New owners safeguarding Moapa dace

Fish at home at Warm Springs Ranch

By HENRY BREAN
REVIEW-JOURNAL

MOAPA -- A finger-length fish with a black spot in the middle of its tail darts among sunlit bubbles in the spring-fed current of a small stream.

He doesn't know it, but this endangered little guy has some powerful friends.

Between the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, nearly every inch of the Moapa dace's natural habitat is now in the hands of people dedicated to keeping the fish alive.

The water authority holds the largest piece, a roughly 2,000-acre tract dotted with natural springs and imported palm trees that researchers believe is home to about 90 percent of all the dace on Earth.

The authority took control of the property known as Warm Springs Ranch, 60 miles north of Las Vegas, in September. The name has since been changed to Warm Springs Natural Area to reflect its new role as a haven for dace and other sensitive species.

Prehistoric water from the deep carbonate aquifer bubbles to the surface at dozens of locations on the property, creating small streams that come together to form the Muddy River.

The Moapa dace spawns in the warm spring pools and makes its home in the streams and upper reaches of the river's main stem. The dace's entire habitat is confined to an area just a few miles long, so even a minor threat could prove fatal to the species.

The authority eventually plans to develop a comprehensive management plan for the Warm Springs Natural Area. First, though, officials must take stock of their new property.

Janet Monaco, who heads the authority's Muddy and Virgin River Division, said a complete inventory is in the works for the 1,179-acre ranch. The results could be interesting, considering the land was once owned by Howard Hughes and includes a bath house, a large, spring-fed swimming pool with its own paddle boats, and some cabanas rumored to have been used as an all-nude tanning spot for Las Vegas showgirls.

Much of that stuff likely will be removed from the property in an effort to return it to its natural state, Monaco said.

Cattle grazing on the property also are expected to disappear once the current ranching lease expires in March.

Monaco said the management plan will spell out specific actions, but the overall goal is to create the best possible habitat for the dace and other sensitive species of fish, birds and insects.

A hint of how that might be done can be found across the road from the natural area at the Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge, a federal preserve originally established on 32 acres in 1979.

The refuge now includes 117 acres of old ranch and RV park property that the Fish and Wildlife Service manages as part of the 1.6 million acre Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Clark, Lincoln and Nye counties.

Refuge officials have spent the past several years tearing out swimming pools and thinning crowded stands of palm trees that, left unchecked, can choke streams and invite damaging wildfires.

The tree removal has proven somewhat controversial.

Monaco said one local resident complained that her view was spoiled when several hundred palm trees were cleared from refuge land across the road from her home.

Others have argued that the trees are a distinct variety of palm that evolved in North America and came to the Warm Springs area naturally. As such, they deserve to be protected just as much as the dace does.

Cynthia Martinez, who manages the Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex, said there are no plans to eliminate the palm trees altogether. Some large groves will be left to preserve the character of the area and maintain roosting areas for bats that have taken a liking to the trees.

Wildlife managers also are hard at work eliminating non-native fish species that can crowd out the dace or worse.

In the early 1990s, tilapia, a non-native game fish, found its way up the Muddy River and began feeding on the natives. The dace population plunged from about 3,400 to fewer than 1,000 in just a few years.

Those numbers are on the way back up. As of the last official count, by researchers in February, 1,172 Moapa dace were living at the headwaters of the Muddy River.

So far, there have been few opportunities for the average taxpayer to see the work being done on the dace's behalf.

Martinez said the Moapa Valley refuge has no full-time staff and is closed to the public.

An effort is under way to clean up the property and construct facilities for visitors, but work has been hampered by a lack of funds.

"It's kind of been a work in progress," said Martinez, who wouldn't predict when the refuge might open.

When it does, visitors will be treated to an incomparable look at the dace in its natural habitat. The Fish and Wildlife Service has constructed a windowed cross-section of a spring-fed stream so people can watch the endangered fish swim at close range.

"I would like to have it open yesterday," Martinez said of the viewing area.

Eventually, Monaco also expects to see some public facilities within the Warm Springs Natural Area, including some birding trails, but visitor access likely will be limited to protect the dace.

