Ecologist Steps in to Lead Mojave Desert Research, Education Center

Darren R. Sandquist is the new
Desert Studies Consortium director.

CSUF News Service

For over 25 years, ecologist Darren R. Sandquist, professor of biological science, has taken countless treks to California's arid regions to study plant ecology and teach his students about the rare and threatened plant and animal species, as well as the importance of conservation.

"I love seeing others discover how amazing deserts are," said Sandquist, who studies how desert plants manage to grow, survive and reproduce in an environment with so little water.

Now in his new role as director of the California State University's California Desert Studies Consortium (CDSC), Sandquist is taking steps to advance cross-disciplinary research, education and training to better understand desert ecosystems.

The consortium of seven Southern California CSU campuses operates the Desert Studies Center at Zzyzx, located within the Mojave National Preserve, a federally protected area about 60 miles northeast of Barstow. CSUF serves as the host campus, providing administrative oversight of the desert field station. In its 40th year of operation, the Desert Studies Center attracts more than 2,300 visitors a year, including students, faculty members and other research scientists from across the globe.

Sandquist became consortium director last fall when longtime director William "Bill" Presch, professor emeritus of biological science, stepped down after serving in the post for 24 years.

What is your new role?
The consortium promotes research, education and outreach related to our California deserts. As director, I oversee consortium programs and operations of the center. This includes developing student academic skills and public awareness through instruction, research and special projects and programs — in and out of the classroom.

Why did you want the job?
I applied for the position because I'm a great believer in the consortium's mission and field-based education. Having used the center since I arrived at CSUF in 1999, I believe it is an irreplaceable resource for both education and research, and I want to help increase the visibility and appreciation of both the consortium and center.

What has been the most rewarding so far?
Two things: The passion for the center expressed by our users — ranging from CSUF students who have visited multiple times to first-time visitors from as far away as the United Kingdom. The place can be infectious. What I always look forward to most is being at the center when students are there and seeing them discover and learn, and maybe even get hooked on desert research. We’ve also received tremendous support from practically every level at CSUF, and I really appreciate that commitment.

What is your vision for the center?
I can’t stop thinking of things I’d like to see us accomplish. One of the main emphases right now is to increase our role in desert research. Research meets many important educational objectives, in addition to providing evidence-based information for decision-making and prudent management of desert ecosystems. I also want to provide greater opportunity for underrepresented students in STEM disciplines to both participate in academic field experiences and engage in field research.

I also look forward to building stronger relationships with our partner universities and with the Mojave National Preserve. Collectively, we have a tremendous amount of expertise in desert systems — and the consortium should be instrumental in mobilizing that expertise to help address the current and rising challenges faced by the wild and human residents of these arid environments.

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.

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.

Opposition Mounts to Solar Project On Mojave Preserve Boundary

View of the North Array site's currently undisturbed desert tortoise habitat from the Soda Mountains. (Courtesy Basin and Range Watch)

by Chris Clarke
KCET.org

If discussion at a recent gathering of activists is any indication, a nearly 4,200-acre solar project for a valley adjoining National Park land in California's Mojave desert will encounter near-unanimous opposition from green groups.

The Soda Mountain Solar project, described earlier here at ReWire, would place 358 megawatts' worth of solar panels on 2,557 acres on either side of Interstate 15 between Baker and Barstow. The project would also include about 1,600 acres of support infrastructure, including roads, operations buildings, and an electrical substation. Depending on the plant's configuration, the project's East Array would be built as little as a quarter mile from the boundary of the Mojave National Preserve, a 1.6 million-acre National Park Service unit, near Zzyzx, a former resort turned desert research center.

That perceived encroachment on the Preserve, along with the project's potential effects on desert bighorn sheep and other wildlife, prompted strong statements of opposition at a Sierra Club-sponsored meeting of California and Nevada desert activists over the weekend in Shoshone, a nearby community outside Death Valley National Park.

"This is just a bad project," David Lamfrom, California Desert Senior Program Manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, told the gathering on Saturday. "It's a dinosaur. There's no justification for building a solar power plant in this spot, where it will infringe on the Preserve and damage some of the best bighorn habitat in the Mojave."

Lamfrom's charges came during a presentation on the project at the February 15-16 meeting of the Sierra Club's California-Nevada Desert Committee, which draws desert activists from a wide range of organizations and locales four times a year to discuss topics ranging from wilderness to landfill proposals.

Lamfrom told the group that activists had thought they'd killed a previous version of the project, proposed by the New York-based firm Caithness Energy. Facing opposition based on proximity to the Preserve and the project's likely effects on desert wildlife, as well as problems with selling the project's power based on insufficient transmission through the area, Caithness quietly backed off on Soda Mountain Solar. "But then Caithness sold the project to Bechtel," said Lamfrom. "Bechtel has deep enough pockets to risk pushing it through, so it came back to life."

The project would also abut the Soda Mountains Wilderness Study Area (WSA), a haven for bighorn sheep. The corridor between Zzyzx in the Preserve and that WSA has long been one of the best places in the area for watching bighorn, who have so far escaped the outbreaks of pneumonia that have killed off sheep elsewhere in the Preserve. And according to comments submitted by Mojave National Preserve superintendent Stephanie Dubois during the project's scoping phase, a series of underpasses in the area serve as relatively safe and efficient wildlife crossings for the sheep. The project would block those crossings.

