The desert boom

In the Southwest, demand for sites for solar power projects is creating a hot real estate market.

By Todd Woody, senior editor
CNNmoney.com


Solar energy properties are scrambling to lock up desert land like the Mormon Mesa in Nevada. [Christoph Norlinghaus]

(Fortune Magazine) -- Doug Buchanan grins with relief when he sees the carcasses. He has just driven up a steep dirt road onto a vast, sunbaked mesa overlooking the Mojave Desert in western Nevada. There, a few feet from the trail, lie the corpses of two steers. A raven perches on one, the only object more than three feet above the ground on this pancake-flat plateau. Cattle, dead or alive, qualify as good news in Buchanan's line of work. If cattle are present, that means grazing is permitted, and that in turn means that this land is most likely not protected habitat for the desert tortoise.

Buchanan, 53, is scouting sites for a solar power company called BrightSource Energy, an Oakland-based startup backed by Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500). The blunt, fifth-generation Californian, who used to survey the same area for natural-gas power sites, knows that the presence of an endangered species such as the tortoise could derail BrightSource's plans to build a multibillion-dollar solar energy plant on the mesa.

BrightSource badly wants these 20 square miles of federal land on what is called Mormon Mesa. The company was in such a hurry to stake its claim with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that it applied for a lease sight unseen. That's an expensive gamble for a startup, given that application fees alone run in the six figures. "I usually like to go out and kick the tires before filing a claim," Buchanan says, "but there's a lot of competitive pressure these days to move fast."

That's putting it mildly. A solar land rush is rolling across the desert Southwest. Goldman Sachs, utilities PG&E and FPL, Silicon Valley startups, Israeli and German solar firms, Chevron, speculators - all are scrambling to lock up hundreds of thousands of acres of long-worthless land now coveted as sites for solar power plants.

The Southwest is on the cusp
of what could be a green revolution.
And the biggest obstacle of all may be
... environmentalists.

The race has barely begun - finished plants are years away - but it's blazing fastest in the Mojave, where the federal government controls immense stretches of some of the world's best solar real estate right next to the nation's biggest electricity markets. Just 20 months ago only five applications for solar sites had been filed with the BLM in the California Mojave. Today 104 claims have been received for nearly a million acres of land, representing a theoretical 60 gigawatts of electricity. (The entire state of California currently consumes 33 gigawatts annually.)

It's not just a federal-land grab either. Buyers are also vying for private property. Some are paying upwards of $10,000 an acre for desert dirt that a few years ago would have sold for $500.

No doubt the prospect of potential riches is overheating expectations. But California and surrounding states have mandated massive increases in renewable energy in the next few years. That has led some experts at Emerging Energy Research of Cambridge, Mass., to predict that Big Solar could be a $45 billion market by 2020.

Meanwhile, the land rush is setting the stage for a showdown between solar investors and those who want to protect a fragile environment that is home to the desert tortoise and other rare critters. The Southwest is on the cusp of what could be a green revolution. And the biggest obstacle of all may be ... environmentalists.

***

Over the past year a parade of executives bearing land claims have made the trek to a stucco BLM office just off the interstate in the dusty city of Needles, Calif., a 110-mile drive south from Las Vegas. (It's the town where the late "Peanuts" cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz, briefly lived as a boy; in the comic strip, Snoopy's brother Spike is a resident.) The Bush administration has instructed the BLM to facilitate renewable-energy projects (along with nonrenewable ones). But Sterling White, the BLM's earnest Needles field manager, is also concerned about what could happen if they transform the Mojave into a collection of giant power stations. "One of our biggest challenges is the cumulative impact of these projects," he says.

Nearly 80% of the land that White's office oversees is federally protected wilderness or endangered-species habitat. That leaves about 700,000 acres for solar power plants, only some of which are near transmission lines. Land leases are handed out on a first-come, first-served basis, but White is also supposed to weed out speculators from genuine solar developers based on loose criteria such as who is negotiating with utilities and who is applying for state power licenses. White has yet to approve a single lease, but he has summarily rejected four because they lie in protected-species habitat.

***

Solar prospectors tend to be as secretive about their land as forty-niners were about the veins of gold they discovered. Most bids are placed by limited-liability corporations with opaque names that conceal their ownership. And no one has been as quick to move into the Mojave - or as tightlipped about it - as Solar Investments.

That entity, it turns out, is Goldman Sachs's (GS, Fortune 500) solar subsidiary. The investment bank's designs on the desert are a topic of intense interest and speculation. Goldman declined to comment. But here's what we know:

Solar Investments filed its first land claim in December 2006 and within a month had applied for more than 125,000 acres for power plants that would produce ten gigawatts of electricity. Many of the sites lie close to the transmission lines that connect the desert to coastal cities. (Goldman has also staked claims on 40,000 acres of the Nevada desert.)

Nobody expects Goldman to begin operating solar plants. It will probably either partner with another developer or sell its limited-liability company (and its leases) outright. The firm has been making the rounds of solar developers. "The conversation's been pretty wide-ranging, primarily as an investor interested in financing deals," says one solar energy executive approached by Goldman. "But there's clearly an element of interest in our technology." Goldman has requested permission to install meteorological equipment on its sites and is evaluating "competing technologies, including solar dish systems, power towers, and large-scale photovoltaic arrays," according to a letter Goldman sent to the BLM in August 2007.

Farewell to the Archaeological Survey Foundation

The End of the Archaeological Survey Association

By Anne Q. Stoll, President and Executive Director

LaMonk Collection

“The next generation” – a quick look through a recent SCA newsletter suggests this is a hot topic for many of us. The future was certainly on our minds when we board members voted this past April to disband the Archaeological Survey Association of Southern California, Inc. or ASA, as it was fondly known, after 61 years of operation.

Many of you may remember the ASA – some of you are former members. This organization, recognized as the oldest avocational archaeological society in California, covered a lot of ground in the early days. The name often shows up in old reports.

The Archaeological Survey Association was started back in January 1947 at a meeting in the Southwest Museum in Highland Park, near Los Angeles. Mark R. Harrington, Edwin F. Walker, Frederick W. Hodge, and Howard A. Edwards, were worried about the rate at which archaeological sites were being destroyed by Southern California’s post-war development boom. If that first meeting was anything like the one I was at many years later that started the Coachella Valley Archaeological Society, these guys were sitting around talking, eating pizza and drinking beer after spending the day in the field.

At that meeting in 1947 it was resolved to create the ASA to conduct a complete archaeological reconnaissance of California. The vision – and the naïveté – of such a goal are hard to grasp today, but such was the bravado of the times. These men proposed to form a team of professionals from local universities and museums who would use crews of volunteer amateurs to do the work. They drafted a very persuasive letter which they sent out to everyone they knew (and M. R. Harrington knew everybody). The Southwest Museum became the first sponsor but USC, UCLA and the LA County Museum of Natural History participated too. George Brainerd at UCLA served as the first president, followed by Robert Ariss of LACMNH, and then Gordon Hewes at UC Berkeley. Early field leaders included Stuart Peck, Freddie Curtis, Charles Rozaire, Edwin Walker, William Wallace, Ruth DeEtte Simpson (known as “Dee”), and Ben E. McCown.

As we all know, it isn’t hard to recruit volunteers to help dig. ASA was soon a big success with well over 200 enthusiastic members. Between 1947 and 1963, ASA volunteers were at work in the field somewhere between Bakersfield and San Diego nearly every weekend, surveying, scouting, photographing, or digging. Some of the bigger excavations were at Malaga Cove, Arroyo Sequit, Temeku, Phillips Ranch, and Burro Flats. The tough part was getting site maps made, artifacts catalogued and analyzed, and reports written but in the beginning, ASA’s publication record was pretty good, especially during the 16 Southwest Museum years.

