Off-road enthusiasts air concerns to Rep. Hunter

“The real endangered species in California is the family who wants to get out and have some elbow room in the great outdoors.” - Rep. Duncan Hunter



By Mike Lee
UNION-TRIBUNE


EL CAJON – Maintaining access to public lands in the face of several competing forces topped the list of concerns that off-road vehicle enthusiasts paraded in front of Rep. Duncan Hunter at a “town hall” meeting Saturday.

The Alpine Republican invited off-roaders to share their concerns with him and Mike Pool, the California director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The agency manages many popular off-road areas in the California desert and elsewhere.

The group of about 150 didn't hold back, taking the meeting at Cuyamaca College in El Cajon well past the two-hour block for which it was scheduled.

“As our sport continues to grow, our race routes are shrinking,” said Paul Kirby, president of the Roadrunner Off Road Racing Club in the Imperial Valley. “We are just crowded into too small of an area.”

Kirby and others from across Southern California outlined what they see as the major threats to their use of the backcountry: The expansion of military training activities, environmental restrictions and alternative energy projects.

“There is almost a feeding frenzy for the desert lands in California,” said David Hubbard, a Carlsbad lawyer who represents off-road interests.

One of the most immediate issues is the possibility that the Marine Corps will annex Johnson Valley, a popular off-roading area at the edge of the Twentynine Palms base.

Several off-roaders said Saturday that they hope Hunter can help broker a compromise that will allow families to continue riding there by the thousands.

“If we lose Johnson Valley, we have lost a mecca for rock-crawlers,” said Bob Green of Santee.

Hunter, who has a long history of support for the military and for off-roaders, offered no promises, but said he'd talk with Marine Corps officials in coming weeks to see if any alternative arrangements could meet training demands without canceling civilian recreation at the site.

“Right now, I don't have any good answers for Johnson Valley,” Hunter said. “This is something I need to work on.”

Another prominent theme of Saturday's meeting was frustration with environmental rules and conservation groups that try to limit off-road recreation. In particular, off-roaders are worried about proposals to create more wilderness areas in California and other Western states to the exclusion of motorized vehicles.

Hunter has long shared such concerns. “The real endangered species in California is the working family who wants to get out and have some elbow room out in the great outdoors,” he said to cheers.

On that front, however, it's not clear how much relief off-roaders will get, given significant support for some wilderness designations and the strict demands of the federal Endangered Species Act.

“We have to factor in species conservation,” said Pool, noting that one of his main goals is to prevent the listing of additional species.

The Bureau of Land Management also finds itself in the middle of a tussle over alternative energy resources. Federal and state initiatives to boost solar, wind and geothermal power production have generated enormous interest in the bureau's desert lands.

Off-roaders told Hunter they are sympathetic to the need for clean energy sources, but they don't want recreation lands covered in solar panels or geothermal pipes.

“When something is taken away from us, we should get something back,” said Megan Grossglass, spokeswoman for the Bakersfield-based Off-Road Business Association. “Designate for us some new trails . . . so it's not just lose, lose, lose all the time.”

Southland deserts splashed with color

The wildflower season is in full bloom, drawing droves of tourists, painters and nature lovers to deserts.

By Mary Engel, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

BORREGO SPRINGS, CALIF. -- Jeff Sewell's paintbrush chased the slanting light across a field of desert sunflowers. Gold. Ocher. Flecks of palest yellow. Then the sun sank behind the San Ysidro Mountains, and the only field left glowing was the one on Sewell's canvas.

Even so, the seascape painter from San Juan Capistrano could hardly bring himself to pack away his easel.

"This is like something I've never seen," he said, waving at the carpet of wildflowers laid out before stark hillsides of dirt and rock. "It's a whole new planet."

The two dozen painters in the second annual Borrego Springs Plein Air Invitational, which got underway Sunday, didn't seem to mind that this spring's wildflowers don't match the legendary 2005 bloom. The inaugural gathering, after all, met in 2007, a drought year, when Anza-Borrego Desert State Park got a mere three-quarters of an inch of rain. "They got skunked last year," Sewell said.

This year the 600,000-acre park, which stretches from Riverside County's southern border through San Diego County almost to the Mexican border, has received about 4 1/2 inches of rain since July 1. That's far less than 2005's record 13 inches, which led to record numbers of wildflowers and wildflower oglers, but it's enough to give this crop of plein-air painters -- artists who capture outdoor images in natural light -- a broad palette of yellows, pinks, whites and blues. (Each artist at the event creates two paintings a day through Friday, and the works are displayed and sold at numerous community receptions throughout the week.)

If 2005 was an A+ year, wildflower aficionados are grading 2008 a B or B+.

"It's a beautiful, charming season," said Mary Ekelund, a Wisconsinite who retired to Borrego Springs in 2003. "The number of flowers isn't everything."

Ekelund volunteers for the park, the Anza-Borrego Institute and the Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Assn. Avoiding the fields along Henderson Canyon Road that set Sewell to swooning, she guides visitors to quiet, out-of-the-way places without crowds.

She recently led a group of five women from La Jolla -- the youngest was 81 -- up a gentle slope through Sunshine Canyon, rewarding them with glimpses of pale yellow ghost flowers and the pink tufts of fairy dusters.

Wildflower season is to Southern California deserts what fall's changing leaves are to Ekelund's native Midwest, but less predictable and more intense.

"Where we live near Lake Superior, we have the same madness for a few weekends," said Ekelund, who still spends summers there. "But here you've got San Diego and Los Angeles so close," and the crowds keep coming.

Crowds earlier this month prompted the weekly Borrego Sun to editorialize against cars stopping in the middle of roads. But by mid-March, the first caterpillar had been spotted picnicking on carpets of wildflowers, a sure sign that the season is peaking -- or moving north.

On the hour-and-a-half drive north to Joshua Tree National Park, the yellow swaths of dune evening primrose and desert sunflowers give way to a kaleidoscope of desert Canterbury bells, mallow, chia, chuparosa and desert chicory -- indigo against apricot next to deep purple, scarlet and white. Scores of tourists from Japan, Germany, Canada, San Diego, Los Angeles and nearby Twentynine Palms line up at the park visitors center.

Drive-by wildflower viewers stop at marked pullouts, read interpretive signs and snap digital photos of the nearest clump of color. Die-hard flower enthusiasts strike out in search of blooms like birders with their life lists.

Bigelow's monkey flower? Check. White pebble pincushion? Check. Purple mat? Bladderpod? Desert lily?

Check.

Check.

Check.

The timing of rain is almost as important to good wildflower years as the amount, said Linda Slater, a ranger at the Mojave National Preserve, northeast of Joshua Tree. The rain that has fallen on Southern California deserts through the winter and into the spring have been adequate and, more important, evenly spaced.

"Starting in November, we've had rain every single month," Slater said. "It's as nice a year as I've ever seen here."

The stars of a desert spring are the annuals, ephemeral plants that need rain to sprout. An early rain can cause some seeds to germinate, but if enough well-spaced rains don't follow, the plants remain stunted and put out a flower or two at best, Slater said.

In good years, well-spaced rains cause annuals to erupt among the widely spaced desert perennials, the year-round plants that have adapted to the inhospitable environment by storing water in fleshy tissue protected by thorns, establishing deep roots or shedding leaves and appearing more or less dead much of the year.

In a good spring, these perennials join the show. Joshua trees put out waxy white blooms. Long-stemmed yellow flowers wave above silver-green brittlebush. Ocotillos, typically as bare as bundles of kindling, put out stubby green leaves along branches tipped by lipstick-red blossoms that disappear as quickly as the rain.

