp. in 2005 and is still responsible for cleaning up some wastewater spills from past operations.

The mine's new owners are in the midst of an ambitious plan to pump out the millions of gallons of water at the bottom of the open-pit mine and resume mining by the second half of 2011.

Once ore is again coming out of the ground, Molycorp wants to install advanced extraction processes that will enable the company to achieve purities as high as those found in Chinese rare-earth metals but at a lower cost. They are also looking for joint venture partners to begin producing their own rare-earth magnets.

It will cost $100 million to $400 million to make that plan a reality. Molycorp Chief Executive Mark Smith said the company was exploring a variety of financing options including issuing debt or selling stock.

He also would consider investments from foreign investors, including Chinese.

The goal is to achieve a production rate of 20,000 tons of rare-earth products a year by January 2012, Smith said. That would meet about 20% of global rare-earth demand, based on last year's total worldwide production of around 124,000 tons, he said.

While Mountain Pass prepares to restart mining operations, mining companies are pushing to develop other known rare-earth deposits, such as those in Canada, Brazil and Australia.

The Chinese also are hunting for overseas sources, though worries about the country's control of world supplies is hampering those efforts. A Chinese mining company recently pulled out of a deal to expand its ownership stake in Australian rare-earth miner Lynas Corp. after the Australian government protested.

Although efforts to diversify the world's sources of rare-earth metals are welcomed in many quarters, Lifton notes that, as at Mountain Pass, these new locations won't become significant producers overnight.

"Until then," he said, "we'll just have to tiptoe through the Chinese tulips."

Blasting in Mountain Pass to temporarily close Interstate 15

FROM STAFF REPORTS
Desert Dispatch

MOUNTAIN PASS — Caltrans will close portions of Interstate 15 near Mountain Pass in the mornings of June 17, 18, 24 and 25 while blasting takes place near the freeway.

The blasting, part of Caltrans expansion and rehab project for I-15 in the area, will take place at 7 a.m. and close the interstate for about 15 minutes, according to a release from Caltrans.

I-15 will be closed during this time from just north of Bailey Road and south of Nipton Road in both directions.

Northbound I-15 reopened at border

By AARON AUPPERLEE, City Editor
Desert Dispatch

KINGSTON ROAD — The northbound lanes of Interstate 15 near the Nevada state line have been reopened and cleaned.

An oil spill from an overturned semi truck caused the closure on Wednesday morning at about 7 a.m. Shelly Lombardo, a spokeswoman for Caltrans, said the roadway reopened at 3:51 a.m. Thursday morning.

Lombardo said the Caltrans maintenance department did not report any damages to the roadway, and Greg Veigler, a hazardous material specialist for San Bernardino County, said he does not expect any soil or water contamination. The motor oil was pure, he said, and free of any contaminates. He said the roadway had been cleaned with large vacuums, steam and pressure washers and a lot of kitty litter.

“It’s completely cleaned off the highway and shoulders,” Veigler said. “Just splashes of it made it off the road.”

Veigler said the oil that left the roadway ended up in an abandoned drainage ditch once used by Molycorp, a Colorado-based mining company that owns a mine in the Mountain Pass area. Crews will return to the site on Tuesday to finish cleaning up that oil but will have to use shovels and wear respirators because the site is contaminated with low levels of uranium waste, Veigler said.

Crews worked through the night to clean up the 1,500 to 2,000 gallons of oil that spilled from the truck. California Highway Patrol Officer Matt Sais said the truck was carrying oil containers ranging from five gallons to 200 gallons. When the truck overturned, many of the containers ruptured, Sais said.

The CHP approved a detour route around the stretch of the I-15 that was closed about 15 miles south of the Nevada state line.

I-15 Spill Causes Major Traffic Diversion Through Park

Mojave National Preserve
National Park News

On the morning of October 31st, a tractor trailer rolled over on Interstate 15 at Mountain Pass, spilling 1,000 gallons of motor oil onto the freeway and ground. This section of I-15 follows the northern boundary of the park.

California Highway Patrol officers closed down all northbound lanes at the Cima exit and routed traffic through the park for over 30 miles while a hazmat team cleaned up the oil.

An estimated 8,000 vehicles passed through the park between 8 a.m. and midnight.

Numerous incidents occurred during that period, including three motor vehicle accidents. Six citations and 14 warnings were issued for various traffic infractions, including operating a vehicle with a revoked license, unsafe passing, speeding, and possession of an open container of alcohol.

Rangers also assisted motorists by providing information and directions, dealing with flat tires, and helping obtain towing services and gasoline.

During the afternoon, San Bernardino County maintenance personnel had to repair potholes created by the large volume of traffic.

Rangers acted professionally by maintaining order and keeping the number of incidents to a minimum through highly visible patrols and education.