In 1963, the ASA moved to the San Bernardino County Museum in Bloomington and the organization changed. The group’s focus turned from coastal sites to the Mojave Desert, and several more big projects were undertaken in Kern, Inyo, and San Bernardino counties. Then followed a few more moves and many changes but somehow, through the efforts of many devoted volunteers, the ASA hung on. Through the 1970s, ASA worked in Black Canyon, near Barstow, surveying and excavating. Much of this project was recorded by ASA photographer Charley Howe, who published the summary report in 1980. Through the end of the 1980s, there were more weekend surveys in the East Mojave. The Mud Springs Lab nights in LaVerne continued through the 1990s, but the group was clearly losing steam. There were just enough members left in 1997 to make the 50th anniversary party worth having. The invitations and catering almost broke the bank, however. When we decided to throw in the towel at our final meeting on October 26, 2002, a grand total of 19 people attended. The vote to disband the ASA was unanimous.

And then – surprise! The ASA hit the lottery. Seriously. Who knew Dee Simpson was worth that much money!? She lived alone in a funky trailer with a half dozen cats in Calimesa. Who knew those stock certificates and bank account books in her kitchen drawers were real? Dee Simpson passed away on January 19, 2000 and when the dust settled three years later, the ASA found she had bequeathed us one-eighth of her considerable estate.

What to do? There was no shortage of ideas. At last, this was ASA’s big chance to track down our scattered collections, find the old field notes, and write up the old reports. We would give grants and scholarships. We would clean up all the old messes and deal with the skeletons in the closet. The new streamlined five-member board voted to stash the money in an investment account and look for good professional advice. Investment managers, lawyers, accountants, appraisers, web-designers – we hired them all.

We floundered at first. We paid good money for bad legal advice, and spent the better part of the next two years working with another lawyer to unravel the mess with the State and the IRS. Because we no longer had dues-paying members or took public funds, we became by default a private charitable foundation. In 2004 we turned the corner. We officially renamed ourselves the Archaeological Survey Foundation (ASF) and began to enjoy some success. We supported the publication of several long-overdue reports and gave out a number of research grants. Ben McCown’s report of years of survey work at Lake LeConte was finally published. Russ Kaldenberg’s Ayers Rock report went to the printer. Thanks to SRI’s support, we consolidated our collections in Redlands. We subsidized CSUSB students attending archaeology field school in the San Bernardino Mountains. We moved slowly but we were doing good things.

Then the accountants delivered some bad news (non-profits beware!). There are new definitions of what is a “taxable expenditure” for a private charitable foundation. Thanks to the lawbreakers who scammed the IRS by setting up bogus foundations and giving themselves grants, the government changed the rules. No more simple cash grants to private individuals or deserving students. Unless you give to a non-profit, you have to ask the IRS permission BEFORE you give away the money, the recipient needs to prove their qualifications, you have to follow up on how the grant is spent and if misspent, you must try to retrieve the money, you must submit reports to the IRS in a timely fashion for each grant, etc. etc. See Internal Revenue Code 4945 for the rest of it.

The paperwork seemed onerous and was the last thing the ASF needed. We were already starting to bog down with competing demands for our time and too many boxes of orphaned artifacts. It was time to molt and move on.

In the end, the decision was surprisingly easy to make. We voted unanimously to give our entire 119-piece LaMonk art collection and almost all our money -- $340,000 -- to the Foundation for CSUSB to benefit their traditionally underrepresented student population here in the Inland Empire. With the wave of the pen, we created the ASA – Southern California Archaeology Endowment to ensure that the funds will be used exclusively for the benefit of the Cal State San Bernardino Anthropology Department in support of their undergraduate program in archaeology and cultural resource management. It’s the largest cash gift the CSUSB College of Social and Behavioral Sciences has ever received. Everyone is happy -- our legacy will serve the future.

In shutting down the organization, we’ve had the fun of giving two $10,000 distributions to worthy local non-profits, the first to the San Bernardino County Museum Association for the renovation of the Anthropology curation facility. The SBCM has graciously given a home to our archives, business papers and artifacts. The second gift went with the Charley Howe photos to the CSUSB Library, Special Collections, to properly curate the collection and get it online.

So we close the book on the ASA/ASF with a smile. Sixty-one years is a long run for any volunteer group. We hope other avocational societies who are struggling with shrinking membership rolls will consider following our lead and will plan for the needs of the next generation of California archaeologists.

Suit attacks relocation effort

Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

Two environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit against the Army and the Bureau of Land Management alleging that proper environmental studies were not conducted before nearly 800 desert tortoises were relocated for Fort Irwin's expansion.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors, which filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, allege the federally endangered tortoises were moved to inferior habitat that included numerous roads and pockets of diseased tortoises. They also allege that illegal off-roading and dumping occurs at the site east of the Calico Mountains and south of Coyote Lake.

"It's time to overhaul Fort Irwin's disastrous tortoise relocation program," said Ileene Anderson, a biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, in a news release. "Though we can't stop the fort's expansion, we can ensure that the relocation of these rare animals is done right."

The National Training Center and Fort Irwin initiated the tortoise relocation efforts in order to expand its borders to train soldiers being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress authorized the expansion in 2001, and the Army has spent more than $8.5 million on research and relocation of the tortoises.

Twenty-three tortoises were killed by coyotes in the month following their relocation, and 11 other tortoises native to the area also were killed by predators

Army spokesman John Wagstaffe said every effort has been made to make the relocation of the tortoises as successful as possible. He said two of the world's leading biologists in tortoise studies, Kristin Berry and Bill Borman, have been assisting in the relocation efforts.

But Anderson said in her news release that relocating healthy tortoises to a habitat occupied by diseased tortoises was a "recipe for disaster."

She said the relocation plan could be improved by reducing the number of tortoises being moved, making sure only healthy tortoises are moved into healthy populations and improving the habitat quality in the relocation area by making it a tortoise preserve.

Despite tortoise mortality, Wagstaffe believes the Army did its share of due diligence in the relocation process.

"We do feel, as we have felt all along, that we've done a very good job," Wagstaffe said.

Whenever diseased tortoises were located on plots during the relocation, they were removed and put in a pen at Fort Irwin for monitoring, he said.

"I'm not saying we found every diseased tortoise, but we hope that, in our survey of these plots, that we found all the diseased tortoises and removed them," Wagstaffe said. "I'm very proud of what we've done in this particular case. Nobody's perfect, but I think we've made every effort to make this translocation as successful as any translocation in the history of Southern California."

In southern Utah, new case of gold fever

Seeking legendary Montezuma treasure



By Mark Havnes
The Salt Lake Tribune






BLM spokesman Larry Crutchfield stands at entrance to a White Mountain cave where some believe Montezuma's treasure is located in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. (Mark Havnes/The Salt Lake Tribune)

KANAB - In the latest "National Treasure" flick, Ben Gates goes to Mount Rushmore in search of Aztec gold.

In real life, Corey Shuman goes to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in search of the same thing.

And he will be able to continue hunting there for Montezuma's rumored riches - now that the state has abandoned plans to seal off White Mountain east of Kanab to such expeditions.

The closure was part of a wider effort to shut down nearly two dozen old mines in the southern Utah monument.

But the legendary Montezuma site has been spared - at least for now.

