Wildlife Protections on Hold

By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Under a temporary rule issued Wednesday by the Bush administration, national forest managers won't have to adhere to strict wildlife protections that have been in place for more than two decades.

The rule is not the last word on the protections, which since 1982 have directed the U.S. Forest Service to manage national forests to maintain "viable populations" of fish and wildlife. Officials could not say when a final regulation would be published.

Issued in 1982 by the Reagan administration, the viability requirement was often cited in lawsuits that forced the Forest Service to reduce timber cutting in regions with declining populations of owls and other animals.

Many conservationists consider it a key safeguard for wildlife. "It's been the [agency's] only rule protecting wildlife," said Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

The Bush administration proposed nearly two years ago to weaken the requirement as part of a revision of forest planning rules that had been rewritten by the Clinton administration.

Forest Service spokesman Joseph Walsh said there was confusion over the two rewrites, and that the temporary directive was intended as a clarification.

It states that until final regulations are issued, forest managers can follow the 1982 regulations if they wish but that they are "not in effect." It directs managers to base forest plans on "the best available science."

There is no mention of species viability in the temporary rule, but Walsh said it remained a Forest Service concern. "What we're trying to do is ensure all species have a viable habitat," he said. "If that's not good enough, I don't know what to say."

Environmentalists called Wednesday's edict a precursor to a formal abandonment of the viability protections.

"This is another effort to sidestep the law and eliminate accountability … and give free rein to exploitation of forests," said Earthjustice lawyer Todd True.

The "best science," he added, could mean radically different things to different managers.

In the Mojave Preserve, Emotions Still Run Hot

By Julie Cart
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE, Calif. — To many, this is a place to hurry through. The austere expanse of scrubby desert and jagged mountains in the care of the National Park Service is more popular as a shortcut between Los Angeles and Las Vegas than it is as a destination.

A recent Park Service survey found that the majority of the 650,000 annual visitors here spend less than three hours before moving on. The survey reflects a hard truth: The 1.6-million-acre preserve is an acquired taste.

As the preserve's 10th anniversary approaches, its proponents celebrate it as a citadel of nature amid an onrushing tide of development, while local residents continue to resent the limits on off-road exploration, hunting, cattle ranching and other economic activities.

About an hour's drive northeast of Barstow, the preserve was established as part of the California Desert Protection Act. The legislation set aside more land than any previous conservation law in the lower 48 states. It expanded Joshua Tree and Death Valley national monuments, conferring national park status on each, and it created new wilderness in areas managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. In all, the act increased protection for more than 9 million acres of desert.

If the acreage lacks the majesty of the Grand Canyon and other desert parks, it makes up for it in sheer scope. The three desert parks help keep intact a chain of wildlife habitat and migration pathways from the San Bernardino Mountains to the San Jacinto Mountains.

"We almost have a wildlife preserve from Joshua Tree through to Death Valley. That's a wildlife corridor 100 miles wide," said Elden Hughes, chairman of the Sierra Club's California-Nevada Desert Committee. "That is an amazing achievement."

The Mojave National Preserve is home to about 200 native plant species, including the Mojave yucca and its menacing-looking cousin, the Spanish bayonet, as well as one of the country's largest and densest Joshua tree forests. Some of the rocks here date back 2.5 million years. The preserve supports a broad array of animal life: bighorn sheep, desert iguanas, chuckwallas, the long-nosed leopard lizard, 10 species of snakes and the threatened California desert tortoise.

The preserve was created over the angry objections of miners, motorcyclists, ranchers, rock hounds, hunters and property owners who argued that their freedom to enjoy the desert or eke out a living in it was being subordinated to the well-being of cacti and reptiles.

In Washington, D.C., congressional opponents sought to restrict the preserve's first budget in 1995 to $1. After President Clinton's veto, Congress allocated money, but only enough to hire a staff of four.

A decade later, the bitterness remains. Critics accuse the Park Service of systematically phasing out activities that Congress intended to protect. One of the most acrimonious debates has been over access. New rules barred motorized travel on desert tracks and trails that historically were open to Jeeps, dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles.

Now, as the Park Service prepares for next month's anniversary celebration, San Bernardino County supervisors are threatening to punch 2,500 miles of roads through the preserve, saying they're entitled to do so under a 19th century statute enacted to promote settlement of the Western frontier.

