The Old Spanish Trail, Explained

New Mexico to Southern California

Old Spanish Trail (in red). (National Park Service)

by Nathan Masters
KCET

Although Southern California today is a region teeming with millions, for much of its history it was a remote outpost of the vast Spanish Empire. Nearly 227 years passed between Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo's first exploration of the California coast in 1542 and Gaspar de Portolá's establishment of the Presidio of San Diego in 1769. Then, for another sixty years, Southern California grew in relative isolation from the rest of Hispanic civilization. Finally, in 1829, an intrepid merchant opened a trade route—today known as the Old Spanish Trail—between Los Angeles and Santa Fe, creating Southern California's first overland link with the older Spanish settlements of New Mexico.

From June 2-5, historians, archivists, and representatives from government agencies and the Hispanic and Native American communities will gather in Pomona at the 2011 Old Spanish Trail Association annual conference to explore the history of the trail in California.

In the late nineteenth century, hundreds of miles of unforgiving terrain and harsh climate divided Southern California from New Mexico, but both stood to profit from a direct trade route. Alta California then formed, along with the province of New Mexico, the northern boundary of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The recently-colonized Spanish territory boasted fine natural harbors in San Francisco and San Diego. But with its location at the northern extreme of the Spanish Empire, and surrounded by inhospitable desert to the east and southeast, Southern California was effectively isolated from the political and cultural center of Mexico City to the south.

To the east, the older Spanish province of New Mexico, first settled in 1598, offered California integration with the burgeoning United States and the Mexican heartland via established overland trade routes. For Southern California's rancheros, New Mexico also represented an untapped market for the region's abundant supply of horses and mules. From the point of view of landlocked New Mexico, a trade route to Southern California represented not only a potential market for Santa Fe's serapes and other handmade goods, but also a connection to foreign markets via California's ports.

Almost as soon as the first Spanish settlements arose in California, efforts were made to bridge the chasm and link the two provinces. A team of Franciscan missionaries left Santa Fe for California in 1776, but made it only as far as Utah Lake, near the present-day city of Provo.

In 1826, American fur trapper and explorer Jedediah Smith blazed a trail from present-day Utah to the Mojave Desert. After a clash with hostile Mohave Indians, Smith met two Tongva guides who offered to take his expedition to Mission San Gabriel, near Los Angeles. The guides led Smith along the intermittent Mohave River and over the San Bernardino Mountains near the Cajon Pass. Smith's party arrived at the mission on November 27, where they were warmly received by the missionaries, as depicted in the scene below.

Three years later, Santa Fe merchant Antonio Armijo led the first successful caravan from Santa Fe to Southern California, combining Smith's route with portions of the Franciscans' 1776 path to Utah to open what would later be called the Old Spanish Trail. In doing so, Armijo had established an important link between California and New Mexico, now the northern flanks of the newly-independent Mexican Republic.

Elizabeth von Till Warren, a historian of the Old Spanish Trail, writes of the new route's effect:

News of the opening of trade with California resulted in immediate commerce between Santa Fe and Los Angeles. With a few exceptions, pack trains made annual treks between New Mexico and California, bringing woven Mexican products to California, which lacked sheep, and bartering them for horses and mules, scarce in New Mexico.

The trail carried mule-trains over the Cajon Pass, then west through Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, and El Monte, to the region's major settlements at Mission San Gabriel and Los Angeles. There the traders unloaded their goods, many of which were sold at the Los Angeles Plaza.

The increased commerce hid a dark and ugly side to the trail's establishment, according to von Till Warren:

Raids for Indian slaves became common, with victims sold at either end of the trail despite official condemnation of the practice. The traffic in human beings reverberated among the peoples who lived along the trail for many years longer than the caravans plied their trade.

The trail remained an important trade route for several years until, shortly after the American conquest of California, several competing routes comprised of wagon roads were opened. The Old Spanish Trail, which allowed only for pack animals, soon fell into disuse.

Today, monuments mark the trail's path through the Southland. In Upland, the Madonna of the Trail statue overlooks the route once taken by Santa Fe-bound traders. The monument, dedicated by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1929, was one of twelve placed along the National Old Trails Road, which stretched from New York City to Los Angeles. In the Cajon Pass, an obelisk-shaped monument, dedicated in 1917, commemorates the early pioneers who traveled between Southern California and points east.

The trail's historical significance was further recognized in 2002, when an act of Congress, passed unanimously by both houses and signed by President George W. Bush, designated the corridor as the Old Spanish National Historic Trail and placed the historic route under the supervision of the National Park Service.

Marines invade Johnson Valley

JUDI BOWERS
Big Bear Grizzly

Johnson Valley -- Off-road and outdoor enthusiasts are doing their best to prevent losing the largest open area in the country to the Marine Corps.

Johnson Valley is thousands of acres bordered by the San Bernardino Mountains, Lucerne Valley, Yucca Valley and the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. The Marine Corps states that Twentynine Palms is the only location in the country with the potential to expand the land area to meet training requirements for marine expeditionary brigades.

What that means is taking over approximately 168,000 acres of open land now known as the Johnson Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Area.

“I don’t like it,” says Quinn Thomas, owner of All J Jeep products in Big Bear Lake. The off-road enthusiast says there are serious safety concerns with the proposal as well as the significant loss of recreation land. “There aren’t many places left to go,” Thomas says.

May 26 is the end of the public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement. Thomas and other off-road and outdoor recreational enthusiasts are among the thousands who have submitted comments and urge others to do the same. Ray Pessa of Yucca Valley, who is a member of the Friends of Giant Rock, says the Marine Corps expansion will have a huge impact on the off-roading community. Friends of Giant Rock is an off-roading club in the high desert.

Alternative 6 is the preferred option by the Marine Corps. It leaves about 80,000 acres for recreational uses, according to information provided by the Marine Corps. About 44 percent of the land is available 10 months of the year.

The proposal calls for closing a majority of Johnson Valley permanently for use by the Marine Corps. Another section on the north side remains open while another parcel on the south corner will be used by the Marines about 48 days a year. The remainder of the time it will be available to the public.

That has Pessa and Thomas concerned. They question how the public knows there is nothing left behind from the live-fire exercises. They want guarantees no live ordinance is left before the public uses the area.

Additionally, there is no barrier between the public and Marine land, Pessa says. Fences are set up to protect wildlife, but not the public he says.

Pessa says he is also concerned that once an area is taken away, even though it’s promised to be a shared use, the public won’t get it back. He says off-road and other recreation activities will be crammed into a smaller area, which will lead to injuries and accidents.

More than 90 percent of the Marines that deploy to combat train in Twentynine Palms. Marines must train at a high state to be ready to respond to crises anywhere in the world. The expansion would provide space for a full scale exercise to be conducted twice a year for 24 continuous days during each cycle.

Pessa is torn. “I want them to have the best training they can get,” Pessa says of the Marine Corps. He would prefer the expansion went east instead of west as proposed.

Alternative 3 is preferred by off-road enthusiasts, which expands the base to the east, but was rejected in favor of Alternative 6. After several scoping meetings held in 2008-09, the Marine Corps responded by developing Alternative 6.

Comments on the Draft EIS are due by May 26. Comments can be made online at www.marines.mil/unit/29palms/las. A copy of the EIS is available online, along with maps and other information on the proposal.