"Technically, we wonder if it's a mine at all," said Jim Springer, a spokesman for the state's Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program. "If the BLM wants to move forward, they can."

That won't happen until a Bureau of Land Management engineer weighs in, according to Larry Crutchfield, the federal agency's spokesman for the monument.

"He'll evaluate the site with safety concerns in mind," Crutchfield said, "and then make some recommendations on what we can do."

Shuman and his prospecting pals at Draper-based Gold Rush Expeditions hope the caves and shafts on White Mountain in Johnson Canyon never close to treasure seekers.

"The site should be left alone because it is a historical resource and the only one of its kind," Shuman said. "The work that happened out there literally emptied the town [Kanab] for a year. It is a huge chapter in the history of Kanab and Utah."

That history began in the 1920s when a drifter named Freddy Crystal showed up and claimed he had a map from a Mexican monastery that identified Johnson Canyon as the burial spot for Montezuma's lost treasures. (Some believe the Aztec ruler's riches were spirited out of Mexico City to keep them out of the hands of Spanish conquistadors.)

So, with shovels in their hands and gold in their eyes, Kanab residents flocked to White Mountain to hunt for the stash.

But they never found it. The gold fever cooled. Crystal vanished, and Kanab's residents drifted back into town.

Nearly a century later, Shuman still believes there may be something to the legend of the lost treasure - mainly because of the petroglyphs chiseled into rock panels in the region.

"There is a huge panel just outside the monument - [which] has some interesting markings on it - that has been translated and may point to White Mountain and the mine."

Shuman also noted Crystal's credibility got a boost when several caves were discovered sealed off with an ancient form of concrete. He said the concrete plugs also featured petroglyphs, possibly made by Aztecs.

Treasure or not, efforts are under way to list the site on the National Register of Historic Places - a move Shuman believes could help preserve the caves that honeycomb the sandstone mountain.

Count BLM archaeologist Matt Zweifel among the Montezuma mine's nonbelievers.

"It seems far-fetched," Zweifel said. "For the logistics alone, you'd need an army of hundreds of slaves, surrounded by soldiers, and [have to] march through the Southwest desert crossing the Grand Canyon and a bigger canyon in Mexico."

Zweifel doubts the inscriptions are in Aztec. But he understands the legend's lure.

"They were all digging like mad," he said. "Everybody wanted to be a millionaire."

And they still do.

"One guy contacted us," Zweifel said, "saying he knew where the treasure was and would split it 50-50 with the BLM if we'd help him dig it up."

The agency declined.

Sun shines on solar again

Caving to public, political pressure, BLM lifts moratorium

By Lisa Mascaro, Phoebe Sweet
Las Vegas Sun

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid looks over a mirror Monday during the grand opening of Ausra’s plant in Las Vegas. The company manufactures components for solar thermal power plants. Reid opposed a moratorium on new solar applications, which was rescinded Wednesday.

The Bureau of Land Management clearly had no idea what kind of blowback it would receive when, a month ago, it closed the door on applications to build solar plants on federal land in Nevada and five other Southwest states to buy time to study their environmental consequences.

On Wednesday, BLM officials collected themselves, gamely thanked the public for its concerns and reversed its moratorium.

The agency suggested its change of course is an example of its ability to nimbly respond to public outcry.

“We heard the concerns expressed during the (public meetings) about waiting to consider new applications and we are taking action,” BLM Director James Caswell said in a statement Wednesday.

But the more complete back story is that the agency — operating under an administration focused on the pursuit of oil and gas — did not consider that the nascent solar industry had friends in high places, including Congress, and bowed to external political pressure.

The reversal came two weeks after Sen. Harry Reid learned from a Las Vegas Sun article that the BLM was implementing a 22-month freeze on solar projects. He immediately vowed to fight it, referring to it only as a “proposed delay.”

The onslaught of media and political attention that followed made the moratorium all but unsustainable.

After the Sun story, growing criticism of the moratorium stretched as far as the Daily Telegraph of London and the Economist, which headlined an article “Freezing the Sun.” When The New York Times picked it up Friday, the end was near.

The story line that emerged was politically poisonous in an election year.

With $4-a-gallon-and-rising gas prices the No. 1 issue on voters’ minds, the country faces general anxiety over energy supplies. Stopping solar now seemed to be the wrong approach.

And on Monday, while attending the opening of a solar mirror manufacturing plant in Las Vegas, Reid said the moratorium was the wrong move, “especially when you consider that as we speak tens of millions of acres are leased to oil companies for drilling. It’s the most oil-friendly administration in the history of our country. Bush and Cheney made their fortunes in oil and this is another indication they are turning their backs on anything other than oil.”

But he — and several solar industry insiders at the opening of solar developer Ausra’s plant — said they hadn’t expected the BLM to hold out against that political pressure for long.

After all, over the past two weeks the agency has been lobbied by scores of solar companies at meetings across the Southwest and by industry groups in Washington. The Solar Energy Industries Association met with BLM executives several times after the freeze was imposed.

Reid’s staff engaged in informal inquiries with the BLM and reached out to others who were concerned about the solar shutdown to determine their next steps.

Even Gov. Jim Gibbons got in on the act, sending a letter opposing the freeze to Caswell and Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on June 25.

Celia Boddington, a spokeswoman for BLM, said the bureau was well aware that Capitol Hill was now engaged. “Clearly there was interest from Congress on this issue,” she said. “We anticipated continued congressional interest.”

Still, she insisted it was a “high level of public interest” that in the end swayed Caswell. The agency, after all, is used to public outrage on issues from wild horse euthanasia to coal-fired power plants to the aforementioned oil and gas drilling in prized wilderness.

But even as the solar industry protested, insiders said they doubted the freeze would last beyond the Bush administration, if that long.

Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said this week that “regardless of who’s elected (president), he will realize how important it is for the federal government to provide a pathway for carbon-free energy technology to be built in this country.”

Still, Resch also let on that the industry wasn’t done flexing its newfound political muscle.

BLM has “only fixed part of the problem,” he said.

The agency, which manages 67 percent of Nevada land, has yet to approve a single one of the approximately 130 applications to use federal land for solar farms that it’s received in the past three years.

BLM has received 23 Nevada applications, including 11 in Nye County and 12 in Clark County, that would involve 211,000 acres of federal land and could produce 15,000 megawatts of electricity, more than twice the peak summer load in Southern Nevada. Most of the Nevada applications were filed in 2007.

The 130 applications nationwide, if approved, would power 20 million American homes, according to the BLM.

“We now need BLM to start ... issuing permits to build these plants,” Resch said. “The longer they wait the more the public is going to suffer from escalating fuel costs.”

But BLM officials have said a study to determine the environmental consequences of solar projects is necessary to streamline the individual reviews of each project.

The industry has been careful not to oppose the environmental study itself. Resch and other insiders have said it was the freeze, not the study, that they found unfair. During a similar 2006 federal study of wind power on federal land, BLM did not invoke a moratorium.

“What they should be doing is staffing up to process the applications (they have) in a prompt way so we can move forward,” said Robert Fishman, chief executive of Ausra.

Representatives of local environmental groups said Wednesday that they had not lobbied Caswell to rescind the freeze, but that they, too, opposed it. Charles Benjamin, director of the Nevada office of Western Resource Advocates, said the environmental review, however, is necessary.

“I think it’s a good move on the part of BLM to lift the moratorium while continuing the assessment, because we are at a critical point with ... solar power,” he said. Solar “has the potential to replace coal and natural gas plants, and even nuclear plants, as baseload energy. To put a moratorium on applications would actually impair the development of technology, which is at a critical juncture.”