After a few weeks, the annuals die, leaving behind seeds for the next year. Or years. The tough little seeds of desert wildflowers have evolved to wait things out. This year's blooms have waited since 2005, a relatively short span in desert time.

The 1.6-million acre Mojave National Preserve, in southeastern California between Interstate 15 and Interstate 40, is typically the last of Southern California's desert parks to bloom and the least visited.

With the season just getting underway there, the Kelso Depot information center is seeing about 300 visitors on weekends, up from its usual 50 but far fewer than the crowds at Anza-Borrego, Joshua Tree or Death Valley National Park. "Mojave preserves that sense of isolation and being out in the desert alone," Slater said.

Anyone seeking isolation in the other desert parks will have to wait out the wildflower season.

California desert omitted from conservation bill

New Scientist [UK]

A six-million-acre "glitch". That's what US Senator Diane Feinstein called a huge swathe of California desert left out of a major US conservation bill.

The bill, which was passed to the House of Representatives last week, aims to strengthen the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS). This protects more than 850 parcels of federal land scattered across the American west from urban sprawl, and a thumbs-up from Congress would ensure this protection is permanent.

The bill has been hailed by politicians and conservation groups as analogous to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, which manages the US network of national parks and monuments.

But some watchdog groups are concerned by the exclusion of a New Hampshire-sized portion of the California Desert Conservation Area, which is covered by NLCS.

The reasons are unclear, says Jeffrey Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in Washington DC. "As best we can tell, omitting the land would allow utilities to build power transmission lines and open it up to energy development," he says.

House bill sponsor Mary Bono Mack has a different story: she points out that wind farms, two military bases and an interstate highway already built on the land make it unsuitable for a single protection scheme.

Feinstein has vowed to include the area in the Senate's version of the bill.

Four artists picked to compete for sculpture project

Magic Morning by John W. Hilton
K Kaufmann
The Desert Sun

The Palm Desert Art in Public Places Commission took the first step Wednesday toward the creation of a public sculpture honoring the Coachella Valley's early outdoor artists who set up their easels in the 1930s, '40s and '50s near the road now known as Painters Path.

The commission voted 5-0 to recommend that the city pay $2,000 honoraria to four artists to come up with designs for the piece, which would be placed in a desert landscape garden by the city's Visitor Center on Highway 111.

The sculpture will show two artists - one male, one female - at work at their easels. The life-size installation could also include a plaque listing some of the artists who lived and worked in the valley.

The winner of the competition would be awarded a $250,000 commission for the piece.

"This was such an important milestone in painting in America and this area, and it's pretty much overlooked," said Norma Bussing, chairwoman of the commission.

The first half of the 20th century saw about 200 painters working in the desert, according to Richard Twedt, the city's public art manager. These "plein air" painters - literally painters who work in the open air - included artists such as Fred Chisnall, the cartoonist Jimmy Swinnerton, John Hilton and Agnes Pelton, a contemporary of Georgia O'Keeffe.

Painters Path in Palm Desert was given its name because artists often set up their easels in the desert near the road.

"We're losing so much of that part of the desert they painted," said Hal Rover of the Historical Society of Palm Desert, which is archiving papers about the early art scene in Palm Desert.

"They painted in all the canyons," Rover said, "(They) went to the north shore of the Salton Sea; all the painters got together and worked together."

The recommendation for the sculpture will go to the City Council in April, Twedt said. If approved, the four artists chosen for the competition would probably submit their designs later this year, he said.

The four artists are Terry Allen, Deek Clements, H. Clay Dahlberg and Gary Lee Price, all recognized figurative sculptors.

Environmentalists intend to sue over Fort Irwin tortoise-relocation plan

By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise





Environmental groups on Monday put three federal agencies on notice that they intend to sue over a plan to move nearly 800 desert tortoises from land where the Army is expanding its tank-training center near Barstow.

The notice from the Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors comes just two weeks before the Army was planning to move the reptiles, which are threatened with extinction, from the southern expansion edge of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin and onto public lands closer to Interstate 15.

It is the latest salvo in what became known as tanks vs. tortoise -- a more than 20-year effort by the military to expand the training center to accommodate faster-moving tanks. Troops come to Fort Irwin from across the country to train against a home team that acts as the enemy.

Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the groups are not against the so-called tortoise translocation since Congress approved the center's expansion. But, she said, the new land is lower-quality habitat, and has pockets of diseased tortoises, mines, and illegal dumping and off-roading.

"If it's a place where the tortoises are going to survive, we'd like it managed more like a tortoise preserve," Anderson said.

John Wagstaffe, a Fort Irwin spokesman, said Army officials have not yet received the 60-day notice of intent to sue and he could not comment on it.

As it stands, he said, 770 tortoises will be moved at the end of the month over a two-week period onto 13 one-square-mile plots. Those plots were chosen by scientists and other experts from the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Nevada, Reno, and the University of Redlands, he said.

Wagstaffe said the Army paid $900,000 to install fencing along Fort Irwin Road and Interstate 15 to prevent the reptiles from getting killed by vehicles. In addition, underpasses below the road were constructed to the tortoises could migrate to other areas.

Anderson said she hoped the Army would avoid a lawsuit by improving the relocation plan.

The notice was also sent to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees some of the translocation lands, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Some desert areas left out of protection plan

Jay Calderon, The Desert Sun
Snow covers the San Jacinto mountains overlooking the valley's windmills. The mountains are in the area that would be protected.

Diana Marrero
Desert Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Nearly 7 million acres of California desert would not receive federal protection under a proposal to protect 26 million acres of national monuments, historic trails and wilderness areas that dot the West.

The unprotected land constitutes about two-thirds of the 10.6 million-acre California Desert Conservation area, which runs from the Mexican border to Mono Lake up north.

Although the entire swath is now considered part of the National Landscape Conservation System, a large chunk would no longer receive that designation under the bill.

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, has been a strong proponent of the bill, which would officially recognize as conservation lands millions of acres across the West, including the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains.

The mountains, considered national monuments, would still receive protection under the bill, but a large part of the California desert near the mountains would not because the lands don't have a "national" label.

The congressional designation for the system - it only has administrative approval now - would ensure a more constant source of funding for those lands, much like the national parks, conservation experts say.

"It's a matter of, 'Is the glass half empty or is it half full?'" said Bono Mack, a co-sponsor of the bill. "At this point in time, I want a bill that will move and that will pass and get signed by the president."

The move to take a large part of the California conservation area out of the system could be the result of opposition from utility companies, off-road vehicle drivers and mining interests, said Daniel Patterson, an ecologist and director of the southwest office of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which advocates for federal employees.

"We're not sure why Congresswoman Bono is trying to pursue an anti-conservation position on a very important issue in her district," said Patterson, who argues the bill means the California conservation area will be denied any additional funding that goes to lands in the national system.

Bono Mack says she doesn't see the bill as "excluding land."

"We have taken boundaries and said these are our highest priorities," she said. "There is nothing deliberately excluding land in the future."

Feinstein pushing for larger area as part of the bill

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is speaking with Senate leaders about adding a large part of the California conservation area to the bill, spokesman Scott Gerber said.

"Sen. Feinstein is trying to make it crystal clear and leave no ambiguity the land in question should be included in the National Landscape Conservation System," he said. "We want to make sure these lands have the same protection as other conservation areas."

Among the areas not included in the bill is the Big Morongo Preserve.

The desert conservation area was created by Congress in 1976.

It became part of the national conservation system through administrative action by former President Bill Clinton during his last term in office. But they have not received the attention or funding they deserve, say advocates who are now pushing for Congress to set the designation.

Kevin Mack, a conservation system director for the Wilderness Society, says that although the group would love to see more lands included in the national system, they are satisfied the bill protects "the crown jewels" of the public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

The lack of designation won't change the way the agency manages the land in the California conservation area, spokesman Tom Gorey said.