"The Park Service wants to return to the time of the Indians. These guys are anti-people," said Chuck Cushman, executive director of the American Land Rights Assn., which represents private property owners who own parcels within public land. Cushman grew up in the Mojave. "They only want enough visitors to justify their budget. It's a new paganism: They worship trees and sacrifice people."

Park Service officials insist the only human activity they want to restrain is the illegal sort, and they have encountered plenty of that — the running of methamphetamine labs, the rampant poaching of protected animals and the dumping of household trash and industrial waste.

Friction between the Park Service and law-abiding residents was inevitable. When the Park Service took over, about 1,200 people owned property inside the preserve. Cattle grazed across 940,000 acres. There were 9,000 mining claims.

In 1996, Catellus Development Corp., the former real estate arm of the Southern Pacific Railway and the largest private landlord within the preserve, began mining surveys and subdivision mapping. A Las Vegas developer announced plans to build 100 homes and a golf course on privately owned land within five miles of the preserve's largest herd of desert bighorn sheep.

Lawmakers specifically designated the land a preserve and not a park accommodating such traditional human uses as hunting, trapping and cattle grazing. At the same time, it was intended as a sanctuary for a desert ecosystem that had been under stress from decades of human activity. Many of the area's natural springs had disappeared, a casualty of livestock grazing and some 4,000 feral burros, which had also destroyed native plants and tortoise habitat.

With help from conservation groups, Mojave preserve Supt. Mary Martin, who has worked there since its inception, launched a campaign to retire grazing rights and buy out the largest private holdings. Catellus is gone. No mines are currently operating, and Martin's staff is cleaning more than 600 abandoned mines. Livestock occupy little more than a quarter of the land they grazed in 1994. Only one cattle ranch is left.

Martin said preliminary results of a water survey indicate 150 functioning springs, the most ever recorded there.

"We've had a lot of successes, we really have," she said. "The desert tortoise is much more protected. Visitors now have marked trails to hike on. The dunes are in better shape — we've now got vegetation there. The water situation is much improved. We've managed to keep development out of the park. I believe we are absolutely managing the preserve in the manner that Congress told us to."

Yet conflicts persist.

Martin wants to remove at least some of the 139 "guzzlers," or man-made water sources, maintained by hunters to help sustain game animals. Martin said drowned tortoises have been found in 27% of the guzzlers.

The guzzler dispute underscores an age-old debate between those who believe that natural conditions should determine the size of wild herds and those who want to ensure a plentiful supply of big game.

Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, strongly disagrees with those who say that the National Park Service's management is subverting the intent of Congress.

"Congress said those activities may continue," Patterson said. "There's a difference between allowing an activity, and planning and managing for it."

Many in San Bernardino County "have lost sight of the 'national' part of the preserve," Patterson said. "It's not the 'San Bernardino Preserve' or the 'Barstow Preserve.' It's a national preserve."

But Congress did promise local benefits. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other supporters of the Desert Protection Act said it would boost the fortunes of a region too long dependent on a 19th century economy of ranching and mining.

Joshua Tree and Death Valley are significant tourism draws, bringing in $46 million and $44 million respectively each year to local economies, according to a 2003 study by the National Parks Conservation Assn. The Mojave National Preserve lagged significantly behind, generating $5.1 million.

Barstow Mayor Lawrence Dale said he had no idea whether visitors to the preserve stayed in the city.

"I don't think it has had an impact one way or another," said Dale, who said he has never visited the preserve.

Critics may exaggerate the changes, but for them, the Mojave they cherished is less accessible. It was a place where families prospected around old mines and drove right up to the low-lying mountains for picnics among the boulders.

"There was a functional piece of Americana out here. But now, is it better off? I don't really see it," said Dennis Casebier, a local historian and 50-year resident of the area.

But Casebier's Mojave was doomed, say preserve advocates like Elden Hughes.

"The vision was that this was a living museum from the 1890s," Hughes said. "The vision was an impossible one, and not even a good one. You have the fastest-growing urban center, Las Vegas, and the L.A. Basin spilling over the mountains, and you think you are going to keep ranching there? Parks and wilderness are something you can keep. The laws are strong."

Celebrating the desert

Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the
California Desert Protection Act

by Dianne Feinstein
National Parks

Ten years ago this October, Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act into law, preserving nearly nine million acres of stunning landscape for generations to come.