Pessa says Johnson Valley is the largest public land area still open to the public. It’s a true wilderness, where you can go get lost and experience the desert. “I hate to lose it,” Pessa says.

Government tramples on citizens as it seizes desert

By RICHARD CROWE
The Press-Enterprise Opinion

For decades, the Sierra Club and environmental groups like it have successfully eliminated many uses they have perceived as inappropriate in the California desert by pushing for preservation in the halls of Congress. The advocacy and resulting congressional designations are arrogant and bad public policy.

Certainly, 50 years ago the desert needed new, science-based management to address burgeoning motorcycle use.

However, the cumulative effects of congressional designations, along with environmentalist-sponsored lawsuits and species listings under the Endangered Species Act, have decimated many desert uses, gutted the Bureau of Land Management's 1980 California Desert Conservation Area plan and make a mockery of congressional mandates that the bureau wisely manage public lands for an array of uses and protection of natural resources.

Users of public lands were unfairly and unnecessarily hurt, livestock grazing and mining being the worst hit, and the economic values lost are sorely missed in these tough economic times.

And, to top it off, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced her California Desert Protection Act earlier this year ("Desert protections sought," Jan. 26). This leads me to wonder: How much protection is enough?

Perspective is needed to better appreciate this question. I offer the following analysis, which reviews 80 years of desert use history.

For this purpose, the area of the desert is the 1976 congressionally-designated California Desert Conservation Area, 25 million acres in size.

It is essentially the entire California desert excluding the Owens Valley.

By 1930, 25 percent of the desert had become private land, mostly towns and farms in the Antelope, Apple, Coachella, Mojave River, Palo Verde and Imperial valleys. The remaining 75 percent, mostly federal public lands, was little used and essentially had no management or use restrictions.

The Bureau of Land Management's did not even exist then. It did not come into existence until 1946.

By 1976, 25 percent of the desert was still private and 25 percent was now restricted to military use or designated as state and national park lands. This left 50 percent remaining for limited public use.

When Congress established the California Desert Conservation Area, it directed the Bureau of Land Management to develop a management plan for this remaining 50 percent.

After an exhaustive effort involving the public, as well as local, state, and federal agencies and science groups, the Bureau of Land Management completed the 1980 California Desert Conservation Area plan, which placed this land into four management zones. These zones designated the degree to which the land could be used and the protections that would be required.

The most restrictive zone it designated as wilderness. Wilderness zones made development off-limits, and, with a few exceptions, basically limited use to foot traffic.

So out of the remaining 50 percent of land for public use, 2.1 million acres, or 8 percent, was set aside as wilderness. This left 42 percent for other uses.

The Bureau of Land Management began enacting its plan, though due to legal reasons, it had to get congressional backing for its designation of the wilderness zones.

But, believing the amount of proposed wilderness to be too small, and having disdain for science-based multiple-use management, environmental groups pushed for more restrictions, lobbying Congress to make more desert off-limits.

In 1994, Congress passed legislation, the California Desert Protection Act. In it, Congress drastically increased the amount of land in the wilderness-zone category.

When everything shook out, 25 percent was now designated as wilderness and 25 percent designated for other uses.

By 2007, the bureau was forced to make a set of amendments to the California Desert Conservation Area Plan due to expanded endangered-species listings and lawsuits.

Now, species-protection areas were placed within the remaining 25 percent still open to public use. These species-protection areas severely limited use, and, in essence, cut this remaining 25 percent in half to 12.5 percent.

Today, this 12.5 percent is under threat of further restrictions. The still-churning environmental groups are ironically not happy with recent solar and wind proposals for the desert and has urged more land be placed off-limits.

New Legislation

They are pinning their hopes on Feinstein's legislation, which would designate that 1 million more acres be named a national monument, 250,000 acres be placed in a wilderness zone and 74,000 acres be added to our state's national parks.

If this bill passes, the 12.5 percent of land open for limited public use would shrink to 10 percent.

As you can see, through the years, the bureau's original multiple-use management mandate in the desert has been emasculated by an environmental agenda and Congress, and yet the assault on our right to use our lands continues.

So, back to the introductory question: Will there ever be enough land preserved in the minds of environmental groups? Likely not.

As long as uses proposed are not to their liking, there will never be enough.

Richard Crowe, who is a resident of Beaumont, worked for the Bureau of Land Management for 33 years, 29 of them within the California Desert Conservation Area, dealing with a wide range of multiple-use management issues.

Water plan being developed for Mojave National Preserve

Restored game guzzler near Goffs, March 25, 2009. (Chris S. Ervin)

By KAREN JONAS, staff writer
Barstow Desert Dispatch

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE • The National Park Service is seeking public input for a plan to manage water sources in the Mojave National Preserve.

The plan will focus on what will be done about abandoned above-ground water sources — such as abandoned wells, former stock ponds, springs, previous development by ranchers, and artificial water sources for wildlife that are already in use, said Linda Slater, public information officer for the Mojave National Preserve. The proposed plan also includes water sources below ground.

Slater said that many of the ranchers who previously used the preserve are now gone and have left behind many of their abandoned water structures. The preserve needed to develop a comprehensive plan so it already has a game plan when it comes to water issues instead of resolving issues on a case-by-case basis.

The plan will most likely include at least four alternatives developed with the help of public comment — including taking no action on the water sources, said Slater.

The large water sources mainly affect bighorn sheep and mule deer, said Slater. The artificial water sources were mainly intended for bighorn sheep and are currently maintained by a bighorn sheep conservationist group, said Slater.

A study was started in 2008 to determine the effect on mule deer when water sources were opened for them, said Slater. Researchers would shut off water sources and turn them on again over periods of time. They fitted mule deer with radio tracking collars to determine their location when the water sources were either off or on. The study is still underway and Slater did not have preliminary results on Friday.

The plans to possibly open up more water sources to wildlife is complex and the preserve wants to make sure that it isn’t locked into anything that would lead to problems, said Slater. She said the scientist who is leading the study on the mule deer wants the plan to be flexible, so it can be adapted as more information is gathered on the complex relationship between water and wildlife.

It will most likely be months before the plan is put into place, said Slater. There will be a number of scoping meetings in nearby areas, including one in Barstow this June. Public comments on the plan will be accepted until July 11 and an environmental impact statement will be developed after the public comment period is over.

For more information on the plan, visit http://bit.ly/mchHE3

Solar threat

Desert Tortoise Estimate Undercuts ESA Listing

Opinion
Riverside Press-Enterprise

The discovery of far more desert tortoises than expected near a planned solar power plant in the Mojave Desert should prompt federal officials to rethink the project. And the incident should spur federal officials to require independent environmental studies before bulldozers roll on future solar projects.

Last week, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management assessment found the $2.1 billion BrightSource Energy Co. project near Primm, Nev., would disturb up to 3,000 tortoises and kill as many as 700 young ones. That far exceeds an estimate of 32 of the threatened species at the site -- a number derived from studies commissioned by the developer.

After biologists relocated 39 tortoises -- the maximum allowed -- BLM officials last month ordered BrightSource to stop work on two-thirds of the 5.6-square-mile site. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials will decide soon if completing the second and third phases of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System -- which would nearly double the amount of solar electricity produced in the country -- would jeopardize the species.

The clean energy generated by this project is no excuse for federal officials to allow shoddy surveys that underestimate the tortoise population. A developer rushing to qualify for hundreds of millions in federal "stimulus" funding is hardly an objective source about issues that could obstruct construction. Federal officials should have required an independent biological survey before grading and construction work began in October. And that approach should be standard for the numerous solar projects now proposed for desert land.