The property was purchased with nearly $69 million in grants from the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, which uses proceeds from the sale of federal land in the Las Vegas Valley to fund conservation and recreation activities in the region.

The water authority began taking a lead role in the protection of the dace as part of a 2006 federal agreement with water users in the area.

The deal cleared the authority to begin tapping the nearby Coyote Spring Valley, where the agency has rights to enough water to supply about 20,000 Las Vegas Valley homes.

In 2002, the state water engineer put a hold on all pending applications for water rights in Coyote Spring Valley and ordered a two-year test pumping program to determine how much water development the basin could support.

In the next few months, the authority will start work on a 15-mile pipeline to carry water from the pumping test to the Muddy River. Because the river empties into Lake Mead, the authority can then recover that water -- along with other rights it holds along the Muddy's drainage -- using its existing intakes at the lake.

The authority's holdings on the river include water leased from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2006. The Mormon church once owned much of Warm Springs Ranch and still maintains a private, 72-acre recreation area for its followers.

Nevada Power Co. also uses water from the Warm Springs area for its Reid-Gardner power plant in nearby Moapa.

The recovery effort for the Moapa dace is being watched closely by environmentalists. Some view it as a test case for how the needs of sensitive species will be balanced against the growing thirst for water in the Las Vegas Valley.

The Moapa dace is expected to remain under federal protection until at least 75 percent of its historical habitat has been restored and its population is holding steady at least 6,000 adult fish. To reach that goal could take years and cost millions of dollars.

So why all this effort to save an isolated fish barely big enough to make a decent pizza topping? For one thing, federal law requires it.

"And the fish were here before us," Monaco said.

To Martinez, the better question is, Why not?

"They tell us a lot about our natural environment," she said of the dace. "They can be indicators to changes that could effect people."

And to dismiss an entire species, even a seemingly minor one, seems like an invitation to disaster, Martinez said.

"How many rivets can you remove from an airplane before the wing falls off?"

Wilderness, schmilderness

In Nevada, wilderness-wary locals derail lands bills that could help their communities

WESTERN ROUNDUP
by Gordon Gregory
High Country News

A view looking northwest from the top of Bald Mountain, Nevada, an area that could be proposed for wilderness protection. CAMERON JOHNSON

SMITH, NEVADA
In this tiny farm town, which lacks a stoplight or even a store, the gathering of more than 700 people on April 2 was unprecedented. And they weren’t at the high school gym to watch the Bulldogs play Class A basketball; they were there to tell officials just what they thought about a proposal to turn their mountains into wilderness.

It was a peaceful if not entirely well-mannered crowd, with most wildly cheering those who railed against wilderness, and jeering the three lone proponents. Shouts of "go back to Santa Cruz" and "we’re the public, stupid" peppered the warm evening.

Over and over, angry citizens came to the microphone to proclaim that no outsiders were going to tell them to keep their trucks and ORVs out of the hills they considered their heritage. Jim Sanford, former publisher of the local paper, summed up the mood: "I don’t think this group here tonight is interested in compromise."

But without compromise, there would be no public-lands bills like the ones approved over the past six years for three other Nevada counties, bills that called for the sale of thousands of acres of federal land and -- in conjunction with a 1998 law generated billions of dollars for everything from school funding to park development. Pushed by Nevada Sens. Harry Reid, D, and John Ensign, R, the bills sought to eliminate the management headaches and local resentments that are rife in a fast-growing state where more than four of every five acres is federal property.

The bills also designated major new wilderness areas. In Congress, the rough political calculus for such bills is this: If locals get to benefit from the sale of land owned by all Americans, the broader public receives additional wilderness in return. That seemed fair enough to folks in Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties, where a total of 164,000 acres of federal land was identified for auction and about 1.7 million acres were added to the wilderness system. And the state’s congressional delegation had every reason to expect success in other counties.

But in western Nevada this winter, that calculus was faulty. In quick succession, three counties -- Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda -- rebuffed efforts to craft compromise bills for lands within their boundaries. Fear and misunderstanding fueled a revolt against what locals perceived as a land grab. And now that the state’s anti-wilderness forces are energized, their efforts may derail what until recently seemed like a collaborative way to both meet local needs and protect wild lands.