Other wildlife in the area include the federally Threatened desert tortoise, the Mojave fringe-toed lizard, burrowing owls, desert kit foxes, and golden eagles. Water use by the project for cleaning solar panels raises another concern: groundwater pumping will likely lower the local water table. If that pumping cut flows to springs in the Preserve, that might cause big problems for the federally Endangered Mohave tui chub, whose last wild population lives in a small spring downhill from the project site. (A few additional populations of the fish have been planted in other bodies of in the desert.)

Activists are gearing up to oppose the project with a unanimity not generally seen in opposition to other desert solar projects. Some green groups have been reluctant to stand in full-bore opposition to other desert solar proposals given the seriousness of the climate crisis the projects are intended to address. But the problems with the Bechtel project would seem to undo any benefit the solar energy might offer. Aside from the water and wildlife concerns, it may be that the project would be built to no actual end. No utility has agreed to buy a single megawatt of the 358 the project would generate at peak production.

Though two transmission lines cross the Soda Mountain Solar site, one -- the Eldorado-Kramer line operated by the California Independent System Operator (CaISO) -- is at capacity already, and would need expensive upgrades to carry more power. The other line, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Marketplace-Adelanto line, supplies power to municipal utilities in Southern California. None of those utilities have expressed public interest in buying Soda Mountain's power.

Given what they cast as the likely lack of compensating benefits from the project, groups ranging from NPCA to the national office of the Sierra Club have already gone on record as opposing the plant.

A public comment period on the project's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) draws to a close March 3. Many in attendance at the meeting in Shoshone said they were awaiting comments by the National Park Service on the Draft EIS, which are rumored to be blunt. With the close of comments on the Draft EIS, the Bureau of Land Management will begin drafting the project's Final EIS, which is likely to take several months.

One thing the BLM will need to address in that new document is a recent San Bernardino County ordinance that would seem to make the Soda Mountain project illegal as designed, by restricting solar development within two miles of National Parks in unincorporated sections of the county.

Some independent activists in attendance at Shoshone aren't waiting to go through the usual EIS process, and have crafted a Whitehouse.gov petition urging President Obama to make a decision up front denying Bechtel the right of way the project will need in order to go forward.

Barring that petition's success, the BLM's approach to the project in crafting the final EIS will likely ride on what the National Park Service's comments on the draft EIS say. The scoping comments mentioned above focused on impacts to bighorn as well as groundwater depletion and the site's top-notch desert tortoise habitat.

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.

Flowers going wild

Filmmaker finds desert in bloom

California golden poppies bloom in the desert sun at Joshua Tree National Park on Wednesday. Experts predict that a rare combination of weather - drought conditions followed by this year's winter rains - will mean a spectacular wildflower season throughout San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
Eric Reed/Staff Photographer

Lauren McSherry, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

AMBOY - This time of year, most drivers speeding through the desert at 75 mph probably don't notice the colorful wildflowers erupting from the sand.

But one man does, and when he spots an unusual blossom, he stops.

Filmmaker Peter Rhalter has been documenting desert blooms since 1998.

When he's out scouting flowers, he can be found lying on his belly somewhere out in the desert landscape, carefully zooming in on a boldly colored blossom with his video camera.

"A lot of the most interesting shots come right at ground level," he said.

Instead of relying on a tripod, he uses a ping pong ball to balance his camera.

Rhalter works with his wife, Melanie, who writes the scripts for their films. The couple have made documentaries about Grand Canyon, Death Valley and Yosemite national parks. Their film on desert wildflowers, "Season of the Sand Blossoms," is sold in a number of national park gift shops.

Even after spending 10 years filming desert blooms, Rhalter - who often makes the trek out to the Mojave and Death Valley from his Los Angeles home - still stumbles across some flowers he can't identify.

"I like to shoot first, ask questions later," he said.

In those instances, once out of the field and back home, he will consult a botanist about proper identification.

Just south of Sheephole Pass, on Amboy Road, a profusion of colorful wildflowers stretched across the desert. The desert bloom had arrived, and Rhalter pulled over to document it.

Acres of hip-high purple lupine were running riot, interspersed with the satin-like petals of yellow Mojave poppies, the delicate white blossoms of brown-eyed evening primrose, the spongy flower tops of white pin cushion and the spiny indigo orbs of chia sage.

Tucked under the branches of the creosote bushes were lavender sprays of desert phacelia.

In the parking area at the top of the pass, Joyce Stephenson, 86, of Riverside pointed out a cluster of wildflowers to her husband, Martin, 87. They have driven to the High Desert every year since the 1940s for the bloom.

"We've never seen so many different blooms at one time," Joyce said.

A few miles north of Sheephole Pass, desert marigolds, similar to yellow daisies, coated the length of a pitch-black lava flow. Amboy Crater loomed in the distance, with what Rhalter speculated were pink sand verbena covering its southern flank. In the distance, splashes of yellow punctuated the mountainsides.

Richard Minnich, a plant ecology professor at UC Riverside, predicts this year's bloom will be phenomenal throughout San Bernardino and Riverside counties - and could be the best -witnessed in the last 30 to 50 years.

"Boy, it's getting good," he said. "It takes rare conditions for them to break out."

The previous years' drought conditions, coupled with the timing of the winter rains this year, wiped out the invasive European grasses, called bromes, that are usually so prolific and aggressive that they squelch the native wildflowers, Minnich said.

"The bad plants had their butts kicked, and the wildflowers are having their moment," he said. "It will take many, many years for the bromes to reinvade their former territory."