"The legislation isn't going to change that," he said.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the bill sponsor and chairman of a natural resources subcommittee with jurisdiction over the issue, said he has deferred to the California delegation on whether more of the California conservation areas should be included in the bill.

But he says he's happy with the overall measure.

"I'm very happy with it," he said. "It's a landmark piece of legislation."

Where to find wildflowers

By Mark Wheeler
Hi-Desert Star



MORONGO BASIN — Wildflower watchers have already begun to find good floral shows in many locations. Low desert flowers have already started to appear and the bloom is moving uphill as the days grow longer and warmer.

Desert Lily

Like all living organisms, different species of plants have habitat preferences and growth routines. Wildflower hunters who want to see a reasonably wide range of the many species that grow in this region must start looking early and in many different places.

Following is a short guide to some key locations. Between them, they represent a range of elevation, soil and topographical differences. Anyone exploring most or all of them will stand a good chance of seeing a fine collection of the local native plants that make this part of the southwest desert so special in the spring.

SOUTH BOUNDARY OF JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK

Either drive through the park to this location or take I-10 south to the Cottonwood entrance. Driving time one-way from the Morongo Basin going either way will be about an hour.

On the open slope below the mountains that line the park boundary on its south side are fields of standing flowers. Most notable at the present time is the blue and deep-purple chia plant. Although the poppies are starting to fade on the boundary itself, a drive on into Cottonwood Canyon will find them in fresh glory and remarkable abundance.

As well as these two species, there are also lupine and numerous other desert wildflowers growing in the area. This is the place to see and photograph fields of tall flowers waving against rocky landscape backgrounds.

PINTO BASIN, JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK

From the Morongo Basin, enter into the park at either the Joshua Tree or Twentynine Palms entrances. The park road from either station will arrive at the Pinto Wye where a branch road goes east and south to Cottonwood campground and ranger station.

Pinto Basin starts at a roadside attraction called Cholla Garden — well marked — and continues for as far as the eye can see to distant mountains. Flowers are blooming from the Cholla Garden all the way to the Cottonwood station. Take advantage of the established pull-outs to stop and get out of the car for a while and walk among the many different species that are currently in peak bloom.

This is a good place to find low-growing mat flowers like the evening primrose and verbena. Lucky observers might also find specimens of the desert five spot and anyone willing to walk out to the sandy hills that can be seen north of the Turkey Flats parking area — well marked — should also find the desert lily.

IRON AGE ROAD, EAST OF 29 PALMS ON 29 PALMS HIGHWAY

Driving east of Twentynine Palms on Twentynine Palms Highway, flower hunters will find much to see for about 30 miles, all the way to Iron Age Road. At this point the bloom tends to disappear as the road proceeds into geographically very arid country.

This is also a good place to see the mat-forming primrose and verbena shows. Those with a sharp eye may also find the seldom-seen yellow evening primrose. Once this flower has reached full maturity, it is one of the true photographic beauties.

Soil composition of the landscape in this area alternates between very sandy and very rocky. Take time to explore both surfaces. Although many plants will grow on both surfaces, each habitat will support collections that are specific to that type of earthen bed.

For instance, in the sandier areas, desert lilies are currently blooming and small but very colorful gilia will be found where it is rockier.

MISSION CREEK PRESERVE

The bloom in this area is just starting to gain momentum and should be good until about the end of March, or perhaps into the first week of April.

The preserve is about 14 miles west of Yucca Valley on Twentynine Palms Highway, and 2.3 miles north of the highway on the Mission Creek road. Visitors can park at the gate and walk in; special arrangements for limited auto entry can also be made by calling 369-7105.

Located in the low desert, the preserve shelters a large number of Colorado Desert plants. Currently, several hillsides are covered with fields of the deep blue canterbury bells, and very large bushes of fiesta flower are evident everywhere.

This is one of the few local places with a large population of owls clover, a shorter version of the taller and more familiar Indian paintbrush.

INDIO HILLS/DILLON ROAD

Right now, traveling east on Dillon Road from Desert Hot Springs to Thousand Palms Canyon Road will more than reward the hopes of any flower watcher. Brown-eyed primrose lines both sides of the roadway and large stands of neon yellow desert dandelion dot the landscape in every direction. With every mile farther east, the brittle bush also begin to add their golden canopies to the view.

Turning south on Thousand Palms Canyon Road will take travelers to the Coachella Valley Preserve. Hiking trails here will take visitors to a variety of different plant habitats, from palm grove to sand dune to rocky wash and hillside.

LOCATIONS YET TO BLOOM

Watch for the bloom to start very soon at higher elevations. When it hits Yucca Valley, one of the best places to see flowers is in the Sky Harbor area. Farther uphill at Black Rock in Joshua Tree National Park, hiking trails give flower watchers access to many different flowering habitats. This is a terrific place to look for species variety.

Upper and Lower Covington in the park are also superb flower hunting locations when the bloom is on. Reach both places by driving up La Contenta Road from Twentynine Palms Highway on the town’s east end. Proceed directly across Alta Loma and on out the dirt road to the park boundary and follow signs from there.

JTNP’s Queen Valley, where the Wonderland of Rocks is located, will also be blooming soon. Hikers might want to explore the Juniper Flats region or hike along any segment of the California Riding and Hiking Trail. Ask for directions at the entrance stations. Motorists will find much to see anywhere along the roadway.

Later in the spring, the Queen Valley is an excellent place to look for cactus flowers, and they should be very good this year. An especially good place to look for them is at the base of Queen Mountain.

By end of March and early April, the roadway between Pioneertown and the road into Pipes Canyon Preserve should be spectacular. The preserve itself is still closed due to fire damage.

For further information about JTNP locations, call 367-5522 or the park’s wildflower hotline at 367-5500. Hi-Desert Nature Museum at 369-7212 is also an excellent local source of wildflower information.

Wildflowers blooming this year after rains

Verbena and evening primrose blooming along a roadside in the Mojave National Preserve.


By Jason Smith, staff writer
Desert Dispatch

BARSTOW - Visitors to the sand dunes and desert lands around Barstow can see something they haven't seen for years: blossoming flowers.

Area national parks are seeing wildflower blossoms that they haven't experienced since 2005, said Linda Slater, a park ranger at the Mojave National Preserve.

"It already is a good year for wildflowers," she said. "Compared to last year, it's a really good year."

Some flowers such as the yellow-petaled Evening Primrose are most visible in the lower elevations of the preserve now. Joshua trees and some species of cacti will likely bloom in the coming weeks, she said. She said the preserve has seen about 200 visitors per day at its Kelso Depot Visitor Center a substantial increase over last year at this time last year.

"Everybody's asking about flowers," she said. "We're seeing a lot more people camping around the preserve."

She said she expects the wildflower bloom to reach its height in the coming weeks and end sometime in May. This year's rains have caused flowers to spring this year where they were not last.

"Basically what we've had is one decent soaking rainfall every month," she said. "That'll produce a decent bloom."

In Death Valley National Park, wildflowers are also blooming now, said Charlie Callagan, a naturalist with the park. He said the one and a half inches of rain the park received last year wasn't enough to produce the spectacular blooms for which the area is known. Still, visitors in search of fields of flowers are filling up the park's campgrounds and motels.

"This is probably one of the better years we're seen since 1998 and 2005," he said. "This is probably the third best year we've had in decades."

Anthony Chavez, a rangeland management specialist with the Barstow office of the Bureau of Land Management, however, predicts a typical year for wildflowers in the region.

"You have wildflower blooms, but I wouldn't consider this a spectacular year by any means," he said. "But anything's better than last year."