In this case, the sheer number of the animals that would be killed or disturbed by the solar plant justifies a significant downsizing -- eliminating one or both of the last two phases. Federal officials could have avoided such backtracking had they had the right information before BrightSource broke ground.

Wildlife officials are likely under political pressure to let the developer proceed with much of the project. But even a compromise such as relocating large numbers of the animals would be highly risky. In 2008, the U.S. Army suspended a tortoise relocation effort at Fort Irwin after about 90 of the 556 tortoises moved died, mostly killed by coyotes.

The Mojave Desert, with endless sunny days, is not a bad place for solar power plants. But federal officials need to do a better job of surveying the native wildlife before construction starts. Green projects should not, ironically, degrade the very environment they are meant to help sustain.

Bill to protect desert backed by once-fierce foes

Carolyn Lochhead,
San Francisco Chronicle Washington Bureau

Washington -- In 1994, a rookie lawmaker named Dianne Feinstein pushed through the largest national parks and wilderness bill ever - by a single vote on the last day before Republicans took control of Congress - protecting 8.5 million acres of the California desert against the wishes of many who lived there.

Seventeen years later, many of those who warned that the California Desert Protection Act would sacrifice their way of life to an environmentalist utopia have changed sides, becoming allies in Feinstein's quest to create one of the biggest environmental legacies in California history: a new bill to protect 1.165 million more acres ringing the national parks at Death Valley and Joshua Tree and the Mojave National Preserve.

"Is it going to pass tomorrow anywhere?" Feinstein said. "No. Am I going to cease and desist? NO!"

When it comes to the desert, "She's just intense," said Shannon Eddy, executive director of the Large-Scale Solar Association. "She's persistent. She's very formidable."

With Republicans again in control of the House, Feinstein's former foes now count on her to protect their off-road vehicle playgrounds and block efforts to build giant solar plants in the desert.

"There has been a 180-degree turnabout in perception and attitude," said Gerald Freeman, owner of the Nipton Hotel near the Mojave Preserve. Freeman said tourism and a national park "prestige factor" has replaced the view that "environmentalists have stolen our land."

Huge ecosystem

For environmentalists, the three giant national parks of the California desert offer a rare last chance to save an intact ecosystem on nature's grand scale.

By creating buffers and filling in critical wildlife corridors, the California Desert Protection Act of 2011 would link the three parks with the desert ecosystem rather than land parcels in mind, said David Lamfrom, desert program manager for the National Parks and Conservation Association.

The Mojave is under pressure. Rivaling the Sahara in solar intensity and tantalizingly close to Los Angeles, the Mojave is prime territory for solar plants that can cover as much as 8 square miles. The Marine Corps wants to add 262 square miles to its base at Twentynine Palms (San Bernardino County). More than 8 million people visited the desert last year.

Just north of Baker (San Bernardino County), the Dumont Dunes on a single weekend can attract as many as 40,000 off-road enthusiasts, said Susan Sorrells of Shoshone (Inyo County), whose family has lived in the desert for four generations.

"Without this legislation we could lose the scenic and ecological landscapes that make the desert unique," said Paul Spitler, associate director of wilderness campaigns for the Wilderness Society. "This is a unique part of world - not just of California and the nation - but of the world."

Last month, third-ranking House Republican Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield fired a warning shot, introducing legislation to roll back millions of acres of wilderness designations, using the same arguments of 1994 that public lands should be open to multiple uses, including logging, grazing, mining and presumably renewable energy.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands (San Bernardino County), who fought the 1994 act and gave the Mojave Preserve $1 to operate in 1995, "has repeatedly expressed his concern about expanding government control and ownership of desert lands," his spokesman Jim Specht said.

But two Republicans whose districts would be directly affected - Reps. Howard "Buck" McKeon and Mary Bono Mack - while neutral on Feinstein's bill, teamed with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to set aside new California wilderness in 2009. Another Southern California Republican, Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County), this year proposed his own wilderness bill.

A battle-scarred Feinstein has changed tactics since inheriting the original desert legislation from the late Democrat Alan Cranston. She and her allies have spent years laboriously building consensus among rival desert users, staving off the range-war atmosphere of 1994.

Feinstein would give off-road vehicle users their first-ever congressionally protected playgrounds. She has convinced the Marine Corps to share the land it wants with off-roaders for 10 months of the year.

Some of Feinstein's fiercest former local foes now revile the prospect of solar projects allowed on "multiple use" land.

"We ought to put this solar stuff on rooftops before we fill up the public lands in the desert with these god-awful utility-scale contraptions," said Chuck Bell, a vocal opponent of the original parks act and president of the Lucerne Valley Economic Development Association.

Ex-foes back Feinstein

Local GOP officials, who once protected strip mines, count on ecotourism to fill their tax coffers. Barstow, a San Bernardino County community that was once a hotbed of the anti-park insurgency, has endorsed Feinstein's bill along with more than 100 organizations and businesses, including city councils deep in GOP territory.

Joshua Tree "helps to fill hotels, it helps create transient occupancy taxes and it provides a real boost to the local economy," said San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry, a Republican.

Battle over solar sites

Feinstein's bill has staved off solar development in key parcels.

After filing applications to build on thousands of acres, solar companies have mostly withdrawn from the proposed Mojave Trails National Monument, which would also protect an unblemished stretch of historic Route 66.

"It was devastating and difficult and obviously treacherous for the industry, and not the way you would hope to start a renaissance, but we're past it now," said Eddy of the Large-Scale Solar Association. "Any projects within the boundaries of her monument are considered too much of a risk right now to develop."

Wind developer Oak Creek Energy of Oakland last month pulled the plug on a five-year effort to build a wind farm in the Castle Mountain area that Feinstein wants to add to the Mojave Preserve.

"The primary reason was that we found this area was heavily desired by powerful interests," executive vice president Edward Duggan said in an e-mail.

Giant energy plan

The state and federal governments are trying to devise a giant plan to site solar plants, preferably on old farmland or other disturbed areas.

Eddy said that is easier said than done, and the state needs all the solar energy it can get - from roof tops to utility-scale facilities - to achieve its new 33 percent renewable fuel standard. Billions of dollars of investment are on the sidelines, waiting for regulatory certainty.

"If we delay too much, then there won't be an industry later," Eddy said. "We're really at that fragile point."

Applications by solar companies to develop property that was donated for conservation was the genesis for Feinstein's legislation. The Wildlands Conservancy had raised $45 million in private funds and taxpayers pitched in another $18 million to buy old railroad parcels and give them to the federal government. Feinstein drew the proposed Mojave Trails National Monument to protect those parcels.

Approach Senate first

She included a new Sand to Snow National Monument and painstakingly drew in new wilderness areas while releasing several wilderness study areas.

Feinstein's plan is to pass the bill in the Senate first, itself a giant task.

"There is huge support, and I think we have a unified community," she said. "If it passes the Senate, I believe the opportunity for the House increases dramatically, because I think people want it."

Her original 1994 act, "has been a terrific success," she said. "We have kept the desert desert for all time."