Toward the end of the day, when the afternoon light became best for filming, Rhalter drove north toward the Kelso sand dunes in Mojave National Preserve. It was clear the bloom had yet to reach the preserve's higher elevations, but Rhalter pressed on.

At the base of the dunes, he pointed out the green leaves of dune primroses preparing to bloom. Abruptly, he headed off the trail, returning to hunting mode.

"I saw some color," he said. "It's a primrose, for sure."

Flower questions? The Theodore Payne Foundation operates a wildflower hot line covering Southern California between March 7 and May. Call (818) 768-3533.

Dune primrose near Zzyzx, February 24, 2008

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.

Zzyzx facility to get new solar panels

By JASON SMITH Staff Writer
Desert Dispatch [Barstow, CA]

Thanks to a federal grant, an educational center in the Mojave National Preserve will be getting new solar panels. The new panels will expand the power-generating capabilities of the California Desert Studies center at Zzyzx within the preserve.

The project will be 50 percent funded by the National Parks Service as part of a national program to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the parks service. The remaining funds will be paid by the group that operates the facility, a group of seven California State colleges, said Larry Whalon, acting deputy superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve.

“It’s a good show of support from the Bush Administration for the national parks,” he said.

The centennial anniversary of the parks service will occur in 2016, but increased federal funds were put aside for improvement projects in the 2008 fiscal year. The preserve also might apply for funds to operate a Barstow-to-Kelso Depot rail line and to acquire more land, Whalon said.

William Presch, director of the consortium that manages the study center, said the 12-building complex needs more power-generating capacity. The facility includes housing for as many as 70 researchers.

Presch said the solar panels will teach students about environmental sustainability in the harsh desert environment. The facility currently uses diesel and propane generators in addition to its existing solar panels. The center is completely self-sustaining and treats its own wastewater.

“We have nothing coming in from the outside. We are completely off the grid,” Presch said.

The 1,200 acre facility receives an average of 20 users each day and 7,200 each year, Presch said. The majority of visitors are undergraduate students of biology, geology, astronomy and other subjects. Graduate researchers are also able to use the facility.

Recent research projects have included sand movement, earthquake research and studies of plant and insects. The Mars landers were tested at the facility before being sent to space, Presch said.

Construction of the panels will begin in March and be finished by October 2008.

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.

A dozen years of desert protection

Chuck Mueller, Staff Writer

Speeding motorists bent on reaching Las Vegas or Laughlin Nev., as rapidly as possible view the eastern Mojave Desert as a vast wasteland as they zip along Interstate 15 or Interstate 40.

Along the way, they pass endless clusters of creosote bushes, some of nature's oldest plants, growing in the 1.6 million-acre Mojave National Preserve.

"A lot of people don't know what's out here," said Dennis Schramm, superintendent of the vast desert preserve, which marked its 12th anniversary Tuesday. "It contains over 900 species of plants, 206 species of birds, 47 species of animals and 36 species of reptiles."

And it also is resplendent with massive sand dunes, desolate mountain peaks, stands of Joshua trees, Indian wall paintings called petrogylphs, herds of bighorn sheep and the historic Mojave wagon road.

Alarmed by the relentless expansion of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, environmental visionaries mapped out strategy in the 1970s to counter the threat that urban growth posed for the Southern California desert.

In the 1980s, skirmishes between environmentalists and mining, ranching and off-road vehicle interests foreshadowed legislative battles. In a move to placate both sides, a huge expanse of the eastern desert was set aside in 1980 as the East Mojave National Scenic Area, the first designation of its kind.

By the early 1990s, a proposal to protect the desert slowly began to move through congressional committees, culminating in the passage of the California Desert Protection Act on Oct. 31, 1994.

The act, which preserved 7.7 million acres of scenic wildlands, established the Mojave National Preserve, elevated the Death Valley and Joshua Tree national monuments to national- park status and created 69 new wilderness areas.

"The preserve protects the largest piece of the Mojave Desert for posterity," Schramm said. "Whatever happens in Southern California in 100 years, the preserve will still be here."

Among the preserve's most-prized historic structures, the Kelso depot was restored and opened as a visitors' center. The vintage train station, opened by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1924 and closed in 1985, serves as a window into an era when the railroad opened the West.

There was talk of demolishing the structure after it was shut down, but concerned citizens rallied to save it and Congress allocated $5.5 million to restore it, Schramm said.

The National Park Service also has restored historic Fort Piute, which served as a military outpost in the 1860s along the old Mojave Road to protect the U.S. mail and wagon trains.

"Its walls were crumbling, but now we've stabilized the remaining walls," said Park Ranger Linda Slater.

The Park Service also is working with a consortium of California state universities to stabilize older buildings at Zzyzx, near Baker, which is run by universities as a desert studies center. It celebrated its 30th anniversary last month.

Since the preserve was created a decade ago, the National Park Service has reduced mining claims from 9,000 to a few hundred.

"And no active mining is going on," Schramm said.

Cattle grazing also has been trimmed by about two-thirds, and only one cattle ranch is left.

Meanwhile, the preserve's annual budget rose from $600,000 in 1995 to this year's $4.1 million, and the park staff increased from seven in 1995 to the current 41.

The number of park visitors jumped from 280,000 in 1997 to 632,000 last year.

"They're attracted by the region's solitude and isolation," said Slater.

Over the past few years, the Park Service replaced the former fire center at its Hole-in-the-Wall camp site and rebuilt the water system and roads serving campgrounds at Mid Hills and Hole-in-the-Wall.