The federal government owns more than 86 percent of Nevada, more than it owns in any other state. In some counties, the dearth of private property has limited growth, inflated property values and complicated land management. While counties with large federal holdings do get annual PILT funds (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) from the government, the payments are often a fraction of the taxes they’d receive if the land were privately owned. Esmeralda County, for example, gets only about $60,000 a year through PILT, even though 98 percent of it is federally owned.

The first attempt at redress was the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, which called for the sale of thousands of acres of BLM land near Las Vegas in Clark County. Thus far, about $2.7 billion has been generated from those lands sales, and some of that revenue has also been made available to other Nevada counties through public-lands bills.

The Clark, Lincoln and White Pine lands bills were designed with local input to meet local needs. For example, the White Pine County bill created 550,000 acres of wilderness and identified 45,000 acres of BLM land for auction. Funds from those land sales will go to the state education fund, local law enforcement and fire protection, and to the BLM. In addition, the bill transferred thousands of acres of BLM land to the county and state for commercial and park projects and funded a study of off-road vehicle trail expansion.

With such successes under their belts, in 2007 Sens. Reid and Ensign and Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., set their sights on Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda counties, again hoping to craft bills that combined wilderness designation with public-land sales and other locally beneficial provisions. Senate staffers began meeting with wilderness proponents, some ranchers and a few local leaders in the three counties. But most residents and many local officials were unaware of the process until early 2008, shortly before the bills were to be drafted. They felt blindsided by the news that such legislation was being considered for their areas and that they had only a few months to be involved.

"We just found out about this in February," says Mineral County Commissioner Richard Bryant, who says he and others were "dumbfounded" when they learned that almost 500,000 acres of federal land in the county were being considered for wilderness designation.

At a May 21 meeting, the commissioners lambasted Sen. Reid’s staff for not involving the counties earlier in the process. The commissioners couldn’t endorse any lands bill this year, they said; they needed time to determine what wilderness would mean for activities such as mining, geothermal development, grazing and recreation.

Lyon County residents say they were similarly surprised. Most first heard about the bill in late January, after local ranchers announced that they had met with congressional staff and representatives of the Nevada Wilderness Project to discuss how wilderness designation might affect their ranching operations.

Marianne Leinassar, whose family has run sheep in the area since 1858, says the ranchers had assumed that the wilderness would cover about 88,000 acres in the Bald Mountain area -- renamed Wovoka by local wilderness proponents -- because it had been the focus of past discussions about possible wilderness.

But at a Jan. 25 meeting, the ranchers saw maps from the Nevada Wilderness Project indicating that up to about 690,000 acres were being considered for wilderness designation in Lyon and in neighboring Mineral County. "We were all taken aback," Leinassar recalls, as they realized the size of the potential wilderness. "This was huge."

The news that hundreds of thousands of acres might become wilderness and that a bill to that effect could be drafted by summer spread like dust in a fast spring wind. Many didn’t know what wilderness designation meant, so anything seemed possible; there was talk of fences, even razor wire stretched across the landscape -- vast areas placed off limits, with mines closed, flight paths diverted, firefighting hobbled, and military training curtailed during wartime. Rumors of conspiracy and speculation about what Reid was really up to ran wild. "They were like a tornado generating their own storm," Steve Pellegrini, a retired teacher and wilderness advocate, says of his neighbors.

Within weeks of the Jan. 25 meeting, locals formed the Coalition for Public Access. By March, membership reached 1,000, then 1,500, most from Lyon County. Residents in Mineral County also started their own chapter. "This has united just about everybody in all of our surrounding communities who are normally ... on separate sides of the fence on water issues, on grazing issues, things like that," says Emery Thran, the group’s chairman. "This affected a lot of people." Residents saw wilderness not as a way to protect the natural qualities of the land, he says, but as a federal assault on what they most value.