Owls, Mules and Lizards: the makeup of federal land management

Today we have federal employees who are paid to stop productivity

by Marita Noon

Marita Noon

Farming, ranching, mining, and extraction are the foundation for everything else. They are what make food, energy and manufacturing possible by proving the raw materials for our personal and economic growth. Yet these bedrock American industries have, little-by-little, been chiseled away—so subtly that most of us did not notice until now; now, when the economy continues to teeter with a slight uptick one month, back down the next. The public, America’s citizens, people who’ve never paid attention to politics or the economy, want to know what happened; they want to know, “Why?”

The answer is really quite simple and reversing the trend—growing the economy—is equally simple. But America’s citizens must push for policy-induced prosperity.

Today we have federal employees who are paid to stop productivity. Their job is to enforce regulations, not encourage expansion. The federal government used to help people establish a farm or ranch, or stake a claim. Remember the whole idea of “homesteading?” People took a barren parcel of federal land, treated it as their own and made something from nothing. Their efforts were rewarded with the deed.

While homesteading is a thing of the history books, policy that stopped development didn’t begin until the seventies. Initial results of a new study indicate that major industries once prevalent in the west, such as logging, cattle ranching, and mining, have moved out—in fact, been chased out. Instead of exporting, we now import.

What happened in the seventies to change federal lands management? The birth of the environmental movement in the late 1960s.

This shift in policy is most evident through the story of the spotted owl—a declining species said to favor “old growth forest.” The effort to protect the owl began in 1968. It was ultimately listed as “endangered” in 1990. Observing history, we see the owls’ numbers have not increased with the protection and they’ve been found in locations they supposedly do not like. While the listing had little impact on the owl, it did have a killing effect on the logging industry. Logging on federal lands once accounted for more than half of Oregon’s harvest. By 2008, less than ten percent.

In New Mexico’s Gila Forest access to federal lands has been continually cut back. Today, based on numbers from the 1970’s, there are thirty percent fewer cattle. Because of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and wilderness designations, the Forest Service required Terrell Shelley, whose family has continuously raised cattle on the same land for 125 years, to use mules to make repairs to concrete dams on his allotment. 250 mule loads of concrete were hand mixed. Not many people today are willing to continue ranching under such restrictive conditions.

Mining faces similar obstacles. In Montana, exploration for tungsten was completed in the seventies by Union Carbide. To extract the resource from what is now an “inventoried roadless area,” the Forest Service requires that the drilling equipment be hauled by pack mules—who are feed “certified weed free hay,” and that the land be cleared and then reclaimed using hand tools. Once again, productive activity is discouraged.

Due to punitive federal policy, we now have less logging, less ranching, and less mining; less jobs, less productivity, and less wealth creation.

The oil and gas industry of West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico is next. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has proposed that the Sand Dune Lizard (AKA Dunes Sagebrush Lizard) be listed as an endangered species under the ESA. This lizard frequents sites where oil and gas development provides good paying jobs and economic stability. If the FWS proceeds with the “endangered” listing, the entire region could well go the way of logging in the Pacific Northwest or Cattle Ranching in the Gila Forest.

Now, we see how industries have been shuttered and jobs lost. We watched while entire communities became ghost towns. “Protection” and “wilderness” sound like nice ideas until you see the economic destruction they have wrought. With the benefit of history, America’s citizens can take a stand and reverse the trend. Federal agencies hold hearings where we can comment. We can make phone calls and send e-mails.

The employees at the various federal agencies don’t make the policies. They are simply enforcing the regulations. But if we speak up, we can change the game.

The public comment period for the proposed lizard listing ends May 9. Make the effort, pick up the phone. Talk to the federal employees (Debra M. Hill: 505-761-4719, Tom Buckley: 505-248-6455).

Wouldn’t it be great if the federal government once again helped, instead of hindered?

Marita Noon is the Executive Director at Energy Makes America Great Inc. the advocacy arm of the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy. Find out more at http://www.energymakesamericagreat.org/.

Tortoise finds curtail solar-site construction

Brightsource doesn't see stoppage impacting construction schedule

The Brightsource Energy solar power site in the Ivanpah Valley. The firm still expects energy to come on line in 2013. (Stan Lim / The Press-Enterprise )

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

Ivanpah Valley, CA -- Federal officials have told a solar developer to stop work on two-thirds of a construction site in northeast San Bernardino County because no more tortoises can be disturbed.

Until wildlife authorities reassess the tortoise population, work on the $2.1 billion project -- hailed by the Obama administration -- is limited to a 2-square-mile area cleared of the protected reptiles last fall. BrightSource Solar's entire work site, on public land near Primm, Nev., is 5.6 square miles.

The suspension order, made official Friday, was triggered when biologists hired to remove tortoises from the property handled their 39th animal earlier this month, said Amy Fesnock of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

A federal permit allowed for the displacement of no more than 38 desert tortoises found within the project's borders, said Fesnock, a wildlife biologist in the BLM's California office. The species is listed as threatened with extinction.

The suspension forced crews from Bechtel, BrightSource's contractor, to stop building fences and to fill in postholes and trenches so tortoises won't fall in and get injured or trapped.

Work cannot resume in the affected areas, known as Phase 2 and 3, until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grants permission. The agency is expected by the end of May to complete a new analysis of the BrightSource project's effect on desert tortoises, Fesnock said.

To allow more tortoises to be displaced, the service must find that doing so does not jeopardize the survival of the species, she said.

A BrightSource official said the setback isn't expected to be a major obstacle.

"We don't see this as having an impact on the construction schedule and anticipate that power will come online in 2013," company spokesman Keely Wachs said in an email.

BrightSource's plans call for three arrays of thousands of mirrors that focus sunlight on three "power towers," where steam is made to generate electricity. At peak capacity, the arrays are expected to generate enough electricity to power 140,000 homes. The project is next to Interstate 15 in the Ivanpah Valley.

BrightSource, based in Oakland, announced last week that it had completed financing for the project, including $1.6 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy and a $168 million investment from Google.

The project has been praised by President Barack Obama as a step toward reducing the nation's reliance on fossil fuels and cutting greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

It was one of several proposals approved last year by U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar under an expedited or "fast tracked" environmental review process.

Some environmentalists now fault that process.

"The BLM's fast-tracked environmental review seriously underestimated the impacts of the Ivanpah power plant on the desert tortoise," said Michael Connor, the California director of Western Watersheds Project, which is suing the government to halt the solar development.

The work stoppage, he said, "is a direct result of that rushed and deeply flawed analysis."

BrightSource commissioned surveys in 2007 and 2008 that found only 16 tortoises in the entire 5.6 square miles. The Fish and Wildlife Service used the survey results to estimate a population of 32 tortoises on the site and to set a "take" limit of 38 animals that could be displaced.

Since work began in October, many more tortoises were found than expected. The BLM now estimates the population at about 140.

Healthy tortoises displaced by construction will be held in pens until they can be relocated to a nearby area in the Ivanpah Valley. Based on past relocations, at least some of those tortoises will die after being moved.

Dubois tapped for superintendent of Mojave National Preserve

Superintendent Stephanie Dubois,
Mojave National Preserve

 
Needles Desert Star

OAKLAND, Calif. - Stephanie Dubois has been selected to be the next superintendent of Mojave National Preserve, located in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County between Interstate 15 and Interstate 40. She replaces Dennis Schramm who retired in the fall of 2010.