High school students affiliated with the Youth Conservation Corps rehabilitated a fire-ravaged, eight-mile hiking trail last year between the two campgrounds.

And volunteers surveyed 114 springs in the preserve to determine their water levels, finding that 80 percent had surface water last fall, Slater said.

In addition, a dozen big horn ewes were transferred earlier this year from the preserve to help replenish a dwindling herd at the China Lake Naval Weapons Station near Ridgecrest.

"We've had an active 12 years," Schramm said.

Kelso Depot building renovation and tour

Backward Glance

by Steve Smith
Desert Dispatch

Editor's note: This is the second part of a two-part story.

One of the first projects I worked on as a volunteer at the Mojave River Valley Museum was a picture search for the displays at Kelso. James Woolsey came to the museum and talked about what they were looking for. He also showed me the plans. I must admit the plans didn't mean much to me at the time, but now that I can go to Kelso Depot, I have a sense of pride at my small contribution and I now can see what those plans were leading to.

Work on restoring the depot started in 1999. The first stages of the restoration was to gut the building. As is often the case, lead-based paints were used in the building and had to be cleaned out. During the clean up it was discovered where the building needed extra construction work. They also uncovered a few surprises. In the walls was discovered time cards from kitchen employees, old batteries and small wires that powered a doorbell system that ran to the upstairs sleeping rooms.

Once the tearing apart was done, they had to rebuild. The plan was to do the best job possible to bring the depot back to its original state. Most of the original wood trim and doors were salvaged. The great old staircase was stripped of enamel paint revealing the beautiful wood underneath. Everything was carefully researched and made to look as original as possible. The one addition to the building is the elevator, which allows visitors access to all three floors of the building.

One good example of the meticulous work is the red awnings over the second-story windows. These awnings were on the building when it was first built. A few years after that the awnings were removed. So now when you look at the exterior of the depot you are getting a close as possible view of the building as it was when it was built.

The first sight as you come in the front door is the Beanery counter. It is restored to how it looked originally, only smaller. All of the wood has been stained, and even the pie case has been brought back. The only thing missing is someone to serve you. The National Park Service is looking for vendors to run the counter. From what I have heard of the number of visitors that have come to the depot recently it should be a good business opportunity.

The old front counter is also in the room and is manned by staff. This is the place to ask questions and find out what is going on in the preserve. Behind the counter is the room that introduces you to the desert with sounds of the desert playing in the background. These are very realistic. During my visit I went outside to take some pictures and heard what I thought was the recording but in looking around I saw the bird singing.

What I liked about the depot (heck, it should be called a museum) is that all the senses are taken care of. There are soundbased displays on the booming of the Kelso Dunes and recordings of Curtis Howe Springer, the evangelist who sold mineral cures and ran the health resort at Zzyzx. There are also displays that let you try lifting a railroad tie and using a tool to move a rail road wheel and kids can actually climb a saddle in the ranching section. Smellwise you can enjoy the fresh air outside the depot or the diesel fumes of the passing trains.

The Mojave Preserve is a big place and is full of interesting history and the depot represents everything there. At the depot you will find rooms dedicated to ranching, the railroad, Route 66, the people who lived at Kelso and samples of what the sleeping rooms looked like in Kelso's heyday and many more interesting displays. One of my favorite places in the building is the reading room upstairs. This is a small library with all sorts of information regarding the preserve and maps, old and new. If you are planning a trip into the preserve this is a good place to see what is out there and to learn about the great resources in our backyard. Of course after you go around in the desert, you can sit in the comfortable chairs and nap like I did at the end of a long day.

Mojave National Preserve's preservation efforts criticized

Source: Center for the State of the Parks: Park Assessments

California Desert

Published June 2005




View full report: http://www.npca.org/stateoftheparks/californiadesert/californiadesert.pdf

Current overall conditions of the Mojave National Preserve’s known natural resources rated a “poor” score of 59 out of 100. The loss of critical habitat because of historic grazing and recreational activities (principally, off-road vehicle use) as well as isolation associated with increased transportation corridors and traffic density between Los Angeles and Las Vegas are high-ranking resource protection threats at the preserve. Additionally, nonnative species, mining-related releases of hazardous materials, air and light pollution, and continued grazing are prominent concerns for the preserve’s natural resources.

Overall conditions of the park’s known cultural resources rated 50 out of a possible 100, indicating “poor” conditions. Mojave National Preserve is a relatively new addition to the National Park System, and is the first national preserve assessed by the State of the Parks program. The fledgling cultural resource program at Mojave National Preserve has accomplished much planning work and archaeological site documentation in the last three years, but additional staff and resources are needed to further stewardship efforts. For example, the preserve currently lacks staff to care for museum and archival collections and develop relationships with traditionally associated groups of people.

KEY FINDINGS

Mojave National Preserve would benefit from the services of a term historian to complete historical research to provide park contexts for mining, structures, and cultural landscapes.

Mojave National Preserve also would benefit, as would the other California desert parks, from a shared historic preservation crew to inspect, monitor, and perform preventive maintenance on park structures.

None of the objects in Mojave National Preserve’s small museum collection have been catalogued, and a management plan is needed.