Groups battle over land proposition

Opponents:
Measure would detract from
sales benefiting state schools


by Lesley Wright
The Arizona Republic



Arizona state trust lands map.
[Click image for detail.]

A coalition of educators and conservationists submitted petitions Wednesday, calling for an initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot that would preserve more than 570,000 acres of the Arizona's most ecologically sensitive lands.

The "Our Land Our Schools" proposition would ask voters to change the Arizona Constitution, making it easier to protect Arizona's 9.2 million acres of state trust land.

Sale and lease of the trust land helps fund education and state agencies.

Phoenix, Scottsdale, Flagstaff and 57 other communities across Arizona would immediately expand their desert and mountain preserves, and the initiative would allow communities to buy thousands more acres without competing with developers.

"We need to get this done," said Pat Graham, state director of the Nature Conservancy. "It's too important to the state of Arizona."

The coalition gave the Secretary of State petitions with more than 350,000 signatures, well over the 230,047 certified signatures needed to make the ballot.

Defeated two years ago

A similar measure was put to voters in 2006, but narrowly lost.

Unlike two years ago, the Legislature did not put a competing referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot. And unlike two years ago, the state's largest homebuilding organization has pledged not to oppose it.

Still, the initiative continues to draw strong opposition. Critics say that the Arizona State Land Department should continue to sell or lease trust land - granted to Arizona at statehood in 1912 - only to the highest bidder.

Supporters argue that education funding would not suffer under the changes, since the price of developable land next to preserves skyrockets, and the state should profit as much or more.

Voter education urged

"This is not an issue understood by a lot of people," Graham said. "It requires more outreach."

Still, he and other advocates said that this measure has the best chance ever. It is less complex than the 2006 proposition, and has attracted supporters that range from Gov. Janet Napolitano to the Sierra Club.

More important is one group not opposing the proposition - the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.

The homebuilders helped defeat prior efforts to preserve trust lands.

But the lobby agreed to remain neutral this time in exchange for some key changes to a major transportation initiative that also appears headed to the Nov. 4 ballot.

Opposition to changes

The Arizona School Boards Association, which represents school-district governing boards, voted this weekend to oppose the initiative, as it did the 2006 ballot question. Members are worried about losing education funds, said Tracey Benson, the association's spokesman.

"They didn't want to take any risks with this funding stream when funding is tight and getting tighter," Benson said.

The Arizona Cattlemen's Association, another foe of the 2006 initiative, also could campaign against this one.

But the Arizona Education Association, which represents the state's teachers, is a leading supporter of the initiative.

Besides increasing the value of land surrounding conservation areas, the proposal would give the Land Department more flexibility for planning and managing development and allow for greater income, said John Wright, the teacher group's president.

"Every aspect of this initiative benefits the classroom," Wright said.

Feds backtrack on solar energy moratorium

Margot Roosevelt
Los Angeles Times




Solar plant in the Mojave Desert.
Credit: PBS

Solar companies went ballistic last month when the federal Bureau of Land Management slapped a moratorium on new applications to build solar energy plants on the 258 million acres that the bureau manages, mostly in California and 11 other Western states.

Wednesday, the bureau reversed itself -- lifting the moratorium."We heard the concerns," said BLM director James Caswell. "We will aggressively help meet growing interest in renewable energy sources, while ensuring environmental protections."

Already, the BLM has 125 applications in hand to build solar plants, mostly in isolated desert areas. But those deserts can host fragile wildlife and transmission lines must cross vast acreage to reach power-hungry cities. The BLM has been hearing public comments on a draft Environmental Impact Statement for large solar plants. Three public hearings remain, including July 8 in Tucson, July 9 in San Luis Obispo, and July 10 in El Centro, Calif.

California's investor-owned utilities are moving rapidly into solar and wind energy, driven by a state regulation requiring that 20% of their electricity be generated by renewable sources by 2010. Last week, the California Air Resources Board issued a draft plan to require all the state's utilities to rely on renewables for a third of their power by 2020.

Desert tortoise Mojave Max dies at Red Rock habitat

By ANTONIO PLANAS
Las Vegas Review-Journal





Desert tortoise Mojave Max examines a cactus in May in his habitat at the Red Rock Canyon Visitor Center. Photo by Gary Thompson

Mojave Max, the desert tortoise whose emergence from his burrow was a closely watched harbinger of spring's arrival in Southern Nevada, died of natural causes Monday, a Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman said.

The tortoise's age was estimated at 65.

During the past nine years, Clark County students have predicted the date when Max would awaken from his winter slumber, which is called brumation, the reptilian form of hibernation. Ground temperature contributes to the tortoise's emergence from his underground refuge.

As Southern Nevada's answer to Punxsutawney Phil, Max's decision to emerge from his burrow at the Red Rock Canyon Visitor Center to seek the sun was always greeted with fanfare. The event would draw thousands of valley students to research tortoises and temperatures of the Mojave Desert.

Max usually would get his first peek of springtime sunlight around mid-March.

Desert tortoises can live up to 80 years in the wild and up to 100 years in captivity.

Max's successor has not been named.

Lawsuit Filed to Stop Desert Tortoise Relocation

Press Release
Center for Biological Diversity

LOS ANGELES — The Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors today filed suit in federal court against two government agencies over the relocation of hundreds of desert tortoises and transfer of land-management authority from the Army to the Bureau of Land Management without required environmental review.

“It’s time to overhaul Fort Irwin’s disastrous tortoise relocation program,” said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Though we can’t stop the Fort’s expansion, we can ensure that the relocation of these rare animals is done right. With the severity of the impacts to tortoises from the expansion, it‘s imperative that the Army’s mitigation be as successful as possible.”

Despite the potential to drive the tortoise closer to extinction, in 2001 Congress authorized Fort Irwin to expand into some of the best desert tortoise habitat remaining in the western Mojave desert. As partial mitigation, in March the Army moved more than 770 tortoises from one expansion area onto lands acquired by the Army and now managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The new lands, however, provide much lower-quality habitat and contain pockets of diseased tortoises.

Desert tortoise relocation has never been attempted on such a large scale, and this spring’s relocated tortoises suffered devastating initial mortality from predators: within days more than 20 tortoises had been killed by coyotes. Healthy tortoises were also moved into areas where diseased tortoises live, which is in direct conflict with the recommendation of epidemiologists. The lands into which the tortoises were moved are far poorer habitat because of numerous roads, illegal off-road vehicle routes, houses, illegal dumping, and mines. (This is why the area currently supports low numbers of existing desert tortoise, some of which are diseased.) Subsequent phases of the relocation effort will involve over 1,000 tortoises, although the relocation sites have yet to be identified.

“Moving healthy tortoises into low-quality habitat that contains diseased tortoises is a recipe for disaster,” said Anderson. “And protection from predators is essential based on the last relocation’s tragedy.”

Having survived over 1 million years in California’s deserts, desert tortoise numbers are now crashing. The crash is due to numerous factors including disease, habitat degradation, crushing by vehicles, military and suburban development, and predation by animals. Because of its dwindling numbers, the desert tortoise, which is California’s official state reptile, is now protected under both federal and state endangered species acts.

Recently, population genetics studies have identified the desert tortoise in the west Mojave desert, including those at Fort Irwin, as distinctly different from its relatives to the north, east, and south. This finding sheds new light on why increased conservation and relocation success are more important than ever for the Fort Irwin relocation.