“Steph is an approachable, team-oriented person. She has worked on internal park issues and across park boundaries with park staffs, neighboring communities and other agencies to create shared visions and solve problems across landscapes,” said Pacific West Regional Director Chris Lehnertz. “A proven cornerstone of her leadership style is a desire to invite and respect the powerful ‘sense of place' that people have with the lands the National Park Service oversees.”

Dubois has been serving as the deputy superintendent of Glacier National Park in northwest Montana since 2005, where she manages park operations on just over 1 million acres, for 2 million visitors a year. “I am very excited to be heading south and west again, to the land of the sun and the wide-open desert landscapes that are my geography. I have lived and worked in the Sonoran Desert and in the canyon country of the Colorado Plateau, and now I am looking forward to learning about and exploring the challenges, ecosystems, features, and moods of the Mojave,” said Dubois.

“I am also thrilled to take the helm of Mojave National Preserve following Dennis Schramm, who set a great tenor in working with others to protect and interpret a remarkable ecosystem.”

Dubois is a 30 year veteran of the National Park Service and has experience at all levels of the organization. Prior to her assignment at Glacier National Park, she served as the superintendent of Chaco Culture National Historical Park from 2002-5 and the superintendent at Aztec Ruins National Monument from 2001-2. She has worked in interpretation and law enforcement in parks across the country ranging from Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona and Utah to Roger Williams National Memorial in Rhode Island. Her first National Park Service job was as a high school graduate with the Youth Conservation Corps in Maryland.

Dubois holds a bachelor's degree in botany from Duke University and remains a steadfast Duke basketball fan. She enjoys all time spent outdoors, loves to garden, enjoys back-road camping with friends, and has a lively creative and artistic side that she expresses through batik. She grew up in an Air Force family, the second of seven children, and attributes her love of nature to family outings in the many places she lived during her youth, especially when her father was stationed in South Dakota and other bases in the West.

Dubois will begin her new assignment in May 2011. She will manage a staff of 60 full-time employees and a budget of approximately $5 million.

20-Mule Team named as 2011 Grand Marshal

(Photo courtesy Dave McCoy Photography)

BISHOP -- They've graced show arenas, made a number of Pasadena Rose Parade appearances and long held a special place in the hearts of Bishop Mule Days spectators. Now the 20-Mule Team will serve as the2011 Bishop Mule Days Grand Marshal.

Twenty-mule teams originated in the late 1800s, born out of a need to ferry borax, a component of glass production and many detergents, out of the Death Valley region between 1883 and 1889. The teams hauled more than 20 million pounds of borax out of Death Valley in the six years of operation. The teams were relieved of their task by the growth of railroads and new mineral deposit discoveries.

Yet, the teams were never forgotten by the public, thanks in part to the trademark team symbol that appeared on products produced by the company that would become U.S. Borax, Inc. The teams, although retired from their Death Valley trips, continued to make promotional and ceremonial appearances on behalf of U.S. Borax.

Led by Bishop's own Bobby Tanner, the 20-Mule Team's unique hitch requires many hours of preparation for an appearance such as Bishop Mule Days. This year Tanner also secured use of the famed Borax wagons, adding a distinct historical value to the team’s Bishop performances.

In the months preceding Mule Days, Tanner and his crew will tackle the dynamics of finding just the right weight-to-braking ratio, deal with the complexities of making tight turns with the roughly 170-foot long team and wagons, and spend hours fine-tuning the critical relationship between teamster and team.

What would surely be a daunting task for even the most experienced mule man is a way of life for Tanner. He drove his first 20-mule team in 1981, unknowingly launching himself into a 30-year journey of re-creating one of the West’s most beloved icons. It’s a journey that’s taken him across the country and given him the opportunity to share a piece of Americana with thousands of people.

Tanner’s father, Bob Sr., was among those who founded the Bishop Mule Days Celebration in 1969. As a result, Bobby Tanner has participated in nearly all 42 Bishop Mule Days celebrations, often winning awards for individual and packing events. He served as president of the event’s Executive Committee in 1990.

Today, Tanner owns and operates Rock Creek Lodge, a collection of cabins, a store and restaurant nestled in the trees close to Rock Creek, a favorite Eastern Sierra getaway.

The 20-Mule Team will make three appearances during Bishop Mule Days – in the Saturday morning parade, in the Saturday afternoon show and the Sunday evening show.

Bishop Mule Days will be held May 24th-29th at the Tri-County Fairgrounds in Bishop. Tickets for the event are on sale now. For more information, call the Mule Days office at (760) 872-4263.

Dead in plane crash were woman, kids

Investigators with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board investigate the wreckage of a Cessna 210 that crashed Sunday. A woman and her two children were killed in the crash. The plane took off from John Wayne airport and crashed near the Barstow-Dagget Airport. (KAREN JONAS, DESERT DISPATCH)

By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ
Orange County Register

BARSTOW – A woman and two children were killed in a fiery plane crash on Sunday near a San Bernardino County airport, authorities said.
The single-engine Cessna 210 departed from John Wayne Airport and was headed to Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas when it crashed, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

The woman is believed to be Katie Morrison, a Truckee, Calif., resident who is licensed as a private pilot. Officials have not identified who was aboard the plane. Her husband, Jim Morrison, confirmed his wife and two children, Wyatt and Hanna, were killed in the crash, according to Fox 40 News in Sacramento.

Coroner officials have not yet positively identified the bodies of those aboard the plane; they were described as a woman, a male child and a female child.

"The coroner's office is having to conduct extensive scientific means to identify the bodies," said Arden Wiltshire, a San Bernardino Sheriff's Department spokeswoman.

The plane crashed at 12:40 p.m., about 2.5 miles southeast of the Barstow-Dagget Airport. The Barstow Desert Dispatch newspaper reported that the crash site was about two miles south of I-40.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that the plane appeared to spiral out of the sky as it plunged into a hillside.

According to FAA records, the fixed-wing airplane is registered to Debt Free LLC.

The address registered for the 1978 airplane comes back to Jim Morrison Construction in Truckee. According to the company's website, Jim Morrison Construction builds luxury homes in premier golfing and skiing communities. Morrison is a professional skier.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash. The final determination of the cause could take months, said Mike Huhn, an investigator with the NTSB. The NTSB will look more closely at the pilot — including her experience, training and health — the plane and its engine and environmental factors such as the weather to determine the final cause of the accident, said Hunh.

This is the second fatal plane crash in the area in two weeks. A plane that crashed near Ludlow on March 8 killed Anthony D’Allen, 68, of Senoia, Ga.

Historic Inland Empire cemetery receives federal funds

Leticia Juarez
KABC-TV Los Angeles

ORO GRANDE, MOJAVE DESERT (KABC) -- A historic cemetery in Oro Grande near Victorville has been called a little-known treasure. It has some 100 graves, the final resting place of mostly miners and their families. There is a much-needed facelift in its future.

A steady wind blows through the Oro Grande Cemetery where flagstones outline the final resting places and weathered white crosses mark the area for the inhabitants buried there. It is a place forgotten by time.

Joe Manners is the unofficial caretaker of the century-old cemetery, and its champion.

For more than two decades, he has been after San Bernardino County to fund its upkeep and repairs.

"Some of that history, we should have something in Oro Grande to remember that Oro Grande was a boom town when Victorville was a ranch," said Manners.

On Wednesday the county approved a $15,000 grant to build a parking lot and decorative fence to beautify the historic site. Prior to the funding approval the county used ground-penetrating radar to locate unmarked graves to ensure the area would not be disturbed by the construction.