He said the wildflowers many people think of are annual plants such as Desert Marigolds, Sand Verbinas, Native Phacelia and Popcorn Flowers, which complete their life cycle in one growing season and die after flowering. Periennel plants produce seeds every year and last more than one growing season.

Chavez was in the Ord Mountains Thursday gathering samples of annually flowering plants and found 784 pounds of vegetative material this year. BLM crews found no evidence of annually flowering plant growth last year at this time due to the severe drought, he said.

He said that if annual wildflowers haven't already bloomed or begun to bloom than they won't this season. He said this weekend's projected rains won't make any difference.

"Once an annual plant has germinated, you can pour an ocean of water on it but it's not going to grow any taller," Chavez said.

High Desert fastest growing region in county

RYAN ORR Staff Writer
Victorville Daily Press







SAN BERNARDINO — The Victor Valley is the fastest growing area in San Bernardino County and is expected to retain that title for some time.

For residents of the Victor Valley, that means an ever-changing community. However, with the rapid increase in population, it may change the 1st District more than some expect.

If the supervisorial districts were redrawn right now, 40,000 residents would have to be cut out of the 1st District and added to another, said 1st District Brad Mitzelfelt.

The districts will be redrawn after the 2010 census, when that number will probably be much larger.

That means that there are some communities currently in the 1st District — which includes the entire Victor Valley — that won’t be in two years.

The purpose is to make the district equal, so that each one comprises roughly one-fifth of the county’s population.

“The foreclosure increase is a temporary setback,” said Mitzelfelt. “We will be the fastest growing area in the community for the foreseeable future because we have the most land.”

Mitzelfelt would not speculate on which communities may be excluded when the districts are redrawn. After the 2000 census, Joshua Tree was cut out of the 1st District and Wrightwood, where Mitzelfelt resides, was added.

Despite the 2000 redistricting evening out the populations in each district, the California Department of Finance estimated in 2007 the 1st District had 445,530 residents. That’s 67,000 residents more than the county’s 5th District.

San Bernardino County’s charter calls for having five districts, which leaves out the possibility of adding a sixth.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were three well-organized yet unsuccessful drives to make the High Desert into its own county.

The motivation then, for what would have been called Mojave County, was not population growth, but keeping tax dollars in Victor Valley communities, said Dick Pearson, who was involved in the movement.

Mitzelfelt said that currently the High Desert benefits from being part of San Bernardino County.

“If we became our own small county, I think there would be more attention paid to our local problems. However, there would be a lot less money to solve those problems,” said Mitzelfelt, who added that some time in the future it could be more of a benefit to form another county.

The much anticipated High Desert government center will be like having a county seat in the Victor Valley, Mitzelfelt said.

The 55,000-square-foot center slated for Hesperia will house the majority of county agencies that Victor Valley residents now have to drive to San Bernardino for.

That, combined with the growth of the Southern California Logistics Airport and the jobs it will create, is proof that the Victor Valley will continue to be the fastest growing area in San Bernardino County.

Off-roaders taking on the Marines

Enthusiasts prize site of potential training ground


By Michael Gardner
Union-Tribune


SACRAMENTO – California's off-road riders have launched an aggressive campaign to oppose any move by the Marines to annex Johnson Valley, a nationally acclaimed high-desert recreation area on the perimeter of an important military base at Twentynine Palms.


Rock crawling the "Hammers"

The potential expansion of the battlefield training ground for troops being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan has sparked a conflict between the traditionally conservative off-road community and the military.

It also may pressure Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, a former Army Ranger and outspoken advocate for the military, to choose between his loyalties to the Marine Corps and to longtime off-road allies alarmed over shrinking legal places to ride.

“We're pretty devastated,” said Ed Stovin, president of the San Diego Off-Road Coalition. “It's hard to fight national security when you're at war, but you sure hate to lose the area.”

Stovin said he hopes the off-road community can work with Hunter on a compromise, perhaps pushing the Marines to consider taking land not used for off-roading. “He's a good friend of ours,” Stovin said.

Hunter has not taken sides, said Joe Kasper, a spokesman. “Congressman Hunter supports both the interests of the off-roading community and the potential expansion of the facility to better simulate and prepare our Marines for conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Kasper said.

Hunter plans to address the issue at a meeting with off-road enthusiasts March 22.

Off-roading is a booming sport, with nearly 1 million vehicles registered in California to take to the terrain. About 4 million people ride in state parks set aside for that use, and countless others use federal land.

Off-road advocates say they are squeezed for space by urban demand and environmental-based restrictions.

Growing more alarmed as word spread of the possible land requisition by the Marines, off-roaders this week mounted a four-hour “virtual rally” over the Internet in a show of solidarity. By their count, there were 1,495 messages posted and 33,976 page views within four hours.

Many posts carried a common theme: admiration for troops, hopes that they return home safely and support for the military – but near-unanimous opposition to turning the valley over to the Marines.

“The Marine Corps has a need, but the off-road community also has needs and rights to enjoy and recreate in this well-established off-highway vehicle area,” Philip Hall of National City wrote.
“If this land were unused and dormant, it would be a different situation all together,” Hall's post continued. “But Johnson Valley OHV area already has a purpose and is owned by thousands of tax-paying citizens like myself who are not willing to sacrifice such a pristine locale to be turned into a practice war ground.”

The Marine Corps has issued a statement confirming that it is looking to expand training facilities, but it says no decision has been reached and urges patience.

“This process of simply figuring out what land the base might actually need to meet the Marine Corps training requirements and how it affects other interests could take anywhere from three to five years,” said Jim Ricker, assistant chief of staff at the Twentynine Palms base.

The statement continued: “It is imperative that the Marines receive the most realistic training before deploying into a combat environment that demands split second life or death decisions.”

The 140,000-acre off-highway vehicle area, located southeast of Barstow in San Bernardino County, also is home to the federally protected desert tortoise, a fact that could provoke strident opposition from environmentalists.

Protecting the tortoise was a key issue when the Army expanded training facilities near Fort Irwin a few years ago.

Johnson Valley is under the supervision of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Mike Pool, California's BLM director, is expected to attend Hunter's March 22 meeting with off-road enthusiasts.

John Dearing, a BLM spokesman, said the military followed a regular process before taking other federal lands.

“We have not yet received an application from the Marines,” said Dearing, referring specific questions about Johnson Valley to the military.

The Marine Corps said it plans to prepare an environmental review of alternatives once a decision is made. It promises full disclosure and public participation.

Johnson Valley is nationally known as “the Hammers” – one of the best four-wheeling, boulder-hopping areas in the country, off-roaders say.

The off-roading mecca draws thousands every year to numerous organized events, including rock-racing, rock-crawling and a “King of the Hammers” championship each February. The area's landscape is dotted with Joshua trees, steep red-rock mountains and sandy washes.

Losing the Hammers, one Internet posting read, “would be like baseball losing Wrigley Field or golf losing Augusta.”

Off-road meeting
When: 9 to 11 a.m. March 22.
Where: Cuyamaca College Student Center, 900 Rancho San Diego Parkway, El Cajon. Conference rooms 1207-1208.
Issue: Possible Marine base expansion into a Johnson Valley off-road area.

Congress moves closer to preserving Western beauty

It is considering designating millions of US-owned acres as a permanent conservation system


By Faye Bowers, Correspondent
The Christian Science Monitor

Sonoran Desert National Monument, Ariz. - This swath of desert is in full bloom. The mountainsides blanketed by towering saguaro forests are now dotted with yellow and orange Mexican poppies, purple lupine, and white chicory. The monument is home to three wilderness areas and two historic trails.