“The relocation plan could be much improved by reducing the number of tortoises being moved, making sure only healthy tortoises are moved into healthy populations, and improving the habitat quality in the relocation area by making it a tortoise preserve,” suggested Anderson, “where there are a minimal number of roads, no off-road vehicles, dumping, or mining allowed, coupled with strict enforcement.”

Government considering euthanizing wild horses

By SANDRA CHEREB and SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press


Wild horses make their way north of historic Virginia City in Nevada.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Federal officials are considering euthanizing wild horses to deal with the growing population on the range and in holding facilities, authorities said Monday.

Wild horses have overpopulated public lands and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management can't afford to care for the number of mustangs that have been rounded up, said Henri Bisson, the agency's deputy director. Also, fewer people are adopting the horses, he said.

Monday's announcement marks the first time the agency publicly has discussed the possibility of putting surplus animals to death.

The agency is also considering whether to stop roundups of wild horses to save money, a move that would be criticized by and from sheep and cattle ranchers who see the mustangs as competition for feed on the open range.

"Our goal is supposed to be about healthy horses on healthy ranges. But we are at the point we need to have a conversation with people about pragmatically what can we do given the financial constraints of our program to meet the goals we have," Bisson said.

There are an estimated 33,000 wild horses on the range in 10 Western states, Bisson told the organization's National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board. About half of those are in Nevada.

The agency has set a target "appropriate management level" of horses at 27,000.

About another 30,000 horses are in holding facilities, where most are made available for adoption. But those deemed too old or otherwise unadoptable are sent to long-term holding facilities to live out their lives — some for 15 to 20 years.

The board will consider the alternatives at its next meeting in September.

Last year about $22 million of the entire horse program's $39 million budget was spent on holding horses in agency pens. Next year the costs are projected to grow to $26 million with an overall budget that is being trimmed to $37 million, Bisson said.

"We have a responsibility to balance the budget, so we are going to have to make some tough choices," Bisson said.

Bonnie Matton, president of the Wild Horse Preservation League, said she wasn't surprised by the agency's predicament.

"They really do have a can of worms," she said.

No Sun Intended

Alternative Energy: Washington has placed a moratorium on solar power projects on federal land.
Is this the work of evil oil companies?
No, it's the fault of environmentalists.

EDITORIALS & OPINION
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

The Bureau of Land Management quietly decided in May that the development of solar plants in 119 million sun-soaked, federally owned acres in the western states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah would have to wait at least two years while bureaucrats sorted out their environmental impact.

For decades environmental groups have been pushing the government and private sector to develop more alternative sources of energy. But that campaign is beginning to look like a sham to cover the groups' BANANA — Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything — activism.

To be fair, it appears the BLM acted without being forced by an environmentalist-filed lawsuit or activist pressure. And so far, the media are reporting that only a single group — the Wilderness Society — has expressed support for the moratorium.

Make no mistake, though. The environmental groups are the reason the BLM made its decision. Had they not spent the past 30 years rabidly crusading against development, reflexively defending wildlife habitats from minor and imaginary threats and demonizing economic progress, the solar projects would not have been interrupted.

Washington has become so overly sensitive to the possibility of vocal opposition on anything that has an environmental impact that it feels it must inoculate itself from the radicals — even when the project is one they should support without reservation.

Environmental groups at one time served a noble purpose. We are a cleaner nation and world now than we were in the groups' formative years because they helped the West understand that it needed to clean up the mess from the Industrial Revolution.

But now they have become BANANA's and CAVE — Citizens Against Virtually Everything — people. They are more interested in choking capitalism and imposing on the world a future without energy than they are with a clean planet.

Though a great deal of land has been set aside, it would take only about 1% of the total area now off-limits to generate through solar plants enough energy to power more than 20 million homes.

We have no particular affinity for solar power, but blocking an energy source for 20 million homes seems significant to us, especially when the price of our primary source continues to climb.

What's more, we don't like to see business opportunities shut down by government decree. There are companies that have sunk capital into solar power projects on federal land that will now have to wait at least two years, perhaps more, before they can begin to recoup their investments. Turning a profit will take even longer.

The moratorium conceivably could kill businesses and the jobs that go with them. It will have the same economic effect as the Kyoto Treaty on global warming but on a smaller scale.

Some on the left, Democratic Rep. John Hall being a prominent example, are attacking the moratorium as the Bush administration's favoritism toward the president's oil buddies. This sort of obfuscation is to be expected. The environmentalists' political partners can't afford to let the groups' real objective — wounding our free market system — be revealed.

You Can't Get There From Here

ENERGY

The problem: Much solar and wind power are generated far from the people who use it

FAR FROM HOME A wind farm (left) and transmission lines in the Mojave Desert and a solar farm operated by Southern California Edison

By JONATHAN SHIEBER
Wall Street Journal

Utilities are moving to harvest more power from renewable-energy sources like the wind and sun. The problem is getting that power to the places that need it.

A series of laws passed in recent years by state legislatures across the country require utilities to generate a certain portion of their power from renewable resources. The standards vary from state to state.

But the best resources for generating large amounts of wind and solar power are located in remote areas. One California utility, for instance, is developing a cluster of wind farms along the Tehachapi mountain range that separates the San Joaquin valley from the Mojave Desert. Across the desert, from California through Arizona and New Mexico, independent power producers are looking to build thousands of megawatts of solar farms that would sit on acres of land.

"There's enough solar potential in the whole southwest of the U.S. to equal the power of all of the oil in Saudi Arabia," says David Hawkins, lead industry-relations representative for the California Independent System Operator, a nonprofit that supervises the distribution of power for the state.

So utilities are embarking on the costly and lengthy process of building or upgrading long-distance transmission lines to get new power to customers in population centers -- and meet an expected rise in demand. New and upgraded lines would facilitate the transmission of power from new remote sources as well as renewable-energy projects that already have been developed. New far-reaching lines also could allow utilities to boost the amount of renewable power available across broader swathes of the country.

"Essentially you need to get a line out of the supplying regions to the consuming regions," says Mike Niggli, chief operating officer of San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Co., subsidiaries of Sempra Energy.

Years in the Making

Edison International Inc. has plans for a renewable-energy transmission line that would stretch from the Tehachapi Mountains to the outskirts of Los Angeles. But because of the cost and regulatory oversight involved, it's taking years of planning and development to get the project approved.

December 2006 with Alta Windpower Development LLC, a subsidiary of Australian financial-services firm Allco Finance Group, for 1,500 megawatts of wind power generated from sites in the Tehachapi Mountains over a 10-year period.

Then in March 2007, the California Public Utilities Commission approved plans for Southern California Edison, an Edison International subsidiary, to build the first 82-mile segment of a transmission line that would bring more renewable power to California's grid. That segment is expected to be completed in early 2009. But it still needs final approval from the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees some of the land that would be used for new transmission lines and upgrades.

The full $1.8 billion project, which Southern California Edison has proposed constructing in 11 segments, is slated for completion by 2013 -- the same time the additional 3,000 megawatts of power would be ready.

New and upgraded high-voltage transmission lines will be able to transmit as much as 4,500 megawatts of wind power for northern Los Angeles and eastern Kern counties -- enough to power approximately three million homes.

While states like California look to transport power from new sources, others are planning to install new transmission lines to cope with the massive amount of power coming from existing renewable-energy projects.

In 2005, the Texas Senate directed the state's Public Utility Commission to designate what it called Competitive Renewable Energy Zones, which would concentrate the wind-power projects within certain resource-rich areas. The thinking was that once the zones were established, developers could begin planning projects, and transmission and distribution providers would know where to begin planning transmission infrastructure development.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state's utility grid, offered up several plans in April to address the bottleneck of power created by all the wind projects producing power in West Texas and the Texas panhandle.