"We were able to get some community development block-grant funding from the federal government -- a small grant, but enough to do some basic improvements," said Brad Mitzelfelt, San Bernardino County First District supervisor.

There are between 90 and 100 graves in the Oro Grande Cemetery. Many belong to the original founders of this once-booming town.

The gold-mining town is one of the earliest settlements in San Bernardino County and the final resting place for several of Oro Grande's military heroes.

"When Memorial Day comes around, the VFW in Adelanto comes and clears all the weeds and gets the place cleaned up and they do a Memorial Day service," said Manners.

The county hopes to finish its improvement project by Memorial Day in time to honor and remember the pioneers and founders of this desert community.

Pioneertown will pay for its water

A Letter from Gay Smith
Pioneertown Property Owners Association
Hi-Desert Star

I would like to set the record straight — Pioneertown water users are not going to rip off Yucca Valley.

We have a serious water problem, both quantity and quality, that the county has been trying to solve for the last 10 years. Before that time we had the best water in the whole area, but with prolonged drought, the water table dropped, which caused nitrates, arsenic and heavy metals to leach into the water line that is provided to the community by eight wells, two of which are no longer on line due to the high concentrates of cancer-producing contaminates.

In 1999, we started receiving letters along with our high water bills, warning us not to drink the water.

In 2009, the state Health Department sent the county Special Districts a letter stating that the water situation in Pioneertown must be fixed, or fines will be imposed on the water users.

Many of us, besides paying for water we cannot drink, buy bottled water and/or have reverse-osmosis systems under our sinks. The cost that was stated in a Wednesday Guest Soapbox for a reverse-osmosis system is just the tip of the iceberg. Every six months you have to hire a plumber to have the four filters changed. The filters are not cheap, ranging in price from $30 to $130 for each one.

You must remember, too, that we have to bathe in this water, and we feed it to our pets. We have had many strange illnesses and deaths to our pets that cannot be fully explained. Pioneertown residents have also experienced a high rate of cancer in its citizens for a small community.

The county has looked into dozens of ways to fix our problem. Each has its own problems and can, in many cases, cause more problems than are fixed. They have been working with the Mojave Water Agency to come to a conclusion that would be fair to all.

The people of Pioneertown are willing to pay their fair share. We will be paying for our water to the county as we now do and they in turn will pay the Mojave Water Agency for water, which will be banked in the underground holding area in Landers. The water would then be sent in Hi-Desert water pipes to another location. For the use of the pipes, Hi-Desert would also get some of the water allotted to Pioneertown.

The engineers found that the best route would be over Skyline Ranch Road, but that route was nixed by the residents on Skyline Ranch Road. They did not want the 8-inch pipe to go down the middle of the road, which would be covered and returned to its original state. This route would certainly be much cheaper to the people living in Pioneertown.

Since that route was taken off the table, the alternate route is up Pioneertown Road, which is much more expensive.

The water that we pay for and bank must then be sent to the settling pond on Pioneertown Road and then pumped up the middle of Pioneertown Road. This is a public road and would not be on a preserve or on private land. There will be a small parcel of land on the side of Pioneertown Road owned by the Conservancy that a tank will have to be situated on.…

I don’t think moving from the area is an option for any of us. This is like telling the people of Yucca Valley if they don’t like the sewer system, to move.

We are not about destroying the enviroment. The pipe will be underground and covered. But most important of all, we are not taking water from the people of Yucca Valley and we are paying for what we get.

SCE plans $750 million project to link solar plants to grid

Public input sought on new transmission corridor through Hesperia, Lucerne

Natasha Lindstrom
Victor Valley Daily Press

HESPERIA • Southern California Edison is planning a $750 million project to enable new renewable energy development in the Mojave Desert to connect to the power grid.

The proposed project would build a new substation near Newberry Springs and construct 67 miles of new transmission line between Edison’s Lugo and Pisgah substations — including 18 to 20 miles of a new transmission corridor that would border some 600 residents between Hesperia and Lucerne Valley.

Edison does not yet have estimates on the number of jobs the project would create.

While the project’s still in the early stages, Edison is turning to local residents for input on four possible routes for the line of large metal steel towers topping 100 feet, with a public workshop in Hesperia scheduled for March 3.

“Like most new transmission-type projects, a lot of people are concerned as to where it’s going to be located geographically as to where they live,” said Spear, adding that Edison has notified all the residents living along the potential transmission corridor routes. “We’re just wanting to be very up front with the public and go to them early and let them know what’s sort of on the preliminary drawing boards.”

An executive order signed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger requiring California utility companies to increase the percentage of renewable energy in the state’s electricity mix to 33 percent by 2020.

The next steps in the Lugo-Pisgah project will be for Edison to submit applications to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval, which Spear said will likely happen in the first quarter of 2012. It’ll take up to two years for the applications to be processed and the project’s build-out will taken another three. The tentative construction completion date is in 2017.

The public is invited to share their input and ask questions about the project at a public workshop 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Percy Bakker Community Center, 9333 E Avenue in Hesperia.

For more information, Hesperia residents can call (760) 951-3281. Apple Valley and Lucerne Valley residents can call (760) 951-3237. Or visit sce.com/lugopisgah.

MOJAVE DESERT: Military seeks OHV area for exercises

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

The military wants to expand its Twentynine Palms training grounds to take in more than two-thirds of the popular Johnson Valley off-road recreation area southeast of Barstow, according to U.S. Marine Corps documents released Friday.

Under the Marines' preferred plan to expand the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, the military would control 146,667 acres in the Johnson Valley that now is a designated off-highway vehicle recreation area. The valley draws tens of thousands of off-road enthusiasts each year.

The 932-square-mile combat center also could add another 21,304 acres at its southeast corner, northeast of Twentynine Palms.

The proposal is among six alternatives being considered by the military to prepare troops for desert and urban warfare.

All but one alternative involves taking most of the 189,000-acre Johnson Valley OHV area.

The disclosures contained in the 941-page environmental study fit with earlier statements by Marine Corps officials. Military officials at Twentynine Palms did not return a call Friday.

Lt. Col. James McArthur said in an interview in late 2008 that Marine officials had determined that the Johnson Valley is best for live-fire exercises and maneuvers because it provides a natural extension of training corridors on the base.

The expansion is needed, the military has said, so that Marines have enough space for three battalions to maneuver simultaneously using live ammunition accompanied by air support. Each battalion would have about 1,000 Marines aided by other troops performing command and logistics duties.

Ray Pessa, a Yucca Valley resident who builds dune buggies, said the preferred plan is not a complete loss to off-roaders.

He was part of a group that met with military officials and explained the importance of the Johnson Valley to various groups, including hikers, campers, wind sailors and rocket clubs.

The preferred plan would allow public access on 38,137 acres in the southeast part of Johnson Valley for about 10 months each year. That would allow the popular "King of the Hammers" four-wheel-drive rock-crawler race to continue, he said. The annual event attracts about 8,000 people, Pessa said.

Still, 108,530 acres of the Johnson Valley would be for military use only, including the Rock Pile and Bessemer Mine Road areas.

"I am not in a position to argue with the military," Pessa said. "If the U.S. Marines say they need that area, then they do."

Pessa added that off-roaders also are being pushed from public land because of new wildlife protections.

"All over the country, public lands are being taken away," he said.