With the passage of this legislation, the largest parks and wilderness bill to affect the lower 48 states was enacted, redesignating and expanding Joshua Tree and Death Valley national monuments as national parks and establishing Mojave National Preserve.

Protecting these beautiful lands stands as one of my proudest legislative accomplishments to this day.

The California desert is home to some of the last remaining dinosaur tracks, Native American petroglyphs, abundant spring wildflowers, and threatened species, including the bighorn sheep and the desert tortoise, an animal known to live for as many as 100 years.

Joshua Tree, encompassing parts of both the Mojave and the Colorado deserts, contains magnificent rock formations and forests that blanket the high country throughout the park. The abundant yellow creosote bushes of the eastern side of the park are mirrored by the rugged Joshua trees to the west.

The Death Valley landscape, marked by a diverse range of salt playas, alpine forests, and jagged rocks, is one of the hottest, driest, and lowest places on Earth. At one lookout point in the park, Dante's View, a visitor may look down into Badwater, the lowest place in the western hemisphere, and on a clear day look west to Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states.

Mojave National Preserve, with its granite, limestone, and metamorphic rocks, has a remarkable geologic diversity, as well as the largest Joshua tree forest in the world. Many of the preserve's peaks are pink at the top, the result of a volcanic explosion more than 18 million years ago in Arizona that sent deposits flying through the air and flowing across the land to the Mojave Desert.

These lands are not only home to beautiful scenery, they are also sacred lands to Native American Tribes. Petroglyphs, archaeological sites, and medicinal plants may be found throughout these parks.

The California Desert Protection Act ensured that these lands would be preserved for years to come. In total, the act raised the protection level for nine million acres of parks and wilderness.

Since 2000, the wilderness area has been expanded even farther with the purchase of nearly 600,000 acres of land primarily in and around Mojave National Preserve. The transaction, the largest conservation acquisition of private lands in U.S. history, combined federal Land and Water Conservation Fund appropriations with funding from the Wildlands Conservancy to buy discounted land owned by the Catellus Development Corporation.

This expansion protected 200,000 acres of critical habitat for the endangered desert tortoise, 150,000 acres for bighorn sheep, the largest cactus gardens in the world at Bigelow Cholla Gardens, and rights-of-way for 165 trails and access roads leading to 3.7 million additional acres of land used for hunting, hiking, and camping.

Visitors have taken advantage of these abundant recreation and research opportunities in the California desert. Last year, 2.8 million people traveled to Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks and Mojave National Preserve. In turn, these visitors provided an economic boost of approximately $100 million at nearby hotels, restaurants, and other local businesses.

Now, as we celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the California Desert Protection Act, the preservation of our National Park System has never been more important. Population growth, especially in the western United States, is placing increased pressure on our public lands and the demand for recreation areas. That is why it was so critical that we acted ten years ago and why it is urgent that we continue to preserve our nation's natural treasures today.

Unfortunately, there is much evidence that our national parks are not receiving the funding or attention they deserve. A recent survey of 12 national parks by the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees found that six parks had either reduced or planned to reduce visitor center hours or days of operation. The survey also found that 'all 12 parks had recently cut fulltime or seasonal staff" positions.

One of the parks surveyed, Death Valley, reduced its law enforcement positions from 23 several years ago to 15 at the time of the study. More than 600 miles of backcountry roads are inadequately secured, leaving natural resources, wildlife, and visitors less safe.

Meanwhile, the backlog of maintenance projects in our parks has grown to a range of $4 billion to $6.8 billion, according to the General Accounting Office. Throughout our park system, roads, bridges, and historic structures are falling into disrepair, trails and campgrounds are poorly maintained, and visitor centers are becoming outdated.

Additionally, a recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency designated eight national parks, four of which are in California, as containing excessively high levels of ozone. It is alarming to know that the air at Joshua Tree, Yosemite, and Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks is harmful to one's health, especially since the problem of poor air quality in these regions was identified for action under the Clean Air Act in 1977.

Our national parks are America's treasures. They make the natural beauty of our nation accessible to all Americans and, indeed, visitors from around the world. We have a responsibility to preserve these places for the enjoyment of generations to come.

Enacting the California Desert Protection Act was an important step toward that end. Now, we must continue to work to ensure that the parks we have already established, and those we may yet protect, have the resources they need.