The plans address how to get 6,903 megawatts of existing wind resources moved to load centers, where power is used, while simultaneously adding transmission capacity for the next 6,000 to 18,000 megawatts of power that might be developed in the region.

The council's plans, which range in cost from $2.95 billion to $6.38 billion, have been submitted to the commission for approval. The cost would be rolled into ratepayers' monthly bills.

'The Green Highway'

Another factor driving the construction of transmission lines is a push from utilities for greater interconnection between regions to boost the amount of renewable power available across the country.

A loose confederation of Western utilities from Washington State through Southern California -- including Portland General Electric Co., Avista Corp., Pacifcorp, PG&E, and British Columbia Transmission Corp. -- are considering building and upgrading transmission lines that would potentially link renewable power generated in Canada through the Western region of the U.S.

"You could think of it as the green highway," says Mr. Hawkins of the California Independent System Operator.

The $3.2 billion plan is being led by PG&E, which would like to use the line to meet its renewable-portfolio standards. The utility has received partial approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to recover some costs in the form of rate increases. The commission cited in its decision the need to encourage companies to explore new ways of delivering power from renewable resources.

Utilities involved in the project say that given all the players the challenge is daunting. "It's difficult to do really large projects involving multiple utilities because the question of which customers support the line and with how much is very difficult," says David Eskelsen, a spokesman for Pacificorp.

Some Opposition

Environmentalists have problems with some transmission projects, saying utilities are using the popularity of renewable power to get projects approved.

Sempra Energy wants to build a more-than-100-mile transmission line from California's Imperial Valley region to San Diego, through its San Diego Gas and Electric subsidiary. The energy firm says the Sunrise Powerlink project, estimated to cost as much as $1.4 billion, will transmit renewable power from new sources like the solar thermal power plant it has entered into a power-purchasing agreement with.

But the Sierra Club opposes construction of the line, contending it would be used mainly to bring electricity generated at natural gas-fired plant that Sempra owns in Mexicali, Mexico.

"It appears to be a bait and switch," says Micah Mitrosky, an organizer for the Sierra Club in San Diego. "They talk about this line as a renewable-energy project. But when you peel away the PR, it is designed to tap into Sempra's liquefied natural-gas terminal in Mexico."

Sempra says electricity from its Mexico facilities are being delivered to California using existing transmission lines. It said in public statements earlier this year that it can't meet the California clean-energy mandate without the power line.

The Sierra Club also opposes a project proposed by Sierra Pacific Resources Group, which operates utilities in Nevada. The project combines a new 250-mile transmission line to connect planned and existing wind and solar plants and a new 2,500-megawatt coal-fired power plant. The Sierra Club says new coal generation is unnecessary and the development of solar and wind power meet the needs of most communities.

Sierra Pacific says the project, called the Ely Energy Center, needs to combine renewable- and fossil-fuel plants because it can't pay for the transmission piece with solar and wind power alone.

"This is the catch-22," says Roberto Denis, senior vice president of energy supply for Reno, Nev.-based Sierra Pacific. "Yes, we need the line. But no, we can't justify the line by economics. The way the line becomes economical is by siting this coal project between the two utilities."

Tehachapi residents remember the depot

BY JOE BOESEN
staff writer
Bakersfield Californian



Tehachapi Train Depot in 1904.


After 104 years of service, it only took hours for the Historic Tehachapi Train Depot to come crashing down.

The old structure was engulfed in flames after fireworks, lit off late at night, started the inferno.

The depot was the second. The first built in 1876 and burnt down in 1904.

However for more than a century, it stood in the center of Tehachapi, acting as its lifeline, especially in the early days before highways went through Tehachapi. The 1952 earthquake flattened many of the historic buildings in town, but failed to damage the depot. Even when passenger service stopped in 1971, the depot survived and transformed. It continued to be used as office space for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.

It took only fireworks to burn down a part of Tehachapi history, erase a visible part of American railroad history and shake the core of Tehachapi downtown.

DEPOT MEMORIES

Lydia Wheat, moved to Tehachapi in 1925. She remembers the historic depot as “just the depot.” She would board trains there and head into east Bakersfield for lunch and shopping before returning to Tehachapi.

“In the 1940s it was the only transportation we had,” she said. To send mail, Wheat said she would go to the depot.

“You could run and give the letter to the conductor and they would see that it would get out,” she said. “It was pretty nice.”

Growing up across the street from railroad tracks, Wheat said trains used to pass through the depot every three or four minutes.

“The first couple of nights we moved to town, we could not sleep,” she said. “Now they do not bother me in the least.”

“I was very sad to see it go,” Wheat said of the now destroyed depot.

BEST PLACE TO PLAY

As the son of an alfalfa farmer, Ed Grimes would always accompany his dad on trips to downtown Tehachapi for supplies and equipment repairs. The train depot was always the best place to play.

“There were so many places to hide,” Grimes said.

Walking into the depot, Grimes remembered smelling the wafting scent of cigars.

“It has always been so vivid in my mind,” he said. Outside the depot, all the old measuring scales piled up and the old equipment provided a “neat place for a boy to play.”

When he saw the depot on fire, he said he was so emotionally distraught he didn’t realize the tears running down his face.

URGE TO RESTORE

Doug Pickard became concerned with the deteriorating condition of the depot when he realized the railroad company, now the Union Pacific, was not going “to spend a dime on it.”

The Union Pacific, which bought out the Southern Pacific in 1995, was using the building as an office for its maintenance workers.

Although Pickard has a relatively short history in Tehachapi (living there for only 14 years), he became emotionally attached to restoring the old depot to its former glory.

“It was a strong personal desire to restore that depot late in my life,” he said. As he researched the history of the depot, it grew on him. He formed the Friends of the Tehachapi Depot in 2004, a small group of enthusiasts pushing for restoration.

The City of Tehachapi achieved a major milestone in 2006 when Union Pacific agreed to exchange the depot if the city built another building for its workers.

After an October key exchange ceremony, volunteers officially could begin restoration of the depot, which Pickard estimates was 95 percent complete when it burned down last Friday. In less than three years of work, he said it was fully repainted, new windows and the heating system were installed and even the sprinkler system was set up.

Fortunately, they were not finished — historic artifacts to be displayed in the museum weren’t inside yet.

“Then it would have been a much greater loss,” Pickard said.

ALMOST A MUSEUM

Where Pickard struggled for ten years to restore the depot, Dell Troy struggled for 35 years to rehab the old depot. As a resident of Tehachapi for 50 years, she began to push for a museum at the depot in 1973, two years after passenger service stopped.

“In the fall of 1972, there was a rumor that it would be sold and made into a restaurant,” she said.

She and several others formed the Tehachapi Heritage League to save the depot from becoming a restaurant. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company later said it would not sell the building.

From then on Troy said there was a tuggle war between the people of Tehachapi and the railroad company, which continually refused to allow restoration of the building.

“The answer was always no,” she said. When ownership changed to the Union Pacific, Tehachapi residents were able to start restoration on their favorite building.

She said the love affair residents have with the depot is rooted in history.

“I think everyone put so much love into the depot because they lost practically all of the downtown in the 1952 earthquake,” she said. “It’s 104 years of history gone.”

What’s next for the depot?

The Tehachapi City Council voted unimously on June 16 to rebuild the depot, said City Councilman Ed Grimes.

“We gave directions to the city manager to start building as soon as the investigation is complete,” said Grimes.