In a place where many families arrived in the area more than 100 years ago, those values often involve a personal sense of history. Dr. Robin Titus practices medicine out of a one-physician clinic set amid an ocean of alfalfa fields. From her small office window, she can see the mountains her great grandfather mined. Some of her ancestors are buried there. And though she is an avid outdoors-woman, the idea that "outside" interests might affect local use of the nearby mountains rankles her deeply. "Somebody from out of town is trying to do something that affects the way we live here," she says. "People will tend to fight over that."

But wilderness supporters say many locals simply misunderstood the status of the proposal, as well as what a wilderness designation would mean. The Nevada Wilderness Project had not finalized its plans when it presented its maps to ranchers at that January meeting, says Cameron Johnson, northern Nevada outreach director for the group. He says it had identified roughly 690,000 acres in Lyon and Mineral County as possible wilderness, but had yet to make specific recommendations about which areas were most suitable for designation. Contrary to rumor, he says, his organization would have recommended accommodating traditional uses, including all existing mines and grazing allotments.

Thran, however, says the problem wasn’t a lack of understanding. He blames overreaching by wilderness proponents: If they had remained focused on the Bald Mountain/Wovoka area, he says, the outcome might have been different. "I don’t know if it would have raised an eyebrow around here," he says, of a bill containing just the 88,000-acre Wovoka wilderness. "But now, they’ve pretty much angered our community. No negotiations now. I’m sorry." Titus agrees that local passions are so inflamed that reasoned discussions on the topic are nearly impossible. "People feel that if they give in at all, they’ll lose it all," she says.

Local wilderness proponents still hope that at least the Wovoka area can receive protection through other legislation. Pellegrini and fellow advocate Art Shipley say that when they explain to other residents why the area is so special, many agree it deserves protection from off-roaders. But as soon as the word "wilderness" is mentioned, they say, people back away, thinking that practically the entire county is included. "I wish we didn’t have that 690,000 acres hanging over us," Pellegrini says.

The western Nevada experience may well hang over other potential lands bills in the state, as newly-empowered anti-wilderness activists are determined to continue the fight.

Peter Liakopoulos, host of the Las Vegas talk show Rural Nevada Today, is promoting the creation of a coalition of 14 counties to fight public-lands bills. The BlueRibbon Coalition, an off-road advocacy group based in Pocatello, Idaho, is backing anti-wilderness efforts in Nevada and elsewhere, says Brian Hawthorne, the group’s public-lands policy director. "I think what you’re seeing is a change, a realization that you’re trading wilderness for reasonableness," he says.

Part of what’s changing as well is that some local officials, under pressure by the Coalition for Public Access and others, now refuse to even talk about a lands bill because of the likely wilderness component. Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda counties passed resolutions this winter opposing any new wilderness within their boundaries. Lyon County and Esmeralda County also passed resolutions rejecting any lands bill that designated new wilderness, effectively shutting off further consideration of any lands bill.

Mineral County commissioners put lands bill discussions in limbo earlier this spring, when they said they weren’t ready to work with Senate staffers. Mineral County Commissioner Jerrie Tipton still says a carefully crafted lands bill is critical to her county’s economic future, and she, for one, would consider some wilderness as part of the package. "(Federal land ownership) is part of the reason we’re so damn poor," she says. But overcoming a tidal wave of opposition may be impossible at this time, she says: "A year ago, I would have said that we can work through it. Today, I don’t know."

The only hope is to fully engage residents in the design of the lands bill, Tipton says. "These people (local citizens) have to be brought into it, or it’s not going to work," she says. "They need to have a hand in the crafting of the vision, or we’re all going to be tarred and feathered."

Without local residents and governments on board, there’s little chance that Sens. Reid and Ensign and Rep. Heller will press forward on these bills. A modest lands bill for Carson City (which includes the former Ormsby County) is progressing without rancor -- in part because the county contains no chunks of federal land large enough to qualify for wilderness. Jon Summers, Sen. Reid’s communication director, says, "We said from the beginning we’re not going to force this down anyone’s throat."