Defending the desert

In 1986, Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) introduced a bill to strengthen protection for sites in the California desert by placing them under the National Park Service. Subsequently, California elected Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who shared Cranston's vision. In January 1993, Sen. Feinstein introduced the California Desert Protection Act, her first piece of legislation. A year and a half later, the legislation was signed into law by President Clinton. With Feinstein's leadership and the support of a variety of environmental groups including NPCA, Congress passed the landmark legislation, protecting nearly nine million acres of the California desert.

In the past ten years, NPCA has continued to protect these special places from a variety of threats. NPCA has been instrumental in blocking the world's largest landfill for a site outside of Joshua Tree and helped to stave off a development outside the park that would have included thousands of homes. NPCA helped to stop plans to mine an underground aquifer near Mojave National Preserve. NPCA is opposing county road claims in the desert parks and working for cleaner park air and better funding. NPCA recently established a field office in Joshua Tree, California, to build a strong local constituency for Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks and Mojave National Preserve.

Please join us in celebrating the passage of this extraordinary legislation. We hope you enjoy the senator's reflections on the desert as well as the destination guide and calendar of events.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is in her second full term. She serves on several Senate committees, including Appropriations and Energy and Natural Resources.

COPYRIGHT 2004 National Parks and Conservation Association

ORBA PRESIDENT TESTIFIES TO CONGRESS ON ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT

Congressional Hearing was held in Fontana, California on the Impact of the Endangered Species Act on the Inland Empire

News Release from OFF-ROAD BUSINESS ASSOCIATION, Inc.
Contact: Meg Grossglass
Communications Coordinator

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FONTANA, CALIFORNIA (September 10, 2004) - The House Resources Committee, led by Chairman Richard Pombo, heard testimony to examine the impacts of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Southern California's Inland Empire. The Inland Empire includes all of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, and a piece of the eastern part of Los Angeles County. It encompasses all of the San Bernardino National Forest and popular off-road recreation sites such as Johnson Valley, Stoddard Valley, and Dumont Dunes.

Congressman Pombo opened the hearing by pointing out that the ESA is "broken" and needs to be "fixed." He stated that "during the past ten years, 1300 species have been listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act and only 7 have ever been delisted."

Roy Denner, President of the Off-Road Business Association (ORBA), joined the mayors of Fontana, Colton, and Rialto and a Fontana City Council member in presenting examples of how the Inland Empire has been negatively impacted by the ESA. The popular species of the day for the local politicians was the "Delhi Sand Flower-Loving Fly." This is a fly that lives underground and only surfaces for two weeks in the fall to breed and then goes back underground.

Story after story was told about the many projects that this Fly has stopped or delayed. According to the mayor of Fontana, several important freeway interchanges, drastically needed in the area to alleviate traffic congestion, have been held up for three years because they are in the Fly's habitat. Pictures provided by the mayor of Colton depict "Fly induced blight" showing areas that have been designated as the Fly's critical habitat that have become dumping grounds for trash. The city is prevented, by the requirements of the ESA, from going into the designated habitat to clean up the trash.

Congressman Joe Baca asked if anyone has ever seen one of these flies. Not one person in attendance had ever seen a live Delhi Sand Flower-Loving Fly, although the Executive Director for the Endangered Habitats League, who also testified at the Hearing, indicated that he had actually seen a dead specimen and indicated that he felt it is important to "preserve all of Creation - including the Delhi Sands Fly and its ecosystem." Congressman Baca asked how one could identify the Fly. He demonstrated, with a rolled up newspaper, what he would do if the unidentified fly landed in front of him - an act that could lead to jail time!

Denner addressed other ESA impacts within the Inland Empire. He cited the Mojave Desert Tortoise as an example of a species listed as "threatened" under the ESA that was "listed with very little supporting science and has had a tremendous negative impact on the public use of public lands within the Inland Empire." He pointed out that "4 million acres of the 10 million acres of California Desert that is managed by the BLM have been designated as critical habitat for the Tortoise." An analysis by the General Accounting Office shows that over $100 million of taxpayer money has been spent on attempting to recover the Desert Tortoise and not one Tortoise can be shown to have been saved by the efforts.

ORBA's President also described the closures of routes and trails, the elimination of logging, and the restrictions to clearing of underbrush and fire breaks in the San Bernardino National Forest - all in the name of protecting species. He described how the popular resort cities of Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead were threatened last year by a forest fire fueled by the underbrush and inaccessible by fire fighting equipment due to trail closures. "Trails that are blocked off to recreation vehicles are also blocked off to fire trucks" said Denner.