Insurance, a building donation fund and redevelopment funds will cover the cost of rebuilding the depot. Grimes said residents have already donated $13,000 to the building doantion fund.

Although it is still unclear when the construction will begin, the city will try to have the depot ready for Tehachapi’s 100 year anniversary in August 2009.

U.S. halts uranium mining near Grand Canyon

Reporting by Bernard Woodall
Reuters UK



South Rim from the Bright Angel trail in the Grand Canyon in this photo taken January 3, 2008.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Uranium mining near the rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona was halted for three years by a 20-2 vote on Wednesday in a U.S. House of Representatives committee.

A recent surge in mining claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park sparked the action. The number of claims close to the park increased to more than 1,100 by January 2008 from only 10 in January 2003, according to government figures.

Almost all those claims are to mine uranium. Uranium prices have increased in recent years as demand has spiked to feed an increasing number of nuclear power plants across the globe, as well as potential new U.S. plants.

"This emergency action will help prevent uranium mining from harming the Grand Canyon and polluting drinking water for millions," said Dusty Horwitt, public lands analyst at Environmental Working Group, which spearheaded the effort to block mining.

Horwitt said mining could pollute the Colorado River, source of drinking water for millions throughout the Southwest, including the Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas areas.

The world consumes about 180 million pounds (50 million to 55 million pounds in the United States) of raw uranium a year.

Wilderness Meeting Gets Ugly

Written by Tom Woods
Sierra Wave.net

Advocates for Access to Public Lands hands out signs during Wednesday’s public hearing on the Wild Heritage Act. Hundreds of residents and visitors from both sides of the issue went on record with their feelings about the controversial legislation. Photo by Debbie Murphy.

Emotions ran high at the Charles Brown Auditorium in Bishop Wednesday night, as about 900 people (county estimate) gathered to comment on the proposed Boxer McKeon Wilderness Bill that would place 430,000 acres in the Eastern Sierra under designated Wilderness. 370,000 of the acres lie in Mono County and about 60,782 in Inyo.

While there were real points made from both sides of issueat the meeting, the first hour of this public forum was marred by loutish behavior, catcalls, and disrespect.

Representatives from Senator Barbara Boxer’s office did not show up so Bob Haueter with Congressman Buck McKeon’s office led off the discussion. Haueter described how Boxer’s office had wanted 800,000 acres, but the number had been whittled down to 470,000 acres, which includes the 430,000 in the Eastern Sierra and another 40,000 in LA.

Motorized Access Advocate Dick Noles spoke first. He said the bill was not in the spirit of the 1964 Wilderness Act and that the bill was going to be a big mistake. Loud applause followed. After that, civility at the meeting degenerated and the first hour could be described as ugly.

Despite requests for calm by Supervisor Linda Arcularius, those who stood in front of the crowd to speak in favor were met with boos and heckling. One Bishop resident, speaking in favor of the bill, mentioned that she had seen a lot of disrespect for the land. A loud "B-S-" came from the back of the room. It appeared that one corner of the room was especially intent on embarrassing themselves, but after an hour or so most of that crowd left.

Emotions on this subject continued to run high throughout the night, but for the most part the remainder of the crowd respected the time limit allowed for speakers to take the microphone.

The main points made by those in favor of the bill included preservation of the land in question, roads that people use are left out of the bill, and that the pristine lands are what drives the tourist industry.

Burned by the Desert Protection Act, those in opposition named roads and motorized access.

While there was much blanket opposition to all new wilderness, most of the specific complaints revolved around the proposed Wilderness in the White Mountains. There was also a fear of yet another layer of bureaucracy, a feeling that the damage to the land was exaggerated and didn’t need the restrictive protection of wilderness, as well as fear that roads would be closed. More than one speaker asked for stronger language in the bill to guarantee that the roads cherry stemmed into the Wilderness areas would stay open.

There were rumors that wilderness supporters were “bused in,” from out of the area. Perhaps they carpooled. Of those who spoke in favor of the bill, eight were from outside of the Eastern Sierra, including one woman who brought a letter from the Mayor of Santa Clarita supporting the bill. Three speakers opposing the bill were from outside of the area as well.

With those numbers in consideration, the speakers were close to dead even in support vs. the opposition. Roughly 55 spoke against the bill, while despite the openly hostile crowd, roughly 58 spoke in favor of the bill. Judging by the applause after the opposition, one could conclude either that they were the not silent majority or that the opposition was simply louder.

One thing is certain, designated wilderness and recreation on public lands is an issue about which the community feels strongly.

House panel OKs Matheson land swap

Deal would help cut down 'checkerboard pattern'
of property


By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret News


WASHINGTON — A House panel has approved a 40,000-acre land exchange between the Utah school trust land administration and the Bureau of Land Management.

Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee approved the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2007, introduced by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that calls for the exchange near the Colorado River in Uintah and Grand counties to help reduce the "checkerboard pattern" of state trust lands and federal land.

"This bill is the result of consensus among a broad, diverse group of stakeholders — public and private, urban and rural, industry, conservation, sportsmen and education," Matheson said in a statement. "The result is a proposal that is fair to the taxpayer, beneficial to Utah schoolchildren, mindful of hunting and other public access opportunities and a better configuration for land managers to protect habitat, watershed and recreational values."

The bill still must pass the full House and Senate before going to the president for his signature. Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, both R-Utah, have the same bill in the Senate. The bill passed the House in the previous Congress, but the Senate did not vote on it.

Through the bill, BLM would receive state school trust lands in Grand and San Juan counties. The land includes portions of Westwater Canyon, the Kokopelli and Slickrock trails, multiple wilderness study areas and proposed wilderness areas and some of the largest natural rock arches in the country, according to Matheson's office. In exchange, the trust would get BLM land in Uintah County that has oil and natural gas potential, with proceeds from any eventual development directed to Utah schools.

The Utah Wilderness Coalition supported the bill's approval, calling it an example of how diverse stakeholders can work together.

"Many of the public lands to be acquired by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in this exchange qualify as wilderness and we believe this legislation advances protection for these proposed wilderness landscapes by bringing them into common public ownership," the coalition said in a statement. "At the same time, the state of Utah and its schoolchildren will benefit by receiving lands more appropriate for development and the ensuing revenues that development would provide."

The trust lands were set aside at statehood to support education. They were intended to offset the significant federal ownership of land in Utah. But the scattered nature of the lands has made productive use difficult and in recent years efforts have been made to trade tracts for areas with more earning potential. Proceeds from sales or use go into a permanent fund, with interest and earnings earmarked for education.

Inland acres in LA power path

ENERGY DELIVERY: Six possible utility routes include razing up to 3,500 houses or infringing on wildland.

By JENNIFER BOWLES and IMRAN GHORI
The Press-Enterprise

A transmission route being considered by Los Angeles to carry renewable energy from the Salton Sea could lead to the condemnation of 3,500 homes and other properties in the Inland region to make way for the needed transmission lines.

The district is seeking energy from solar and wind sources, but is chiefly hoping to capture geothermal energy, which is generated by heat stored beneath the Earth's surface.

Known as Green Path North, the project has already generated criticism from environmentalists and local lawmakers for one of its six possible transmission routes because it would go through the Morongo Valley and some desert preserves west of Joshua Tree National Park.

But a portion of one path under consideration runs through a heavily urbanized area straddling Riverside and San Bernardino counties -- between Interstate 10 and Highway 60, from Interstate 215 to Interstate 15 before the path turns north along Interstate 15 and heads toward the Cajon Pass.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power might have to launch eminent domain proceedings to make room for the transmission line in the area, which from a map appears to cross into Rialto, Colton and Fontana, among other areas.