CALICO BASIN: Tranquillity lost

Couple selling property near Red Rock to BLM

By KEITH ROGERS
Las Vegas Review-Journal


Twenty-six years ago Gene and Becky Hutchinson bought a small ranch house on more than 2 acres of sandy soil off a gravel road in Calico Basin, away from the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas.
Except for their dogs barking when strangers approach, it has been a peaceful spot at the edge of Red Rock Canyon's scenic sandstone cliffs west of the city and far from its bright lights.

Purchased for a bit more than $100,000, the property has been perfect for the Hutchinsons, who came from Florida to work at jobs supporting Las Vegas' booming convention business.

But as years went by and the city's expansion crept westward, the rural community of Calico Basin lost some of its tranquillity. "This place isn't what it used to be," Gene Hutchinson, a retired union truck driver and Vietnam-era veteran, said Wednesday.

Tourists and rock climbers often camp on the side of the road, leaving behind their bottles and trash.

"I don't mind the climbing and the people coming out here to enjoy the area, but I don't like them leaving their beer bottles," he said.

"When I go someplace and take something, I take it back out with me," he said.

Once in a while, climbers attracted to the picturesque cliffs suffer injuries from falls and seek help at his house, which has the nearest land-line telephone. Even today, cell phone coverage is nonexistent there.

So when the Bureau of Land Management started buying property a few years ago to enhance the environment and aesthetics of nearby Red Spring Picnic Area, the Hutchinsons, too, considered selling their part of paradise.

Last month, the BLM announced it is proposing to pay $1.7 million for the 2.27-acre Hutchinson property in its latest round of planned purchases under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act.

Two years ago, the BLM used funding from the act to purchase the 5-acre Garland property near Red Spring for $3.5 million.

The act allows money from the sale of public land around Las Vegas to be used to buy environmentally sensitive lands elsewhere in the state. In all, more than 40 projects are proposed under this round, totaling more than $80.25 million.

The proposed Hutchinson purchase is part of the bureau's plan to buy some of Calico Basin's 60 parcels from willing sellers to enhance habitat for wildlife and benefit the public's use of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

"Eventually they want the whole thing," Gene Hutchinson said Wednesday. "They want mine because we're right next to the park."

The Calico Basin community, which numbers between 75 and 100 people, evolved from land the government made available under the Small Tract Act of 1938 to attract residents to the West near the end of the Great Depression.

Of the 60 parcels, 23 have on them buildings, such as houses and horse barns. At 2.27 acres, the Hutchinson property is the smallest. The largest is 40 acres. That was sold by the BLM to the Girl Scouts in the late 1960s.

All of the other parcels became private holdings as a result of the Small Tract Act, said Bob Taylor, assistant field manager for the National Landscape Conservation System at Red Rock Canyon.

"The intent was to populate the West," he said.

One of Calico Basin's longtime inhabitants, Jake Stone, a cowboy and prospector, died about two years ago. His house and most of the antique equipment and wagon wheels that he kept along the road have been removed. The property's new owner hasn't approached the BLM yet regarding its potential sale, Taylor said.

In the meantime, some newer "dream houses" have been built in the basin and atop a ridge overlooking it, he said. It's unlikely that these properties will be sold. Reliance on well water from a small aquifer has precluded larger developments in the past, he said.

BLM spokeswoman Hillerie Patton said the bureau is trying to purchase any Calico Basin properties that fit with the conservation area's management plan and are in the hands of willing sellers. "As funding becomes available, we will try to make the acquisitions," she said.

The process will proceed slowly, she said, noting the bureau currently is interested in three Calico Basin properties whose owners want to sell.

"We're not looking to boot people out of their homes. We're not trying to do a land grab," Patton said. "By no means are we trying to encourage people to give up their homes to us."

Taylor said purchasing the Hutchinson property makes sense. It is adjacent to the conservation area and would enhance the park's open character.

Before the sale can be completed, the Hutchinsons, he said, will have to raze the house that was built in 1963 and begin restoring the acreage to its natural state. Otherwise, the BLM would have to contract the work out under the government's process.

That would entail purchasing abandoned buildings, and funding isn't available for demolition. Nevertheless, the cost to do that is included, up front, in the sale of the land.

"We just want the raw land," Taylor said.