Julie MacDonald, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, testified that 100% of the Agency's budget goes to respond to court orders resulting from lawsuits filed under the Endangered Species Act. She indicated that it would take 10 years of the Agency's current budget to respond to the huge backlog of existing court orders. As a result, no funds remain to actually deal with managing the species in accordance with the ESA. In the meantime, petition after petition, drafted by environmental organizations, are being filed to list new species.

Chairman Pombo closed the Hearing by telling everyone that he is working very hard in Congress to get support for bringing reason back to the ESA. He stated that "nobody is asking to do away with the ESA. It just needs to be modified to provide species protection in a way that can be managed."

Interior encourages BLM land sales

Selling public lands will let Western cities sprawl into new territory

Zachary Smith WESTERN ROUNDUP
High Country News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Al Dvorin, 81, Announcer for Presley

New York Times

Al Dvorin, the concert announcer who made the phrase "Elvis has left the building" famous, was killed in an auto accident in California on Sunday. He was 81.

Mr. Dvorin was thrown from the car he was riding in after it swerved off a desert road near Ivanpah, the California Highway Patrol said.

The night before, Mr. Dvorin performed his signature closing line at a Presley impersonator concert in California.

A former bandleader and talent agent in Chicago, Mr. Dvorin was with Presley from his early days as a performer and was on his last tour in 1977, the year he died.

The phrase that Mr. Dvorin made his signature was first uttered by other announcers early in Presley's career. It was intended to disperse audiences who lingered in hopes of an Elvis encore.

"Al made it his own with his particular style," said Todd Morgan, a spokesman with the Presley estate in Memphis. "He's the man when it comes to that saying."

His version was captured on many recordings of Presley's performances and has become a pop-culture catchphrase and punch line.

Woman pleads not guilty in trespassing case

By MICHAEL FISHER / The Press-Enterprise

Connie Connelly, who faces eviction from her home of 30 years in the Mojave National Preserve, appeared in a Barstow courtroom Friday where she pleaded not guilty to a charge of trespassing on federal land.

Part-time federal magistrate Stephen Miller scheduled a hearing in the case for October, after which a trial date could be set, Connelly said. If convicted, the 44-year-old woman could face up to six months in jail and a fine.

"Even though I've lived there all my life, I'm a trespasser," said Connelly, whose family moved to the rustic six-room home in 1966. The house, a converted general store, sits on five brushy acres near the northeastern edge of the preserve, about 23 miles from Primm, Nev.

Connelly, who cannot afford an attorney, was assigned a deputy federal public defender during Friday's hearing, held in a courtroom at a Barstow-area Marine Corps base.

Officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment Friday.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said earlier this week that Connelly is living on the property illegally. Parks officials and prosecutors contend that Connelly's parents leased the land, now within the 1.6 million-acre preserve, but the lease expired when her mother died last year. Connelly's name is not on the lease.

Connelly and her supporters argue that her father, Don, bought the former Aztec Mining Company store in 1966, which he reopened as the Ivanpah General Store.

In 1976, the family moved about 100 miles to Newberry Springs when Connelly's mother became ill, but they returned about eight years later.

Although parks officials say Connelly does not own the property, they have offered to swap her home and its surrounding five acres for more than seven acres of desert land in Cadiz, about 75 miles south, she said.

But Connelly does not want to move from her home, which she shares with 11 dogs, a cat and a horse. She questions the quality of the well at the Cadiz site and says summers are milder at her current home, which sits at a higher elevation than the land being offered to her.

Home ownership challenged

After 30 years in the desert, she's fighting to stay

By MICHAEL FISHER / The Press-Enterprise

IVANPAH - Connie Connelly balanced on her haunches, drawing deeply from a cigarette as swollen thunderclouds tinged red by the setting sun swept over her remote home in the Mojave National Preserve.

A tumble of scrap lumber, rotting travel trailers and battered furniture surround her green-and-white house. As a freight train rumbled by on tracks just a few feet away, the locomotive's piercing whistle drew howls from some of Connelly's 11 dogs as they prowled her dusty corral.

For 30 years, Connelly has lived in a rustic six-room home, a converted general store on 5 brushy acres about 23 miles from the shimmering casinos of Primm, Nev.

"When you've been in a place this long, you grow roots," the 44-year-old woman said. "This isn't for every Joe out here. You either make it here or you don't. ... I believe in preserving the simple life."