These 487,000 acres sit along a corridor between Arizona's two largest metropolitan areas, Phoenix and Tucson, where demographers predict the population will increase from 5 million people to more than 10 million by 2040.

That's a key reason, many conservation and wildlife advocates say, Congress should permanently designate this national monument and more than 800 additional federally managed properties as the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS).

The House Natural Resources Committee moved toward that Wednesday, voting the National Landscape Conservation System Act out of committee. The bill can now be scheduled for a vote by the full House. The Senate, meanwhile, is ready to vote on a similar bill.

"Congress … took a major step toward permanently recognizing the National Landscape Conservation System," said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in a statement. "These places are living history books of the American West, and by unifying them into a single system under the [Bureau of Land Management's] careful management, we are ensuring that these irreplaceable treasures ... are preserved for future generations."

These disparate 860 units of land total some 26 million acres and already have some protection. In June 2000, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt established the NLCS by decree to protect the "crown jewels" of the public lands managed by the BLM. The NLCS includes 15 national monuments, 13 national conservation areas, and historic trails.

But BLM officials as well as conservation and wildlife advocates say official designation of the NLCS is essential.

"While I don't have any particular reason to believe other secretaries [of the Interior] will come in and undo the system, the fact is it can be pulled apart to disparate units," says Elena Daly, BLM's director of the NLCS in Washington. "It gives us legislative authority to exist and would require legislative action to undo. It would put us on par with National Park Service."

The congressional stamp of approval also would create a systematic way to manage these areas. Currently, the 860 disparate units don't have the same designations or protections. Some were created by states, others by various departments of the federal government.

"Resource and protection issues cannot be looked at in any kind of comprehensive way until the system is authorized by Congress," says John Shepard, deputy director of The Sonoran Institute, a land conservation group.

Ms. Daly says all 860 units maintain multiple-use components; 99 percent are open for grazing, for example. Some allow for oil and mining exploration. Most permit hunting, horseback riding, hiking, and camping but without the frills of a National Park experience.

There are no hotels, concessions, or regularly scheduled ranger hikes, let alone guides and outfitters. Some are located in rugged, remote areas, and others are near communities, like the Sonoran Monument, which is only a 45-minute drive from downtown Phoenix.

"A multiple-use mandate is great, but it represents a challenge," Daly says. "Competing uses create competing management demands." Daly adds those uses and demands are going to increase as the West continues to grow at such a rapid pace. Creating a system to preserve these lands is essential, she says.

That appears evident at the Sonoran Desert National Monument. Rich Hanson, resource adviser and outdoor recreation planner for the office of the BLM here, points to areas that are being regenerated. Partly because of directing off-road vehicle traffic to designated roads and trails only and partly because of the rainy winter here, the desert is lush. Wildflowers abound, and cactuses – especially the giant saguaros and ocotillo – are plump and green. Besides some cattle grazing on this land, big-horned sheep and desert tortoises live among the rocky hills.

Then, there are the three disparate wilderness areas – each some 60,000 acres – where motorized traffic is not permitted.

Two historic trails are here. The Juan Bautista de Anza trail commemorates the 1775-76 expedition by the Spanish commander to bring colonists westward to settle San Francisco. And there's a leg of the Butterfield Stage route that ran from St. Louis to San Francisco in the mid-1800s.

"The areas and features are different, but we need to protect the objects of importance," Mr. Hanson says.

What a difference a deluge makes

A Grand Canyon flood left enough sediment to boost sandbars and expand habitat
Associated Press

PHOENIX -- The results of a man-made flood in the Grand Canyon last week were immediate and substantial, adding areas of vital sediment as large as football fields along stretches of the Colorado River, officials said.

The three-day flood that ended last Friday was designed to redistribute and add sediment to the 277-mile river in the Grand Canyon, where the ecosystem was forever changed by the construction of dams more than four decades ago.

The sediment provides a habitat for plants and animals, builds beaches for campers and river runners, and helps protect archeological sites from erosion and weathering.

But since 1963, the Glen Canyon Dam just south of the Arizona-Utah border has blocked the sediment from the Colorado downstream, turning the once muddy and warm river into a cool, clear environment that helped speed the extinction of four fish species and push two others near the edge.

Grand Canyon National Park Supt. Steve Martin, who returned from a five-day trip down the river Tuesday to see the initial effects of last week's flood, said the results are phenomenal.

"On a couple of big sandbars, there were already beaver tracks, bighorn sheep tracks," Martin said. "You could see the animals already exploring new aspects of the old canyon."

He said the new sandbars range in size from small nooks and crannies to ones as large as football fields.

"It changes the feeling of the canyon as you see the sediment along the shoreline from a feeling of increased sterility to one of a greater amount of vibrance," Martin said. "The benefits are substantial."

During the flood, flows in the Grand Canyon increased to 41,000 cubic feet per second for nearly three days -- four to five times the normal amount of water released from the Glen Canyon Dam. Water levels along the river rose 2 to 15 feet and left sediment behind when the four giant steel tubes releasing the water were closed.

Officials released similar man-made floods into the canyon in 1996 and 2004.

But those floods actually resulted in a net reduction in overall sandbar size because they were conducted when the Colorado River was relatively sand-depleted, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Officials believe this year's flood will be beneficial because sand levels in the river are at a 10-year high and are three times greater than 2004 levels.

Whatever benefits come from this year's flood, however, will be eroded away within 18 months without additional similar floods every year to 18 months depending on the amount of sediment available, according to Martin.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation calls for no other high-flow releases until after 2012 in its environmental assessment on Glen Canyon Dam releases.

The Grand Canyon Trust also is calling for more regular high flows and plans to challenge the bureau's environmental assessment in federal court.

A way of life drying up

Traditional zanjeros have long shepherded water in the West. In a region ravaged by drought, they're being bypassed by automation.
By Mike Anton, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

HOLTVILLE, CALIF. -- Daybreak in the Carrot Capital of the World and the horizon is streaked with lilac clouds, the air thick with the smell of manure. Jose Romo climbs into a pickup with a steaming cup of coffee to ward off the chill and begins his daily race with water.

He speeds along dirt roads between fields of lettuce and onions that would be a desert if not for the 1,600 miles of man-made canals and ditches that crisscross the Imperial Valley, among the largest irrigation systems in the nation.

He stops and studies the water level in his canal. It's rising but still below a stain on the canal's concrete wall, a measuring point that Romo trusts implicitly through experience. In a few minutes, the water reaches the stain, meaning there is sufficient pressure for Romo to crank a rusty metal jack that opens a wooden gate.

"Can lose a finger if you're not careful," he said. With a loud swooosh, a wall of water moves down his canal. For the next several hours, Romo will repeat this ritual again and again, harnessing gravity to shepherd the day's water through his corner of the valley.

Romo is a zanjero -- pronounced sahn-HAIR-o -- Spanish for overseer of the mother ditch. His job is to deliver prescribed amounts of Colorado River water to farmers served by the Imperial Irrigation District in southeastern California. It's a job rich in tradition, one that mirrors the settlement of the West and its complicated relationship with water.

The zanjero was once the most powerful man in any community, entrusted with overseeing its most valuable resource. In early Los Angeles, he was paid more than the mayor. Long before he engineered the city's future, William Mulholland learned the nuances of water working as a zanjero.

"He is the yea and nay of the arid land, the arbiter of fate, the dispenser of good and evil, to be blessed by turns and cursed by turns, and to receive both with the utter unconcern of a small god," said the Century Magazine in New York, describing the job in 1902.

Today, the zanjero is an endangered species, his craft too imprecise, his tools too crude to look after water in a region ravaged by drought.