Funding is needed for specialists to help update the Cultural Landscape Inventory for the Kelso Depot, and the Mojave Road needs to be surveyed for the Cultural Landscape Inventory and nominated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

CULTURAL RESOURCES—VALUABLE HISTORIC TREASURES AT RISK

State of the Parks researchers assessed and assigned scores to cultural resource conditions at Mojave National Preserve. Categories included history, ethnography (peoples and cultures), historic structures, archaeology, and archive and museum collections. The scores for cultural resources are based on the results of indicator questions that reflect the National Park Service’s own Cultural Resource Management Guideline and other policies related to cultural and historical resources.

The assessments rated the overall conditions of cultural resources at Mojave National Preserve as 50. This score indicate that cultural resources are in poor condition at Mojave National Preserve. Prominent factors influencing the ratings are funding and staffing shortfalls that limit cultural resource protection activities.

HISTORY—RICH REGIONAL HISTORY MERITS ADDITIONAL RESEARCH

Completed or ongoing historical research at Mojave National Preserve includes a transportation study, town site study, historic resource studies on the region’s ranching history, and a railroad history that is part of a historic structure report on the Kelso Depot. The preserve also has an administrative history that was completed in March 2003, and an overview of the preserve’s mining history will commence in 2005. Regional Park Service historians and consultants complete most of this research.

Local citizens hold a wealth of information on the region’s history. Productive collaboration with these people benefits the preserve and strengthens ties with the local community. Additional historical research would help park staff understand Mojave National Preserve’s historic context and help them develop more interpretive tools to teach visitors about the preserve’s history. Mining, military, and historic landscape studies would contribute to evaluations of historic and cultural resources for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

CULTURAL LANDSCAPES—FUNDS NEEDED TO SUPPORT ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION AND PRESERVATION

Zzyzx, Kelso Depot, Rock Springs Land and Cattle Company, and the Mojave Road are the park’s four identified landscapes. Other cultural landscapes likely exist, but staff have not had the time or the resources to systematically identify or evaluate potentially important landscapes throughout the preserve.

The Kelso Depot, the only landscape in the preserve that is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, was once a major railroad depot. Completed in 1924, the depot included a restaurant and employee boardinghouse. The depot closed in 1985, but it has recently been restored to its 1920s heyday and now houses a visitor information center that will re-open to the public in the fall of 2005.

Zzyzx was once a health resort and mineral springs built by self-proclaimed minister and doctor Curtis Springer and his wife, Mary Loise Berkebile. The two operated the resort from 1944 to 1974, when it was closed for food and drug violations and unauthorized use of federal land. The site has been officially evaluated for its significance and eligibility for listing in the National Register, but the California State Historic Preservation Office is not reviewing new National Register nominations because of a budget crisis. California State University, Fullerton, leases the buildings and land at Zzyzx to host its Desert Studies Center, and is actively involved in rehabilitation of the landscape.

The Mojave Road is the name given to a corridor that travelers used for centuries to cross the harsh desert. Springs and watering holes along the way provided critical water. American Indians traveled the corridor on trading expeditions, and the route was once a major thoroughfare that served military outposts, miners, settlers, and trappers. After the advent of steamships and trains, the Mojave Road became obsolete. However, it retains importance today because it teaches contemporary visitors about the history of transportation in the region. This landscape has not had a condition assessment and has not been formally recorded and evaluated.

As grazing leases have been retired, Mojave National Preserve has assumed responsibility for remaining ranching infrastructure, which is scattered over nearly 1 million acres. The Rock Springs Land and Cattle Company was the primary ranching company in the region between 1894 and 1927. With the onset of the Depression, the company was sold and its holdings divided into the OX, Kessler Springs, and Valley View ranches within the current preserve and the Walking Box Ranch just across the border in Nevada. Park Service regional staff recently completed a Cultural Landscape Inventory of the former Rock Springs territory, and this will be submitted with a nomination for National Register of Historic Places listing for the Rock Springs Land and Cattle Company National Historic District in 2005.

Mojave National Preserve’s staff do not have enough time or resources to work on stewardship of the preserve’s historic and cultural landscapes. Park Service landscape specialists are available at the regional level, but Mojave National Preserve cannot afford to pay for their services. These specialists are also in demand in many other parks, and regional funding for their services is dwindling.

HISTORIC STRUCTURES—A DESERT REGION PRESERVATION CREW NEEDED FOR ADEQUATE STEWARDSHIP

In 2003, Mojave National Preserve’s List of Classified Structures contained about 77 entries. This list needs to be updated to include additional known structures such as the more than 100 structures Mojave National Preserve acquired when grazing leases were retired. Recent condition assessments of most of the listed historic structures found that 58 percent are in good condition. But in 2004, Park Service policy regarding the List of Classified Structures changed so that only those structures that have been formally determined to be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places can be included on the list and thus benefit from preservation funding from certain sources. As a result of this policy change, Mojave National Preserve’s List of Classified Structures was reduced to a total of 12structures.

Mojave National Preserve does not have an annual historic structure monitoring program, and staff struggle to keep pace with preventive maintenance. The preserve’s maintenance staff perform some routine maintenance on historic structures, and regional Park Service staff, when available, assist with larger restoration and rehabilitation projects. If funding permits, Mojave National Preserve’s facility manager and other maintenance staff will obtain historic preservation training.

Several historic structures at the OX Ranch and Kessler Spring Ranch are being rehabilitated to house preserve staff. This will help alleviate Mojave National Preserve’s housing shortage and should facilitate resource protection since buildings that are used tend to receive regular maintenance attention. In addition, the Kelso schoolhouse and associated buildings have been stabilized and the Rock House has been rehabilitated. The Rock Springs Land and Cattle Co. Historic District is currently being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.