Utility officials could not be more specific about the path's location other than a broad swath through the area. They cautioned that all routes are preliminary and could change.

"We'll put it out there for public dialogue -- is it a feasible thing to do, to go out and condemn 3,500 properties?" said H. David Nahai, general manager of the Los Angeles utility.

"That kind of disruption is daunting to say the least and we're a governmental agency," he said. "We like to think that we operate with a conscience and we want to do the right thing by people."

Nahai said there is no estimated cost for that route or any that are being considered. All paths would carry the energy to a new substation in Hesperia, where existing transmission lines already go to Los Angeles and would not require any further construction or condemnation of properties.

Nahai said the utility was planning workshops in the Inland region to address concerns about the project. The first one is set for July 19 in the Morongo Valley. A meeting location has not been set.

Local Reaction

The Los Angeles utility earlier this month sent letters to supervisors in both Riverside and San Bernardino counties to say they want to meet with them and that the utility wants "to move forward with the environmental review of the project through a very open and transparent process."

John Field, chief of staff for Riverside County Supervisor John Tavaglione, who was out of town, confirmed that a letter explaining the project and requesting a meeting was received. But he said there was no map to indicate the transmission paths under consideration. A map shows the line could skirt the northern edge of western Riverside County.

San Bernardino County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger said he was skeptical about the utility's claim that as many as 3,500 homes would have be condemned to allow for the transmission lines in the Colton, Rialto and Fontana areas.

"They certainly haven't tried to document for us whether that statement is true," he said.

Hansberger said he believes there is enough room in the corridor to accommodate the expanded lines.

Roger Sullivan, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in eminent domain issues, said unless the utility has received authority from the state through special legislation it will be no simple task to condemn property outside its boundaries. The passage of Prop. 99 earlier this month, which placed further restrictions on the use of eminent domain, makes it even harder to take single-family homes, he said.

"They've got a very tough task ahead of them," Sullivan said.

Nahai said the Department of Water and Power is in talks with Southern California Edison to see if it can share a utility corridor along Interstate 10 that is already established but that it only goes so far.

"We're in discussion to see if there's some way of sharing that corridor up to a certain point, but even at that point, the route would then have to go through densely urban areas," he said.

Sandi Blain, Edison's manager of project licensing, said the I-10 corridor begins in the Palm Springs area and heads west, splintering off into different directions. One line, she said, connects to a substation in Mira Loma, she said.

Blain said Edison will meet with DWP on Monday for preliminary discussions. She said Edison is in a data-collecting mode to determine whether it would even be possible to accommodate DWP's request.

"Building transmission is a really complex process," she said. "It takes a good amount of time to really evaluate."

San Bernardino County Supervisor Josie Gonzales, whose district includes Rialto, Colton and parts of Fontana, said she would prefer a project that would have the least impact to the community.

Gonzales said she hadn't been told about the potential taking of so many parcels and was concerned about the economic impact it would have on those cities.

"The people need to know why they're making the sacrifice," she said. "What's in it for them? What's in it for the people I represent?"

Both supervisors said they welcome the promised briefing from the utility district but said they have not been contacted about when it would be held or what form it would take.

Forest Route

Valerie Baca, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest, said the Los Angeles utility was planning to meet with forest officials this Friday. She said forest officials have no information yet but a map shows one route going along the edge of the forest.

April Sall, executive chairwoman of the California Desert Coalition, a group formed to oppose the utility's proposed route through the Morongo Valley, was critical of that forest route because it cuts through the headquarters of the Wildlands Conservancy, a nonprofit organization in Oak Glen. That option violates a promise made by Nahai to the conservancy, said Sall, who is the manager of the conservancy's Pioneertown Mountains Preserve.

Sall was also skeptical of the utility's claim that 3,500 homes would have to be taken along the existing path.

She said she believes the utility is trying to make the proposal through the Morongo Valley seem more palatable than the urban route that could destroy people's homes.

What It's About

The Green Path North project would initially aim to generate 800 megawatts, or enough energy to power about 520,000 homes.

Nahai said that Los Angeles, like most California cities, is under pressure by the state's 2006 global-warming law to reduce their dependence on coal-generated electricity. It is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change.

"The need is undeniable," Nahai said. "I don't think anyone seriously disputes that Los Angeles needs to access the bountiful geothermal power and solar resources in the Salton Sea area."

"The question, of course, becomes how to bring that power to Los Angeles with the least environmental impact."

Nahai said that geothermal energy is a constant source, whereas the sun doesn't always shine and wind doesn't always blow to generate those renewable energies. Los Angeles gets 8 percent of its power from renewable energies and has set a goal of 20 percent by 2010 and 35 percent by 2020, he said.

"We're trying to diversify away from coal so as to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions," Nahai said. "That's both the right thing to do and it's a requirement under (state law) AB 32 as well."

County sets aside funds for new Interstate 40 fire station

By Abby Sewell
Desert Dispatch






San Bernardino County has committed to building a new fire station on Interstate 40 between Barstow and Needles.

In the county’s 2008-09 budget, approved by the Board of County Supervisors on Tuesday, $300,000 was earmarked for design work on the new station. Andy Silva, a spokesman with 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt’s office, said the exact location has not been determined, but Ludlow and Amboy have both been floated as possible sites. The size and other specifications of the station will be worked out in the design phase.

County spokesman David Wert said the county saw a need for a station, despite the sparse population of that stretch of I-40, because of the great distance between fire stations on the interstate. There are no fire stations, county or volunteer, on the 124 mile stretch of I-40 between Newberry Springs and Needles.

San Bernardino County Fire Department representatives did not return calls for comment, but Newberry Springs Fire Department Assistant Chief Steve Miller said the new station would take some pressure off his all-volunteer department, which currently responds to fires and collisions in Ludlow.

“It will certainly be a help in reducing response times out there on the 40,” he said.

The stretch of National Trails Highway between Amboy and Essex is in an even worse position than Ludlow, Miller said. The “no-man’s land” is between 60 and 80 miles from the closest fire stations in Newberry Springs, Needles, Baker and Twentynine Palms.

The most recently built county fire station, in Baker, was completed in 2006 and cost $3.5 million, Silva said. Wert said the county does not currently have an estimate on the cost of the I-40 station, but it will likely be in the same range.

“It’s definitely going to happen, and that’s good news for everyone who travels on Highway 40 and surrounding areas,” he said.

Wert said the county will begin the project this fiscal year. By the end of the summer, the county will start receiving bids for the design work, and construction could begin in the next year, Wert said. The county’s contingency fund, reserve fund, and capital improvements fund are all possible sources of funding for the project.

Man found dead near Mojave Desert highway

San Diego Union-Tribune
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LUDLOW – An elderly man was found dead after he wandered from his disabled van in the Mojave Desert on a day when temperatures soared above 100 degrees.

Elton Eugene Fields, 75, of Reno, Nev. was found Monday night about two miles south of his vehicle off Interstate 40, the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner department said Tuesday.

Somebody reported Fields' empty vehicle and a search and rescue team found his body several hours later.

An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.

It was the second time in a week that someone was found dead in the desert.

On June 16 a passer-by found the body of 77-year-old Joyce Sanders and her severely burned husband, 90-year-old Virgil Sanders, about 50 yards from their car in eastern San Bernardino County. Temperatures reached 116 degrees in the area that day.

Wildlife agency agrees to revisit protections for rare Mojave Desert plant

By Abby Sewell, staff writer
Desert Dispatch







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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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