The Imperial Irrigation District, which provides water to nearly 500,000 acres of farmland in the valley hard against the Mexican border, is among the last to employ zanjeros working the traditional way. More than 100 men labor around the clock controlling the flow of more than a trillion gallons of water a year, largely by hand.

"You learn to appreciate and respect water," said Joe Mariscal, 53, a zanjero for 27 years. "You appreciate what it brings us in terms of food and life. But you respect it because it can do a lot of damage when it's not controlled."

With the Colorado River basin locked in an extended drought that threatens to empty Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the Imperial Valley faces changes that will alter the rhythm of life along canals named Pear and Plum, Dogwood and Daffodil, Eucalyptus and Elder.

Imperial Valley fields are separated from the Colorado Desert only by the life-giving canal.
Under a 2003 agreement, the irrigation district must eventually transfer 9% of its river allotment to San Diego and the Coachella Valley. Limitations and the sudden need to conserve have shaken an area where water was once considered inexhaustible.

Signs of change already abound. Fields lie fallow. Giant earthmovers march across the desert, replacing a 23-mile segment of the All-American Canal -- the valley's link with the Colorado River -- with a concrete-lined channel that will prevent seepage.

With each drop of water needing to be accounted for, an irrigation system that hasn't changed much since the 1950s will increasingly move to remote sensors and automation. For the zanjeros -- who still calculate water flows using a yardstick and were just recently issued mobile phones -- the changes will be profound.

"I love my job. The early morning is exhilarating. The sense of freedom that we can make certain decisions and are in control of something," said Romo, 53, a zanjero for 32 years. "In the future we will act less as a zanjero and more like a technician. . . . It's inevitable."

The Imperial Valley lies below sea level in a gently sloping, ancient lake bed containing rich soils deposited over hundreds of years when the Colorado River flooded.

Without water, the valley is a wasteland. As early as the 1850s, visionaries saw an Eden beneath its crusty surface, but it would be half a century before the first ditches were built. The completion of Hoover Dam and the All-American Canal established the valley as one of the nation's most bountiful agricultural regions. Anything will grow here if it's fed enough water.

A century ago, zanjeros worked the canals on horseback. They were armed; disputes with farmers could turn ugly. A zanjero was nearly inseparable from his canals, tending them day and night and raising his family in an employer-owned ditch-front home that ensured he was never far from work.

The horses, guns and "zanjero houses" are long gone, but the job remains largely the same. It is demanding work. Cranking corroded jacks, opening gates with iron rods, shuffling heavy timbers against the force of moving water, raking out debris -- it adds up to shoulder injuries, bad backs, torn knees.

A few years ago, Andy Curiel was adjusting a gate on a concrete span when it collapsed, dropping him into the rushing water. He hurt his back and was out for a week.

"It wasn't too bad," said Curiel, 50, a zanjero for nearly 20 years. "Lots of zanjeros get injured. They don't quit. They keep going until they can't anymore. Then they go to the doctor, get therapy. But they come back."

Veterans make $26 an hour with good benefits -- a coveted job in a county with 16.5% unemployment and nearly 1 in 5 people living below the federal poverty level. Zanjero jobs rarely come open. When one does, dozens apply.

Curiel grew up locally and went to college hoping to become an architect. "I got married. Didn't finish." He shakes his head and turns the conversation inward as he drives his pickup to the next gate. "Dummy. Should've finished."

Being a zanjero requires a dexterous mind, an understanding that one mistake can cause a chain reaction of flooding that can ruin crops.

"See that water? It's so quick," Curiel said, opening a side gate and releasing a small waterfall into a farmer's ditch. He jogged back to his pickup and hurried to the next gate to keep up with the flow moving down his canal. If he doesn't release it fast enough, the water will spill over its banks. "If we wait five more minutes, we're in trouble."

From dawn to early afternoon, Curiel is responsible for the Eucalyptus Canal and its lateral ditches. He works 10 days straight, then has four off. He earned his own canal after years working overnight and filling in for others, patiently waiting for someone to retire.

"When you first start out, you have dreams about water. Not good ones," he said. "You wake up with nightmares of your canal overflowing. You wonder: Did I close that gate? After a year on the job, they go away."

Other nightmares don't. Dozens of bodies are found in the valley's canals and ditches each year. Most are illegal immigrants who find that these seemingly placid waterways are deeper and swifter than they appear, with slippery, angled banks.

"Twenty-three so far," Mariscal said of his body count. "The water may be nice and calm on top, but they can't see the current underneath. The current starts taking them. They get tired. . . ." He didn't finish the thought.

Romo routinely fishes out backpacks jammed with clothes, extra shoes, maybe a bus ticket -- the luggage of someone traveling quick and light. Was it merely lost? Or was it abandoned by someone during the last fight of his life?

"It's sad. You don't know if this person made it or not," he said.

It's one of the dark undercurrents running through the pastoral landscape of this border country that zanjeros come to know -- and hope to avoid. About two years ago, Romo said, word circulated that an irrigation district employee had a bounty placed on his head by smugglers who believed he was working with Border Patrol agents.

"They knew exactly who was costing them money," Romo said. "Sometimes this place is still like the Wild West."

He jacks up a gate, and a ribbon of water snakes toward a farmer's field like a burning fuse. Someone has stolen the rod used to keep the gate up. Thieves are increasingly stripping metal from canal fixtures and selling it for scrap. Romo searches around and uses his boot to pry loose a large rock to prop the gate open.

He drives to where a farmer's irrigator is preparing for the delivery -- a continuous 24-hour flow that he will direct through the field's rows. They speak in Spanish.

"I'm not ready," the irrigator said.

"How long you need?"

"About 15 minutes."

Romo nods. He has to get to the next gate to stay ahead of the water on the main canal. "Open it an inch and a half," he said before driving away, trusting the irrigator to handle it.

It's an indication of how much has already changed for California's last traditional zanjeros that they rarely talk to landowners. Today, they mostly deal with irrigators -- poorly paid field hands from Mexico who work brutally long shifts.

For decades, murals in the lobby of an elegant but long-gone hotel in nearby El Centro celebrated the story of water in the valley. At the center of one was a zanjero opening a gate, bringing life to the desert.

The zanjero was once the unquestioned authority here. Today he is more like a utility worker. If a landowner opens or closes a gate without permission, Romo can write him a ticket that carries a $100 fine. He rarely does anymore. He doesn't need the hassle.

"If his boss tells him to close the gate -- even though I told him not to close it -- he'll do it because the farmer pays him and he needs the job," he said of the farmhands. "I'm not the authority.

Bill proposed to seal dangerous mines

San Bernardino County has the most in the state

RYAN ORR Staff Writer
Victorville Daily Press

A new bill recently introduced aims to close abandoned mine sites, including over 12,000 in San Bernardino County.

The bill, introduced by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, would establish an abandoned mine fund to be used for the clean up of sites that could now pose a threat to the public.

Surveys estimate that there are more than 500,000 abandoned hardrock mines in the United States, including more than 47,000 in California alone.

San Bernardino County has by far the largest number of mines in the state with an estimated 12,220 abandoned sites, according to a release from Feinstein’s office.

“Abandoned mine shafts endanger public safety,” said Feinstein in a statement. “It’s clear that something must be done to clean up these hazardous mines.”

Feinstein said the problem is that there is a lack of a reliable and steady stream of funding — and the scope of the cleanup effort is enormous.

San Bernardino County 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt said he is concerned that the bill may target the county’s mining industry with hefty fees.

“I believe she has a noble intention here to address a serious hazard,” Mitzelfelt said of Feinstein. “I agree with the motivation behind the bill.”

Mitzelfelt said there are various fees and royalties involved in the proposal, which may cause controversy in Congress.