ARCHIVAL AND MUSEUM COLLECTIONS—ADDITIONAL STORAGE AND EXHIBIT SPACE NEEDED

Mojave National Preserve has never had any staff to care for museum or archival collections. As a result, none of the collection items has been catalogued and no condition assessments have been done. In addition, the park is meeting just 17 percent of Park Service museum collection standards. However, the park’s cultural resource manager believes that most collection items, which include library items, papers and photographic archives, and historic items from the Kelso Depot, are in good condition. Mojave National Preserve needs a temporary curator or archivist to help catalog its holdings and facilitate the efforts of researchers. A recent agreement with Joshua Tree will provide an upgrade to the park’s museum technician position to curator. At that time, Joshua Tree’s curator will oversee the Mojave National Preserve collections and train the existing cultural resources staff in how to carry out the more routine museum management activities.

Storage for museum objects is not an issue for Mojave National Preserve, partly because its collection is so small. Some of the park’s archaeological items are kept at the Western Archaeological Conservation Center in Tucson, and some Chemehuevi baskets are stored at Death Valley. Additionally, the park recently built a 600-square-foot collection storage facility as part of its new park headquarters in Barstow, more than 50 miles away from the boundaries of the preserve. This new facility has excellent security, shelving, and environmental controls.

One of the Most Unusual Positions at CSUF

Office of Public Affairs
California State University, Fullerton

Former graduate student Rob Fulton has lived at the Desert Studies Center in the eastern Mojave Desert for 17 years as the center's resident manager. Thousands have visited the center to study geology, paleontology, climatology, astronomy, desert flora and fauna, and the natural history of the area.

Rob Fulton
Position: Resident Manager, Desert Studies Center
Other Stuff: California native Rob Fulton was a biology graduate student on campus when he heard about the newly acquired Zzyzx facility that became the Desert Studies Center. For years, Fulton said he was “geographically challenged” for a social life and remained single. That changed about six years ago when he was introduced to Sandra, an X-ray technician he later married. They live year-round at the center in an air-conditioned residence.

As resident manager of the Desert Studies Center – where the winter temperatures can dip to 8 degrees and summer temperatures soar to 120 degrees – Rob Fulton must have one of the most unusual staff jobs in the CSU system. He is responsible for managing the development and operations of the facilities, which can support up to 80 students and faculty members. This includes operating all on-site utilities, maintaining library and museum holdings, organizing lodging and equipment needs of visitors, leading tours, teaching classes and working on research projects.

Situated in the Mojave National Preserve at Soda Springs, the center is a scientific field station operated by a consortium of CSU campuses. Originally a resort operated by evangelist Curtis Springer, it serves more than 1,500 students, researchers and visiting scientists, each year, according to William Presch, professor of biological science and center director.

Q: How did you first learn about the Desert Studies Center?

A: When I became a graduate student in 1979, I saw an announcement requesting student labor to help renovate the center. Since I was already a bit of a desertphile and was proposing to do my research in the desert, I decided to sign up. I got a call from the center coordinator Alan Romspert, who said, “OK, here’s the deal: meet us at the loading dock on Friday night. We’ll pick you up, take you there and bring you back Sunday night, and we’ll take care of the food.”

Q: When was this?

A: I believe it was Oct. 5, 1979. It was about 105 degrees that week. I was a city boy and not acclimated to working hard labor in the desert. My first job was to help hand dig a four-foot-deep sewer trench. I was assisting then caretaker Jerry Gates. He was a very colorful individual and carried a .22 pistol in his belt – a skinny fellow with a billy goat beard who spoke in an odd manner. I later learned he had part of his jaw and tongue removed due to cancer. I thought, “they’re sticking me down in this hole with this guy that’s all dressed head to toe in denim, with a pistol on his belt and a big cowboy hat with a huge hawk feather sticking out, and I’m hot in my shorts and T-shirt.”

The two of us were using big steel bars to pry rocks loose while digging out the trench. After about three or four hours, I went to lift a big rock, blacked out and fell back down into the trench. I don’t think it was a heat stroke, but obviously I had overexerted myself. Jerry, who seemed so scrawny and insignificant to me, pulled me out. He got some others and they dragged me to the dining hall and laid me out on a couch, and pumped me full of water and salt tablets. That was my first exposure, my first day at the Desert Studies Center.

Q: Did you come back?

A: I continued to come back for the duration of my graduate studies. [Fulton graduated with a master’s degree in biology in 1984.] The bath and shower buildings and some other buildings were constructed by student labor. I learned to lay concrete blocks and to apply stucco. I had already learned some carpentry skills from my father, but I learned a great deal more working with the trades people from campus.

Q: So it was like a second education?

A: Yes, it was similar to the “Helping Hands” program that Doc Springer ran during the original construction of the resort. He brought out homeless and often untrained people from L.A.’s skid row and taught them to help build and operate the facilities. Now, instead of derelicts from Los Angeles, students were tackling the tasks necessary to operate the old resort as a university field station. Those were really formative years for me. I made a lot of friends in graduate school who worked at the Desert Studies Center, and are friends to this day. Some of us still get together and socialize and reminisce about our days here. We’ve all gone on to other things, but still get together to share vacations and other activities.

Q: So you’ve been here 17 years as manager?