But Connelly's lifestyle is careening toward a showdown with National Park Service officials who are seeking to evict her and end a land squabble that started nearly four decades ago when her family first moved to the desert.

Connelly is to appear today before a U.S. District Court magistrate in Barstow to answer a charge of trespassing on federal land. The brief hearing will mark the first salvo in a courtroom battle to determine if Connelly will be forced from the land she asserts her father, Don, purchased in 1966.

Connelly said parks officials contend her father leased but never bought the property.

Mary Martin, preserve superintendent, declined comment, directing inquires to federal prosecutors.

"She is there illegally," Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, said of Connelly. "She does not have permission to reside at that location."

Rights Expired

Mrozek said Connelly's parents and their neighbors in the sparsely populated area were allowed to continue living on the federal land when the 1.6-million-acre Mojave National Preserve was created in 1994.

Connelly's father died in 1990. And when her mother, Pauline, died last year, so did the family's right to live within the preserve, Mrozek said. Connelly's name is not on the lease.

Connelly, who says she cannot afford an attorney, faces up to six months in jail and a fine if convicted.

"We're not seeking to incarcerate her but that is a possibility," Mrozek said.

Just 8 when her family moved from Hemet to the desert, Connelly is fighting eviction with the help of newfound friend Jennifer Foster of Hesperia, co-founder of Public Lands for Public Use, a recreationalist organization aimed at keeping government lands open to equestrians, hunters and other outdoors enthusiasts.

They say the Connelly family's purchase of the former Aztec Mining Company store in 1966 immediately sparked a dispute with the federal Bureau of Land Management, who challenged his ownership of the property. To prove his case, Connelly's father gave his paperwork, including a deed, to the BLM, which lost the file, Foster said.

The deed apparently was never recorded, and Connelly's father signed a lease agreement with BLM in 1968, Foster said.

"People are going to wonder why she would want to stay out there. A woman. Alone. The nearest neighbor a quarter-mile away," Foster said, her voice choked with emotion. "You have to remember, it's all she's known."

Although parks officials contend Connelly's family never owned the land, they have offered to swap her home and its surrounding 5 acres for more than 7 acres of desert land in Cadiz, about 75 miles south.

But Connelly and Foster question the quality of the well at the Cadiz site, where they say summers are significantly hotter because that property sits at a lower elevation than Connelly's house.

"It's about 10 miles from Hell," Foster said.

A Simple Life

Connelly, Ivanpah's sole resident, supports herself as an artist fashioning decorative wood, furniture, beadwork and other crafts. She says she is content with her simple life in the sparsely furnished desert home she shares with her dogs, one cat and a horse.

With her well broken, she drives 17 miles to Nipton every other day to fill a pair of blue plastic 55-gallon drums with water for her and her animals. Her old Ford pickup carries her 33 miles to Searchlight, Nev., for feed and supplies.

Oil lamps light her house at night. Connelly occasionally switches on a portable generator if she wants to watch a movie. Her phone is attached to a telephone pole outside. Until recently, she had to shimmy up the pole to use the phone.

Her furniture, she joked, bears dents and divots from errant shovel strikes intended for rattlesnakes that slithered into her house.

Connelly's house in years past was considered part of Leestock, a town of about 100 residents that sprung up at a railroad stop where ranchers loaded cattle onto trains.

"It was like the Old West out here. Time pretty much stood at a standstill," recalled Connelly, whose weathered eyes convey a distant expression. But, at a friendly jibe, she breaks into laughter, revealing a warm smile.

Her father, a former San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy turned part-time prospector, kept the general store open, selling food, beer and sundries. From the front porch, the family could see the trailers that made up the famed Chicken Ranch brothel about six miles down a nearby dirt road.

"Every night, we had the miners down playing cards and talking," she said. Train engineers would stop to chat as they waited for another locomotive to pass.

Bats, owls, nighthawks and coyotes are now Connelly's neighbors. Age and weather have reduced the other buildings of Leestock to rubble. Connelly's not sure why her dad moved his family to the remote desert.

"When I was small, I asked him once when he went prospecting, how did he pick a spot. And he said you just kind of get a feeling about a place," Connelly said. In the nearby corral, the breeze stirred a set of wind chimes created from long lengths of old pipe.