Mitzelfelt said he is hesitant to support imposing fees on the mining industry, which is responsible for employing 2,500 county residents with high-paying jobs.

“These are mining companies that responsibly reclaim their mines,” Mitzelfelt said. “The abandoned mines represent past transgressions.”

Mitzelfelt estimated that the majority of the mines in San Bernardino County are located in the 1st District and said he is working with the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service to further address the problem of abandoned mines.

Technicality may cut California desert areas from federally protected status

The proposed National Landscape Conservation Act would unify management and funding of designated areas. But it requires 'national' in the area name, excluding some of the state's sensitive areas.

By Janet Wilson, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

Congress is considering permanent protection for 26 million acres of beautiful and historic landscapes in the American West, but has quietly excluded millions of acres of California desert.

In a system that would rival the national parks and forests, the National Landscape Conservation Act would unify the management and funding for areas such as the original Pony Express National Historic Trail, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, a million acres of Alaskan caribou calving grounds, 38 wild rivers, Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and a tiny ghost town near the Mexican border.

But more than half of the 10.6 million-acre California Desert Conservation Area, which stretches from the Mexican border to Mono Lake, has been dropped on technical grounds. Because the word "national" isn't in its title, the conservation area doesn't qualify, according to U.S. Bureau of Land Management attorneys.

Environmental watchdogs and some land bureau employees say the California area, created by Congress in 1976, is the cornerstone of the fledgling national system. They say the semantics hide political motives: Utility companies have proposed hundreds of miles of electrical transmission corridors through California's deserts, and off-road vehicle enthusiasts oppose further regulation of the area.

"I don't think this is a technicality at all . . . That's a huge hit to desert conservation in California and the Southwest," said Daniel Patterson, director of the southwest office of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which represents whistle-blowers in government agencies.

The bill does include the King Range National Conservation Area, the Headwaters Forest Reserve, the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, and just under half -- 3.7 million acres -- of the desert conservation area. Not included are more than 6 million acres of desert. Some of the land has been used for mining and off-roading, but much of it remains pristine, wide-open space.

Patterson said that if the bureau's entire California desert system isn't part of the national system, its conservation designation "would be a protection in name only . . . The California BLM will lose funding, they will lose staff, they'll lose what conservation focus they might have."

Afton Canyon
He said the excluded desert lands, including visually stunning and ecologically important areas such as Afton Canyon and Big Morongo Preserve, would be more at risk from proposed transmission-line corridors, among other projects. In addition, he said, "it could be expanded to off-roading, it could be expanded to mining, it could be expanded to land sales for Southern California urban housing sprawl. It's just a loss."

Others were relieved that major portions of the desert would not come under tighter rules.

"I'm worried about the people who own private land (inside the conservation area), the off-highway users, the ranchers, the miners, the loggers . . . the recreation access to people who just like to go collect rocks," said Chuck Cushman, head of the American Land Rights Assn. "When you put an overlay of national park-like regulations over these lands, you just cut off Americans from those lands."

Although staff members for U.S. Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs) say she is reluctant to amend the House bill to include the California land, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she will push to fix the 7-milllion-acre "glitch" in the Senate version.

In many cases, bureau land is open to multiple uses, including mining, grazing and off-road driving. There are no guided tours and few rangers. Officials said that management approach would remain on the national landscape lands.

"There is hunting. There will be no hotels. You can camp pretty much anywhere you want," said Elena Daly, head of the bureau's program that could win permanent protection from Congress.

She said the program also stresses collaboration with local communities, including "sustainable ranching."

Daniel Pfiefer of Costa Mesa is torn by the proposed legislation. Pfiefer, who had just finished a three-day off-road trip along the ancient Mojave trail this week, said he appreciates the difference between national park and land bureau conservation lands. "We came through some national parks areas. You cannot get off any road at all. You can't even have a ground fire in national parks . . . But the BLM areas are very friendly. They don't want you driving out all over the place, it's a 'tread softly' kind of thing. I'm very happy with the way it is right now."

Although he hates the way rogue off-roaders "trash" pristine areas by cutting illegal paths and dumping garbage, the bill proposed by Congress, he said, makes him nervous.

"As a person that absolutely hates rules and regulations myself, I have such a difficult time with it, because I do so much love the outdoors, and I do so much love going out and Jeeping across the trails.

Mojave River crossing in Afton Canyon
"Being an off-roading enthusiast, it scares me to think that if the federal government starts putting their fingers into it, and start sectioning off any portions of the desert, then closing it off is not far behind."

The National Landscape Conservation System was created in 2000 by outgoing Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to pull together and protect hundreds of conservation areas, monuments, wilderness study areas and other "orphans" of the federal bureau. All of the bureau's California desert lands were included. Unlike the proposed law, Babbit's executive order can be rescinded by the current or future Interior secretary.

"A constant threat is that it could be dissolved and dismantled at any point in time, with the many properties truly becoming 'orphans,' " Ian Wilson, spokesman for the nonprofit Sonoran Institute, a Tucson-based environmental policy group, said about California's desert area.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne supports the bill as written. A broad coalition of more than 70 outdoor sports, environmental, historical preservation and religious groups is pushing for passage of the legislation, which would also establish a line item in the federal budget for annual funding. Currently the program receives $50 million a year.

"I think we are all about to witness the next major conservation system for the United States," said Daly on a recent tour of several program sites, including the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area grasslands that stretch for 48,000 acres outside of Tucson.

It is hard to see the difference on the ground between some of the included and excluded areas. The Las Cienegas area is named for the Hundred Waters creek that flows across the Sonoran desert floor between mountain ranges in the Sky Island region, its willow and cottonwood-lined banks providing shade and forage for 230 bird species. "Oklahoma" and "Red River" were filmed on the sweeping grasslands decades ago, and ranchers and land bureau managers have laboriously ripped out invasive mesquite that is overtaking the grasses.

Five hundred miles to the west, the Mojave River bubbles up out of the parched desert in Afton Canyon, nourishing more than 180 bird species. Hundreds of films, including "Letters From Iwo Jima," and "Kill Bill" were filmed in the desert area.

Daly says it's not her job to tell Congress whether some or all of California's deserts should be included. But she said it's not too late for the omitted lands to be added, if that's what Congress wants.

"The bill is in draft form," she said. "It's not a done deal."

Group kicks off campaign against Landscape Act

www.arra-access.com

Americans for Responsible Recreational Access (ARRA) have launched a campaign urging opposition so the National Landscape Conservation System Act (NLCSA) now pending before the House Natural Resources Committee.

"We must stay diligent to protect responsible access to our public lands," says a press release on ARRA's website.

Background information provided by the group states that the bill, H.R. 2016, will statutorily create a bureaucracy to manage specially designated BLM lands. If enacted, this legislation will almost certainly mean a loss of recreational opportunities on public lands.

This bureaucracy would be tasked to "restore" the over 106 million acres of wilderness that is already off-limits to OHV, mountain bike and other forms of recreation as well as areas that currently can allow all types of recreational uses, scch as wilderness study areas. "Restoration" of these areas would be accomplished by limiting access and acquisition of additional lands to "manage" by excluding legitimate forms of recreation.

The National Landscape Conservation System Act will statutorily create a bureaucracy to manage specially designated BLM lands. If enacted, this legislation will almost certainly mean a loss of recreational opportunities on public lands.

This bureaucracy would be tasked to "restore" the over 106 million acres of wilderness that is already off-limits to OHV, mountain bike and other forms of recreation as well as areas that currently allow all types of recreational uses like wilderness study areas.

The group urges its members to voice their opposition to the NLCSA by using the following sample letter;

Subject: Please Oppose H.R. 2016
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

As a member of Americans for Responsible Recreational Access I write to urge you to oppose H.R. 2016, the National Landscape Conservation System Act, when the House Natural Resources Committee considers the bill on March 12th.