A: I came here as resident caretaker for the first six months in January 1986 and have been here ever since. Living facilities have improved. When I first came here I lived in a small mobile home that is now used for visiting researchers. I only had power available for a few hours each evening, minimal cooling and heating during the hot and cold weather. I was much younger then! I had battery-operated radios for my entertainment. We had no telephone. Eventually things have improved. We now have cell phones; we have radio-telephone communications, satellite TV, satellite Internet, 24-hour solar power, a nice comfortable well-insulated house with full air conditioning and forced air heat – all the comforts I could expect. A lot of people think it’s odd that somebody would want to live out here. They think it’s so far from civilization and the conveniences of living in an urban environment. I can’t see living any other way. There’s no commute to my job. It’s not an inconvenience to get supplies from the nearest town, even though it’s a couple of hours drive. We combine our needs and our errands and do it in one big shopping trip. I conduct business by phone and do a lot of my thinking while I’m driving on the highway.

Q: So the desert suits you?

A: This environment is beautiful to me. I can enjoy watching the seasons change. There are limitless opportunities for continued exploration. There are many places where I have yet to go and get to know intimately. I’m learning more every year about the finer points of things that are not in my primary discipline [biology], such as earth science, climatology, archeology and cultural history. I really like this job and this place. I feel really fortunate to serve the university in such an interesting job.

The Mojave National Preserve: 1.4 million acres of contradictions

Postmistress and shopkeeper Irene Ausmus in front of the Cima store.
by Elizabeth Manning
High Country News

CIMA, Calif. - Like most of her neighbors, Irene Ausmus never wanted the East Mojave Desert to become a national preserve, let alone the national park that environmentalists first wanted. "We live out here because we don't want people bothering us," says the 64-year-old Cima postmistress and owner of a sparsely stocked general store where you can buy chocolate syrup, Spam or a radiator hose.

But after living inside the Mojave National Preserve for the past two-and-a-half years, Ausmus says she doesn't mind the Park Service being here anymore. "Time will tell," she says, but for now she likes the new rangers and no longer worries that the federal government will confiscate her property. The only drawback has proved to be the tourists who get angry at her for not providing public restrooms.

"They're all looking for bathrooms and there are no facilities," she says. "I have my own bathroom and that's all I want to keep clean."

It's funny Ausmus should mention bathrooms. The lack of facilities, including restrooms, was one of the first things I noticed during a trip to the Mojave National Preserve last December.

Other than two campgrounds built by the Bureau of Land Management, which used to oversee the area, the only amenity for tourists is a half-doughnut-shaped visitors' center off Interstate 15, at the base of the world's tallest thermometer in Baker - a 130-foot-tall tower to match the area's highest recorded temperature. There are no entrance booths to the preserve, no new hotels and no shops hawking rubber tomahawks. So far, the Mojave National Preserve seems completely unlike most national parks.

One reason for this is politics. During its first two years in existence, enemies of the preserve hacked at it through its budget. It received only $600,000 in 1995 and managed to beg, borrow and steal $800,000 from other parks the following year, after California Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis nearly succeeded in allocating the preserve just $1. Only in fiscal year 1997 did the preserve get adequate funding of $1.9 million. Mojave National Preserve Superintendent Mary Martin says she now has 17 people on staff and more arriving, up from a low of six employees in early 1996.

"In some ways, we're a couple of years behind where we should be," says Elden Hughes of the Sierra Club, an environmentalist who has fought steadily for a park in the East Mojave. "People are coming and the place isn't ready."

But even when the East Mojave is ready, Dennis Schramm, Park Service lead planner for the preserve, says it likely won't look much different. He calls the Mojave "a park for the 21st century," a primitive area with little development inside the preserve's borders. The Park Service would like to renovate the historic Kelso Train Depot inside the preserve as a visitors' center, he says, but mostly it will rely on border towns along Interstates 15 and 40 - the two highways that define this lonesome triangle on the north and south - to provide food, gas and shelter for travelers.

But the main reason the East Mojave doesn't seem like a park is that it isn't a park. It's a preserve, and it's making itself up as it goes along. Right now, Park Service officials are in the midst of crafting its general management plan, due out in December 1998. Schramm says his planning team has three guides: the preserve's enabling legislation, the Park Service's purpose and mandate and other laws pertaining to national park units.

The result is 1.4 million acres of contradictions: Inside the preserve, rangers lead nature walks, off-road enthusiasts drive on hundreds of miles of dirt roads, and hunters shoot coyotes and rabbits. Ranchers run cattle and miners extract rocks from the earth while trains whistle through here as they have for nearly a century. Dozens of people still live year-round on private land inside the preserve, yet nearly half of this park unit is wilderness.

That's the way Congress declared it. The preserve was created as part of the California Desert Protection Act of 1994, which also upgraded and expanded Death Valley and Joshua Tree to national parks and created 69 new wilderness areas on Bureau of Land Management land.

When President Bill Clinton signed the act into law, environmentalists applauded it as the single largest wilderness designation in the continental United States and the only environmental legislation to survive Congress that year. But those who conceived and promoted the preserve saw some painful concessions. Due to lobbying from local landowners, bighorn sheep hunters, the mining industry and ranchers, the act allows hunting, grazing and mining to continue inside the preserve.

"We wanted a 1.5 million-acre national park without hunting, grazing and mining," says Peter Burk, a high school librarian who first conceived the idea of a national park in the East Mojave 20 years ago during America's bicentennial. "What we got was a 1.4 million-acre preserve. I just hate the C-word: C-O-M-P-R-O-M-I-S-E."