In 1976, the family moved about 100 miles to Newberry Springs when Connelly's mother began suffering dementia. They returned eight years later and had to chase squatters off the land.
Last year, parks rangers began stopping by, telling her and her mother that they had to leave, Connelly said.

Foster met Connelly when the Ivanpah woman called her in January, seeking help. In just seven months, the two women have become close friends.

"Connie came into my life for a reason," Foster said. "She's a special person. ... Within her still lies that pioneer spirit."

Foster and her husband, Ken, have sought help for Connelly from San Bernardino County Supervisor Bill Postmus' office and are trying to find her a lawyer.

If evicted, Connelly figures she will move to Wyoming. She holds little hope for her future.

"They'll undoubtedly get me out of here, one way or the other. It saddens the heart."

SCI Facilitates National Park Service and California Department of Fish & Game Meeting

Tucson, Ariz., Aug. 17, 2004 - Safari Club International (SCI) organized a collaborative meeting between the National Park Service (NPS) and the California Department of Fish & Game (DFG) to discuss the important issue of maintaining water sources that are of critical importance for several species of wildlife in the Mojave National Preserve (Preserve).

“After several years of efforts by SCI on behalf of concerned California sportsmen, SCI was pleased to organize a meeting of this magnitude and be able to put the issue of water for Mojave wildlife closer to reality,” said John R. Monson, SCI president. “Bringing the policy makers together and making decisions to facilitate the reinstatement of traditional water sources to the Mojave by organizations like SCI is a win-win for wildlife. We feel the meeting was very productive and we are looking forward to solid results. SCI has taken the lead on this mission through the work of Dennis Anderson, SCI vice president and California legislative coordinator, and we hope to see a completed MOU between the parties no later September 15, 2004.”

"The Department of the Interior and the National Park Service have recently demonstrated the desire to work cooperatively with the California Department of Fish and Game on wildlife management on the Mojave National Preserve,” said Paul Hoffman deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. “Working together to maintain water for wildlife in a desert environment is consistent with Secretary Norton's 4Cs -- cooperation, consultation and communication, all in the service of conservation. Moreover, the California Desert Protection Act clearly gives DFG jurisdiction over wildlife management on the Preserve. We will all work together to ensure that wildlife benefits and park resources are not impaired as a result of any of these activities."

The groundbreaking meeting was held August 10, 2004, when SCI invited key officials from the two agencies together at the DFG offices in Ontario, California and then moderated the meeting to enable NPS and DFG to discuss and overcome the obstacles they had encountered in the effort to maintain wildlife water development systems throughout the Preserve. In this meeting, the following innovative points were agreed upon:

1) DFG and NPS will work together on creating a water guzzler management procedural manual. This list will contain the locations of all guzzlers and will identify those that exist in wilderness and non-wilderness areas of the Preserve. In addition, the manual will designate those guzzlers that lie inside and outside of designated desert tortoise habitat. For each category of guzzler, the manual will establish guidelines for access to and ongoing maintenance and restoration of the water sources. The manual will help officials and private groups save valuable time and resources that they intend to devote to insuring continued availability of necessary water sources for the wildlife of the Preserve.

2) DFG will immediately submit a proposal to the NPS to restore at least 12 big game guzzlers or wells in the eastern part of the Preserve, near the Lanfair Valley area. These wells were removed by ranchers who sold their ranches and grazing allotments to the Preserve, leaving the area devoid of much of the water that wildlife has relied upon for decades to survive. The NPS agreed to review the proposal without delay.

3) This collaboration to prepare guidelines will not prevent work from continuing in the interim period nor will it prohibit the volunteer efforts of organizations like SCI.

At this time, SCI welcomes input from other organizations and individuals throughout the region who, like SCI, seek to assist in the effort to maintain water for wildlife within the Mojave National Preserve. If there are any questions, please contact Ken Schwartz in SCI’s Washington, D.C. office at kschwartz@sci-dc.org.

Safari Club International is the leader in protecting the freedom to hunt and in promoting wildlife conservation worldwide. This chapter driven, nonprofit association is a tireless advocate for the world’s 45 million sportsmen and sportswomen, who, through legal hunting, annually drive more than $1.7 billion in funding to conserve all wild species. For more information, call 520-620-1220 or visit www.scifirstforhunters.org.