That means the Hutchinsons will have to remove the septic tank in addition to all the buildings. Taylor said the water well, which is downstream from Red Spring, probably will be retired too.

"We'll restore that wash to its proper, functioning conditions, and bring in native plants," he said.
As it is now, the land provides habitat for the threatened desert tortoise and a state-protected bird, the phainopepla. The black-and-gray crested bird eats berries from mistletoe, a parasite plant found on old growth mesquite trees.

A healthy acacia tree also stands on the property, which sits at an elevation of 3,500 feet.

In the spring, wildflowers turn the landscape into a kaleidoscope of colors.

There are yellow desert marigolds, orange globe mallows and delicate Mariposa lillies. Brilliant fuchsia blooms poke from the top of an occasional hedgehog cactus.

Hutchinson said his wife has mixed emotions about moving, probably to Utah.

And he suggested that other Calico Basin residents will want to stay put.

"A lot of them ain't going to move because they've been here forever," he said.

Interior encourages BLM land sales

Selling public lands will let Western cities sprawl into new territory

Zachary Smith WESTERN ROUNDUP
High Country News

In a couple of years, BLM lands around fast-growing cities like St. George, Utah, could hamper growth.

More than 20 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and his advisors looked across the West’s public lands and saw dollar signs. Money was something they desperately needed in 1982, as the national deficit hit $128 billion.

So James Watt, then U.S. secretary of the Interior, and John R. Block, the secretary of Agriculture, earmarked 35 million acres, or 5 percent of the nation’s public lands (excluding Alaska), for the auction block.

The plan to privatize public lands was met with outrage and skepticism, not only from Western liberals such as Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt, but also from conservatives like Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, who objected because the states were cut out of the deal.

Watt eventually withdrew Interior lands from the sale; shortly thereafter, the Forest Service’s sale lost steam, too.

However unpopular the proposed sales were, they weren’t illegal. And the idea didn’t go away. The framework for selling public lands has inched forward since the Clinton administration, and now the Interior Department wants to give it a higher priority.

The 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) required the Bureau of Land Management to identify lands that were "uneconomical to manage," or that stood in the way of a community’s development.

But the BLM lacked a strong incentive to identify such sellable lands: Under FLPMA, any money received from their sale would go directly into the U.S. Treasury, rather than into the agency’s own coffers.

Then, in 2000, Congress and the Clinton administration passed the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA), which changed how profits from BLM land sales were distributed.

Twenty percent of any land-sale revenue would go toward the BLM’s administration costs, while the other 80 percent had to be used to buy private inholdings within BLM lands that contained "exceptional resources."

The act was based on a land disposal and acquisition mechanism in the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998, which was crafted to accommodate Las Vegas’ rapid expansion onto neighboring public lands.

But FLTFA’s profit scheme applied only to sellable lands identified before July 25, 2000. At that time, the BLM estimated it had 3.3 million acres of sellable land, but thanks to better inventories, its estimate has since shrunk to as low as 330,000 acres.

From 2001 to 2003, the BLM sold almost 11,000 acres under FLTFA.

Today, cities like Phoenix, Ariz., and St. George, Utah, are butting up against public lands, and the BLM is facing a $320 million budget reduction from last year.

At the same time, the agency is chipping away at a backlog of dated land-use plans, which gives it the opportunity to identify more disposable lands. Now, politically appointed staffers at the Interior Department want to give the BLM even greater incentive to do so.

In August, Assistant Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett, who oversees the BLM, wrote to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., asking for legislative amendments to FLTFA that would encourage the BLM to sell off more land. She has asked Congress to make the identification and selling of disposable land an ongoing process, rather than one limited to land identified before the July 2000 cutoff date.

Twenty percent of any revenue would still go to the BLM’s administrative costs, but under Scarlett’s proposal, only 60 percent of the money would go toward land acquisition. The other 20 percent would go toward "conservation enhancement projects," to fund local projects such as riparian improvement or removing invasive weeds.

Abolishing the July 2000 deadline gives the BLM "the incentive to decide to designate (new) lands as disposable," says Johanna Wald, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Wald thinks this change could open the door for much more land to be added to the "for sale" list.