H.R. 2016 would statutorily establish a bureaucracy to manage specially designated BLM lands in restrictive fashion that runs counter to the multiple-use manner in which the BLM has traditionally managed its lands. The bill would eschew existing management requirements in favor of management objectives designed to deny access for many recreational uses.

In addition, the legislation would require that specially designated BLM lands be managed in accordance with any law or regulation "relating to" that unit. This is troublesome as the language is vague and would invite lawsuits to establish which laws "relate" to the management of particular lands.

Also, the legislation would legally place Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) in the National Landscape Conservation System with the same management goals as other specially designated lands. As it currently stands motorized and mechanized recreation can be provided for on WSAs, as they are not officially designated as Wilderness Areas.

If enacted, this legislation would likely make WSAs de facto Wilderness areas as the NLCS would have a mandate to manage WSAs in the same fashion as other specially designated lands.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Experts unsure how much burn-area recovery to expect from this winter's rains

By GAIL WESSON
The Press-Enterprise




2007/The Press-Enterprise
Wildlands Conservancy Ranger Christopher Siddall waters transplanted yuccas at the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, which was damaged in the 2006 Sawtooth Complex Fire.

The winter rains have greened up hillsides and produced a bountiful crop of wildflowers in parts of the Inland area, but scientists and wild land managers say it's still too soon to gauge how this rain may affect recovery from wildfires that burned in drought years.

Native plants may compete with non-native invasive plants in rebirth, but it may take several years or longer to tell what will happen in a landscape, and sometimes the land may burn in another wildfire as in parts of San Diego County hit in 2003 and in 2007.

Despite a lack of rain last year, in the 2006 Esperanza Fire burn area, "There were a lot of native plants that came up," said Jan Beyers, U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station plant ecologist in Riverside.

Researchers will return to the field this month to see the effects of the fall into winter rains as part of a research project looking at recovery in the fire area where some areas burned a couple years ago, or as long as almost 80 years ago, Beyers said.

That research, which continues into next year, is looking at Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands.

The Esperanza Fire, which began Oct. 26, 2006, burned 43,000 acres in the San Jacinto Mountains. Raymond Lee Oyler is charged with arson and murder in connection with the fire that killed five U.S. Forest Service firefighters.

Last year, researchers surveyed fire intensity in the area and brought back soil samples, Beyers said. In the fire lab greenhouse in Riverside, native plants and some non-natives like brome, an annual grass, have sprouted.

Last week, Beyer, other scientists and academicians shared their work at a Natural Resources Coordinating Conference that focused on preparation, impacts and recovery aspects of fire in California at the UC Riverside Palm Desert Graduate Center. Many have ties to Cooperative Extension, the educational arm of the university.

They took field trips to see burn areas in the San Jacinto Mountains, the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, blackened in the 2005 high desert Paradise fire, and Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, devastated in the 2006 Sawtooth Complex Fire.

April Sall, who manages the Pioneertown preserve for the Wildlands Conservancy, said there were some beneficial rains, but it will take some time before they will see the mix of native and invasive plants. "Definitely the next few months will give us an indication of what to expect," she said.

Some charred yuccas have resprouted and are up to 18 inches tall, but slower-growing resprouted Joshua trees are 6- to 8-inches-tall and less than half the Joshua trees have resprouted, she said. Rain is critical in the next few years if pinyon are to come back.

Some 400 transplanted Mojave yuccas, Joshua trees and native cactus are being nurtured near the preserve visitor center.

"It will probably be a decade or two before we see what is going to come back," she said. To give the preserve a chance to recover, it is closed to the public but may open for a few programs to be announced on the conservancy's Web site this spring.

Near Hemet, Metropolitan Water District's Diamond Valley Lake is the northern open-space anchor of the Southwest Riverside County Multispecies Reserve, which extends south to Lake Skinner near Murrieta.

In 1993, the Winchester Fire swept across 25,000 acres and destroyed 29 homes from the north side of the reservoir area south through what was then sparsely populated hills.

Untouched by fires, the chaparral vegetation gradually came back. "Yet it still took 10 years before you had your first pair of (California) gnatcatchers" nesting in the burn area, said biologist Bill Wagner, a consultant to Metropolitan.

The gnatcatcher is a federally protected songbird that nests in brittlebush, buckwheat and California sage shrubs that grow in the reservoir area.

Grand Canyon's deluge by design

A man-made flood is unleashed from a dam near the Utah border in hopes of restoring the area's ecosystem.



From the Associated Press

PAGE, ARIZ. -- Torrents of water roared from the base of the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona on Wednesday as federal authorities unleashed a man-made flood designed to help restore the Grand Canyon's ecosystem.

More than 300,000 gallons of water per second were being released from Lake Powell above the dam near the Arizona-Utah border, enough to fill the Empire State Building in 20 minutes, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said.

"This gives you a glimpse of what nature has been doing for millions of years, cutting through and creating this magnificent canyon," Kempthorne told the Associated Press after he pulled the lever releasing the water.

The water gushed from two of four giant steel tubes in parallel arcs into the Colorado River below. By the afternoon, water poured from all four tubes, creating a churning, frothy pool beneath the salmon-colored sandstone walls of the sheer-faced canyon rising hundreds of feet above.

The Colorado's water level rose by a couple of feet in some places and as much as 15 feet in narrower parts. After the flood ends Friday, officials hope the water will leave behind sediment and restore sandbars as it goes back to normal levels.

Before the dam was completed in 1964, the Colorado River was warm and muddy, and natural flooding built up sandbars that are essential to native plant and fish species. The river is now cool and clear, its sediment blocked by the dam.

Officials have created a flood in the canyon twice before, in 1996 and 2004, in an effort to mimic natural cycles on the river.

Groups, feds join to push law aimed at saving lands

The Arizona Republic

IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT - This place 30 miles from Tucson, with its dramatic vistas, archaeological heritage and unique ecology, is just one of more than 800 properties in the federal Bureau of Land Management's National Landscape Conservation System being touted for a new American preservation network.

Elena Daley, a BLM administrator and the conservation-system director, was here last week to join forces with environmental groups in support of a congressional act that would permanently designate 26 million acres of Western lands for conservation.
"This is like being part of a birthing," she said. "I think we are all about to witness the next major conservation system in the United States."

The Ironwood Forest monument is one of many "crown jewels" in the patchwork of iconic BLM lands spread over 13 states. Among the destinations: Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona, Lewis and Clark Trail in Idaho and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.

All told, the system includes 15 national monuments, 14 national conservation areas, 161 wilderness areas, 10 historic trails and 38 wild and scenic rivers.

With congressional approval, these would become part of a permanent package comparable to the national park system. The bill before Congress awaits a floor vote in the Senate; a parallel House measure, with 65 co-sponsors, is scheduled for subcommittee hearings in two weeks.

The law would provide no new money or regulations, nor would it automatically change recreational use, grazing rights or mining in the target areas. But proponents say its adoption would serve as a launching pad for protective steps.

"It'll come, but it's delicate," says John Shepard, deputy director at the Sonoran Institute, a land-conservation group that sponsored Daley's visit to Arizona. "What it does is, it puts the system on a level playing field with the national parks and the national forests."

The Sonoran Institute is part of the Conservation System Alliance, a coalition of 74 recreational, environmental, religious and other groups pushing the measure with support from the Bush administration.

Flowers going wild

Filmmaker finds desert in bloom

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

Lauren McSherry, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

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

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

Filmmaker Peter Rhalter has been documenting desert blooms since 1998.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dune primrose near Zzyzx, February 24, 2008