In recent months, Burk, also president of the Citizens for Mojave National Park, has become critical of the Park Service. He says the agency could be doing more within the existing laws to curtail ranching in desert habitat, to rid the area of non-native burros and to halt mining. Instead, Burk feels that Park Service officials are bending over backward to mollify preserve critics. "The Park Service is giving the cowboys everything they want," he says.

In particular, Burk is worried about the make-up of the 15-member planning advisory committee appointed by Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt. Burk says Babbitt loaded the committee with "wise users." Some of the tougher issues the committee must tackle include how much grazing and four-wheeling will be allowed in threatened desert tortoise habitat, what to do about the burro population that exploded under the BLM's management and whether to open Zzyzx Mineral Springs to the public. Zzyzx, now a research station for California State University, was once a health spa owned and operated by "radio minister" Doc Springer.

Like many environmentalists, Burk would like to see a new desert economy based on tourism, not resource extraction. Most environmentalists hope the Mojave will someday become a full-fledged park. Burk just wants it to happen sooner than later.

"Let's face it, the Mojave is an urban desert," says Burk. "No one wants the ORVers, scam mining artists, the cowboys or the ranchers tearing the desert up. My wife, Joyce, and I adhere to the myth of the Garden of Eden, the idea that pristine landscapes are more attractive to people than spoiled ones. It's stronger than the myth of the frontier. We love our national parks to death."

Other environmentalists are more patient. "I'd much prefer it to be a park than a preserve, but I'm not in a hurry," says Hughes of the Sierra Club. "I don't know if it will happen in my lifetime."

A lovely, bitter pill

Ecologically, the East Mojave marks the convergence of three deserts - the Mojave with its Joshua trees, the Sonoran with its teddy bear cholla cactus and the Great Basin with its sagebrush. Within the preserve are alkaline lake beds, jagged mountain ranges, the world's largest Joshua tree forest and the Kelso sand dunes that boom when you walk on them. Some 800 plant species and 300 animal species are here, including at least two threatened species - the Mojave tui chub, a native fish that ekes out a living in brackish desert springs, and the desert tortoise, indicator species for the Mojave desert.

The history of this land ranges from early Indian habitation to the region's present-day ranches, mines and occasional methamphetamine labs. Once described as the empty space that keeps Las Vegas and Los Angeles from becoming one giant metropolis, the Mojave has always been used and occupied more intensively than one might think. Farmers homesteaded in Lanfair Valley during a wet period between 1910 and 1920, and many moved to the desert during the Great Depression, "figuring it was better to eat jackrabbits and beans and scratch at the rocks than starve in the cities," according to desert historian Dennis Casebier.

Independence and a frontier spirit still exist among today's East Mojave residents. It helps explain why the preserve was such a bitter pill.

But things are better now and the rumors are less outrageous. (At first, residents heard that the Park Service was going to fence the entire preserve and charge private landowners $200 to get to their property.) It may have helped that the Park Service went through such a difficult time itself a year ago. Kirsten Talken, the preserve's chief interpretative ranger, says Baker residents called her during the three-week federal furlough to see if park employees had enough food to eat. "When push comes to shove, people come together," she says.

Some former opponents have even become Park Service allies. Rob Blair, a fourth-generation rancher who runs cattle on 163,000 acres of public land inside the preserve, says the Park Service has been an easier landlord than the BLM. Blair says the Park Service approved a permit to reconstruct a water line in three weeks; the same permit had been delayed for six years under the BLM.

Another ally is Jerry Freeman, a former mining prospector who now owns the town of Nipton, along with its historic adobe hotel where silent-film star Clara Bow used to stay. Freeman is glad the desert's old industries and the "salt-of-the-earth" people who depend on them are protected under the California Desert Protection Act, but he's also happy that they'll be held to tougher rules under the Park Service.

"Some degree of regulation has to happen," says Freeman. "This isn't the Wild West anymore. It's the 20th century, and the Mojave could be permanently ruined very quickly."

Still, there are a number of residents here who will probably never accept the preserve. Casebier, the desert historian who has renovated a historic schoolhouse in Goffs and has written four-wheel guide books for the region, is one. He is particularly angry about the roads closed by wilderness designations and sees park tourism as even more destructive than the old resource economies.

"You're going to get a different type of person coming out here, and more of them," says Casebier. "You're going to get the type of person that uses parks. I see wilderness areas in the desert as death traps. Something will happen and they will tighten restrictions. Then the people who used to come here will be driven away or they'll leave."

Even though park officials say tour buses are unlikely to stop here anytime soon, Casebier is sure that will change: "The Park Service is at the base of the world's largest thermometer off one of the nation's busiest freeways. It's too easy for them to scoop people off I-15."

Camping statistics for March are already proving Casebier right: Dave Paulissen of the Park Service says some 1,400 people camped in the preserve's two campgrounds over the previous three weeks, most of those during spring break.

"I don't see the gain by creating the preserve," adds Casebier. "There was nothing being lost anyway."

Burk disagrees: "Without the California Desert Protection Act, we wouldn't have had a revolution in consciousness in the Mojave Desert." From his suburban home in Barstow, Burk sweeps his hand to the east. "Those mountains would have been leveled to make latex paint."

Driving away from the desert, with the lights of Los Angeles approaching, I thought about something Jerry Freeman said: "The desert is a fragile place. The ecosystems are delicate but so are its culture and people. It's something that has to be approached gently."

Out of choice and necessity, the National Park Service seems to be following Freeman's advice.