The military's environmental impact statement will be open to public comments through May 26. It can be viewed at www.marines.mil/unit/29palms/las. Comments can be mailed to Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, Attention: Twentynine Palms EIS Project Manager, 1220 Pacific Highway, San Diego, CA 92132-5190.

The Marines will host public meetings on April 12, 13, and 14 in Joshua Tree, Ontario and Victorville, respectively.

The military's news release did not state when a final decision is expected.

Pioneertown about to rip off Yucca Valley

Letter from Dee and Bill Campbell
Yucca Valley
Hi-Desert Star

Listen up, taxpayers of Yucca Valley. We are all about to be ripped off.

A meeting was held with a few grumpy residents from Pioneertown, yet not announced to taxpayers of Yucca — but it will affect us all.

This “private” meeting for the people included Mr. Neil Derry.

Regarding a few complaints about the long-time, naturally occurring arsenic in one water well, it’s been this way since 1940.

They have the audacity to think that they (Pioneertown) can run a pipeline and take our water from our recharge ponds, that we’ve all paid for with our taxes. Mind you, those people did not pay one cent for our water-recharge ponds!

Yucca Valley’s water is extremely contaminated, due to a poorly-thought-out advertising campaign back in the 1990s to come “Discover Yucca Valley.” So as Los Angeles “discovered Yucca Valley,” they forgot to bring a sewer system! Now all our ground is contaminated with L.A. sewage, and another town thinks they can leach off of our money — I mean our water supply?

Who do they think they are? Are they going to pay us all back for those ponds? Do they have permission to create a utility corridor through that preserve and people’s private lands?

I seem to recall the same issues fought against Los Angeles Department of Water and Power recently. What’s the difference now?

Anyone who has lived in this area has known the problems with that well in Pioneertown. Perhaps those who are so upset should just move! Because our tax dollars are not paying for your poor choice in real estate! Buy a filter. Via the Web, Whirlpool has a nice model for $150. That would not require any more destruction of our desert.

Quite frankly, we long-time residents are fed up with city folks coming here and trying to change everything. If you don’t like your environment, leave it! But don’t destroy my desert and expect us all to stand by quietly while you take our water that we paid for. No way! No way!

Act would set aside Mojave land

The bill states that there shall be no commercial development within the areas locked up.

Seth Shteir of the National Parks Conservation Association maps out a large section of desert wilderness that would be added to Joshua Tree National Park if the California Desert Protection Act of 2011 is passed into law. (Rebecca Unger, Hi-Desert Star)

By Rebecca Unger
Hi-Desert Star

MOJAVE DESERT — As the region celebrates the 75th anniversary of Joshua Tree National Monument this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein is introducing federal legislation to designate additional areas of the Mojave Desert for recreation and environmental conservation.

Seth Shteir, the California desert field representative for the National Parks Conservation Association in Joshua Tree, is enthusiastic about the possibilities of the passage of the 2011 California Desert Protection Act.

“This is really visionary legislation, in that it protects the heart of the California desert and its critical wildlife corridors,” the conservation professional said.

“We now know that living things are interconnected, but the boundaries of our national parks have political boundaries, not ecological or geographic,” Shteir said.

“To protect what’s living in the parks, we must maintain critical wildlife corridors so they can seek food, water, shelter and mates. This is particularly true as our climate gets warmer, and studies show that the American Southwest is a climate change hot spot.”

The proposed legislation calls for the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study on the effect of climate change on the lands covered by the Protection Act.

The 2011 legislation also protects desert wildlands from large renewable-energy developments.

“The bill states that there shall be no commercial development within the areas covered by the CDPA,” Shteir explained.

In addition to adding lands to the Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks and the Mojave National Preserve, the act would set aside nearly 76 miles of rivers, 250,000 acres of wilderness, 941,000 acres of the Mojave Trails National Monument east of Ludlow and 134,000 acres of Sand to Snow National Monument, which would include the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve.

The 2011 CDPA also permanently designates five areas in the Mojave Desert for off-highway vehicle fun.

Shteir sees the CDPA’s protection of critical wilderness areas coupled with set-aside regions for sport riding as win-win.

“The desert is an economic engine for the region,” he said. “The report ‘Economic Oasis’ says that in 2003, outdoor recreational users spent $230 million visiting the Mojave region. In 2007, the Michigan State University money-generation model for national parks reported that visitors to Joshua Tree National Park spent $32 million, and supported over 500 jobs in the area. So, the CDPA is not only good for our plants, wildlife and our recreation, but it’s good for the health of our economy.”

Preserve would be part of monument

The riverbank habitat of the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve in Morongo Valley is one of the areas that would be get additional protection in Feinstein’s act.

The preserve links wildlife corridors between Joshua Tree National Park and the high country of the San Bernardino Mountains.

“The park’s bighorn sheep rely on the preserves as a year-round water source,” Shteir pointed out. “I was recently hiking in a remote area of the preserve and saw three bighorn sheep, and one of them was very pregnant. After the heavy rains in December I saw bear tracks in the muddy earth along a creek.”

The preserve also is a world-renowned birding destination. A total of 235 species have been recorded here, with 70 nesting species.

Before the Green Path North energy project was scrapped, high-voltage transmission towers would have been placed in the preserve. The passage of the 2011 CDPA would add another layer of protection for the preserve by making it part of the Sand to Snow National Monument.

“We are sandwiched between the two burgeoning metropolitan areas of Las Vegas and Los Angeles,” Shteir noted. “As their development increases, the desert will become increasingly squeezed. When we protect the desert’s special places, we protect our natural history, our ecology and our recreational opportunities for future generations.”

Shteir also wanted to clear up a misconception that has fueled rumors of a “land grab” by environmental extremists.

“The lands protected by the California Desert Protection Act are federal lands,” he said. “There is no private property in this legislation.”

Hatch: Stop Obama’s War On The West

Opinion
Sen. Orrin Hatch
St. George News

Utah is one of the most beautiful places on earth. In their latest attack on the rural West, President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced unauthorized and unlimited “Wild Lands” designations in western states. Federal law is clear that “wilderness” can be designated only by Congress, but the President has the audacity to hope that this subtle wording change, from “wilderness to “Wild Lands,” will let him act without constraint in closing off vast public lands to the public who own them. Utahns and other Americans living in the West, with their way of life at stake, hope he’s wrong, and I will be introducing legislation to stop him.

The recent announcement demonstrates brazen contempt for the rule of law. These lands belong to the people, not to federal land managers. The Wilderness Act passed in 1964 clearly gives Congress authority over these lands, and Congress has not approved this action. Federal law also requires input from local and state officials on these matters. Furthermore, the President’s announcement blatantly disregards agreements the federal government has stricken with Utah and other states to keep this kind of action from happening. Finally, it reverses comprehensive Resource Management Plans that have taken decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to complete.

The Obama Administration is simply ignoring these concrete limits on his power. This new policy shows blatant disregard for Utahns way of life that has been a backbone of American culture. Utah’s rural communities represent what is best about America, what is best about families, what is best about hard work, and what is best about the moral values necessary to hold any democracy together. For rural areas to survive, they must be allowed to pursue basic activities that sustain rural economies: energy development, ranching, hunting, and access to these public lands on established roads.

A survey of energy companies indicates that new federal constraints have removed about $2.8 billion in investment from the Rockies. More than 70 percent of the industry respondents blamed new federal policies for the trend, and 89 percent of the companies will continue to divert investment from the Rockies until regulations become less hostile. That was before the President’s latest “Wild Lands” announcement which will be even worse for Utah jobs.

In a time when we must work to become less dependent on foreign oil, this latest attack on the rural West is bad news for our nation, and it will contribute to high gas prices. But rural families are the hardest hit. In a letter I received from a family in rural Utah, they wrote, “As the new presidential administration and new head of the Department of the Interior took over, the oil and gas production companies slowed their drilling and production programs drastically. The rapid economic change was shocking … We went from being a prospering business to a business that is just hoping we can pay our bills.”

Another young woman in rural Utah wrote: “I was working for Superior Well Services. I was able to have health insurance and life insurance. I had an amazing future in front of me. I was laid off….. Since then, I can’t get medical insurance, I’m behind on all of my bills and the only job I could find is being a waitress at a local café. Where is this change we were promised?”

The “Wild Lands” policy increases uncertainty for every aspect of the rural economy in the West, including mining, ranching, energy production, hunting, and recreational access to our public lands. Is it any wonder the plan was drafted with no outside input other than the one group that would benefit from the plan – extreme environmentalists?

I appreciate the national beauty that Utah has to offer. However, we in Congress will not stand idly by while the President plays a reverse Robin Hood in the West, stealing an important way of life from the many for the benefit of an elite few who want these lands for themselves. I will continue to fight as hard as I can to ensure that does not happen on my watch.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch is the ranking Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee. He also serves on the Judiciary and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committees and Joint Committee on Taxation. Long recognized as a principled conservative, Hatch has been at the forefront of the battle in the U.S. Senate to rein in the ever-expanding federal bureaucracy and costly, burdensome regulations. Recognized recently by U.S. News & World Report magazine as one of America’s top 22 leaders, Hatch’s legislative achievements and initiatives include the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, the Strengthening Our Commitment to Legal Immigration and America’s Security Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Water worries: The drying of the West

The Colorado River and the civilisation it waters are in crisis

Lake Mead's "bathtub ring" at Hoover Dam.

The Economist

STANDING on the Hoover Dam and looking upstream at Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, the visitor notices a wide, white band ringing the cliffs. Nicknamed “the bathtub ring”, this discolouration comes from minerals that were once deposited on the volcanic rock by the Colorado River and have become visible as its level has dropped. It is one sign of a water crisis that threatens America’s south-west.

Other reminders abound. Farther upstream there are dry docks, jutting out ominously into desert, where boats were once moored. In one finger of Lake Mead buildings that were abandoned in the 1930s, as the water of the newly dammed river rose and submerged them, have eerily begun reappearing, like a ghost town.

The main reason why Lake Mead, currently only 40% full, has been getting emptier is a decade-long drought. Whether this is a cyclical and normal event, or an early sign of climate change, is unclear. But even if the drought ends, most scientists think global warming will cause flows on the Colorado River to decrease by 10-30% in the next half century, says Douglas Kenney, the director of a water-policy programme at the University of Colorado Law School.

The other reason, says Mr Kenney, is the rapidly increasing demand for the river’s water. The Colorado provides much or most of the water for many cities and farms in seven states—Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California—before it peters out in the sands of Mexico.

In the northern states, its water supports cattle empires. In its southern stretch, especially in California’s Imperial County, the river irrigates deserts to produce America’s winter vegetables. And all along the way, aqueducts branch off to supply cities from Salt Lake City and Denver to Phoenix and Los Angeles. The metropolis closest to Lake Mead, Las Vegas, gets 90% of its water from this one source.

That is why Las Vegas is a canary in the mine shaft, as Pat Mulroy, the boss of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, puts it. The Las Vegas valley gets its water through two long channels drilled through the rock. The first taps the lake at 1,050 feet (320 metres) above sea level, the second at 1,000 feet. Lake Mead’s water level is now near its record low, at 1,086 feet. Within a few years it could leave Las Vegas’s first intake, or even both, dry.

The threat to Sin City is a good example of the four dimensions—physical, legal, political and cultural—of water in the West. For the physical, the standard response is to summon the engineers. Ms Mulroy already has them digging a third intake at 890 feet. Given the weight of the water on top, this is fiendishly difficult and will not be ready until 2014. Ms Mulroy also wants to pipe groundwater from the rural and wetter northern counties of Nevada to Las Vegas, but that has caused a vicious row.

Another response is to call in the lawyers. This was the preferred approach a century ago, in the era of the “water wars”. Starting with the Colorado River Compact of 1922 and continuing with statutes, a treaty with Mexico and case law until the 1960s, a truce was achieved. Called the Law of the River, the resulting regime determines who along the river has what right to how much water.

At least, it does in theory. The problem is that the law took shape after two decades of record water flows, which became the basis for allocation. As a result it apportions more water than there is in the river. For decades that did not matter, since there were so few people. Then the cattle, fruit and people using the river multiplied.

The law’s seniority rules theoretically mean that, for example, the taps to Las Vegas would be shut completely before a single lettuce-grower in California’s Imperial County lost a drop. This “idiocy of who gets cut first and second”, as Ms Mulroy calls it, gives rise to the political dimension. These days, co-operation has supplemented, if not wholly replaced, the old rivalries among agricultural and urban users, and among the seven states. Nevada and Arizona, for example, have a water-banking partnership, whereby Arizona stores excess water in its aquifers so that Nevada could use it in a pinch. In California, the water utility of Los Angeles has bought water rights from farmers in Imperial County. But arguments persist.

The final dimension is the culture of the West. Does every middle-class house really need a lawn in a desert? Ms Mulroy has already started paying Las Vegans to rip out their turf and opt for desert landscaping, which can be chic. Her own husband put up a fight but lost. So out went that lawn, too, just as the low-flow toilets and taps came in.

Feinstein reintroduces desert protection bill

Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday reintroduced legislation that would create two national monuments covering more than a million acres in the Mojave Desert.

The California Desert Protection Act of 2011 is similar to a desert bill the California Democrat introduced in late 2009, but this one is more focused on land conservation efforts.

The earlier bill also sought to streamline approvals of alternative-energy projects.

Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday that she would work separately with other Western senators on energy legislation that would allow "quicker development of renewable energy projects on private and disturbed public land."

The new bill would:

Create the Mojave Trails and the Sand to Snow national monuments, protecting 941,000 acres and 134,000 acres of federal land, respectively. Mojave Trails would be mostly south of Interstate 40 and west of Needles; Sand to Snow would be north of Interstate 10 between Cabazon and Joshua Tree National Monument.

Add land to Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley National Park and the Mojave National Preserve. The additions would include the remote Castle Mountains near the preserve and a strip of land known as the Bowling Alley near Death Valley.

Protect nearly 76 miles of four waterways in and around Death Valley and the San Bernardino Mountains.

Designate new wilderness areas, including about 250,000 acres near Fort Irwin.

Designate four existing off-highway vehicle areas in the California desert as permanent.

"This bill protects the great wide spaces of the Mojave," said supporter David Lamfrom, California desert program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. "Places like the Castle Mountains, the Bowling Alley and Sand to Snow are part of the beating heart of the Mojave Desert."

San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, who represents much of Mojave Desert area, said he is concerned about bill's effect on the region's economic potential.

"Putting more land off limits for mining, for mine exploration and for development, I'm not sure that, in this economy, is what we need to be doing right now," he said.