Contact:
Rick Parsons
202-543-8733
rparsons@sci-dc.org

Off-Roading Loses Its Way

EDITORIAL
Los Angeles Times

Motorized off-road vehicles, from inexpensive dirt bikes to $100,000 Hummers, provide a sort of unfettered outdoor thrill ride, often in competitive mode. Groups representing off-roaders say their numbers now top 2 million. Families head out to the deserts or mountains for an activity that keeps even the teenagers in the family. For others it's a guy thing, with big toys and great scenery.

The knobby-tired vehicles also rip into wild areas, tearing up native plants and sometimes stripping soil to bedrock. Their engines shred the peace of hikers and campers and frighten animals into remote corners. The question is whether it's still possible to balance motorized fun and environmental preservation.

Many off-roaders spurn the park roads — after all, the name of the pursuit is off-road — to carve an estimated 60,000 miles of renegade trails in national forests. Last month, rangers in Northern California closed 300 acres of the Eldorado National Forest because human feces deposited by off-roaders were a public health hazard.

Off-roaders' visits to national forests have increased sevenfold in less than 30 years, and public land managers haven't kept up. Last month, the U.S. Forest Service finally gave official recognition to the damage caused by off-roading and proposed a rule to keep the vehicles on designated trails.

It was a start, but a weak one. Simple as the task sounds, the Forest Service first must inventory and map existing roads — both official ones and those blazed by off-roaders — then decide which to leave open. Many off-roaders applaud this as well; those who want to do the right thing have little way of knowing which trails are sanctioned or environmentally wise. But the Forest Service has no money for the task and has set itself no deadline. By contrast, California last year funded a five-year effort, joined by conservationists and responsible off-roaders, to help the Forest Service map routes in the state's national forests. But preserving national forest land shouldn't be the states' burden.

The attitude of many off-roaders is that, as their numbers grow, they deserve more trails and access within the finite acreage of state and federal lands. The Bureau of Land Management wrongly complied last month, giving more than 1.3 million acres and 90% of the trails in the northern and eastern Mojave Desert, home to the endangered California desert tortoise. Off-roaders say they'll police themselves. Such self-regulation was a failure in the the Eldorado forest.

Given the toll of off-roading on public resources, this pastime is ripe for serious regulation, including lids on unmuffled noise, along with fees that reflect what off-roading costs the public. Right now, an off-roader pays the same $5 per day as a hiker to use a national forest in Southern California. A rule limiting riders to designated routes will mean nothing if the financially emaciated Forest Service lacks the staff to enforce it.

WILDLIFE IN DESERT THREATENED

San Bernardino Sun

Goffs -- Where there is water in the desert, there is abundant wildlife. Shrikes are catching grasshoppers. You can hear the haunting calls of roadrunners. Coveys of Gambel's quail herd their young under palo verdes to avoid Cooper's hawks.

Where there is no water, the desert is stark. For miles and miles you will see only the animals that don't need water every day to survive the 100-plus degree heat that beats down here throughout the summer. There are only a few of those. Water is desert wildlife's life blood.

Since taking over the East Mojave, the National Park Service has removed more than 100 water sources scattered all over the vast preserve, creating a wildlife wasteland where wildlife once flourished. Most of the water removal has occurred over the past two years as ranchers who have sold their properties have been forced to remove windmills and stock tanks.

The elimination of the water sources was done -- many of us feel -- in direct violation of the preserve's own management plan that mandates that any removal of water be evaluated for its impacts before it is removed. That includes the cattle water that has been used by wildlife for more than 100 years in some cases.

Many of us feel -- after hours of meetings and discussions with preserve management staff -- that the rush to remove water from the preserve has become a vendetta against the hunter-conservation groups who have battled the removal every step of the way.

Hunter groups have argued that the cattle water and the facilities to maintain it should be preserved for two reasons: For its historical importance as part of the cultural history of the preserve, which the park is also supposed to protect, and the incredible value this water has for the majority of the preserve's wildlife.

With activist Cliff McDonald of Needles, I visited 11 windmills and water tanks that had been functioning one to two years ago in the eastern part of the preserve. They were all dry Tuesday and mostly devoid of wildlife.

At one set of windmills, one of the tanks still had some wet soil and perhaps a small puddle of water under a growth of tules. There were at least three large coveys of quail -- 100 to 150 birds -- around the tank. One of the coveys had a hen bird with six chicks. Those chicks were destined to die as the water dried up, and perhaps the adults, too. The nearest water was more than four miles away.

The mind-set that will write a death warrant for huge numbers of wildlife in its haste to "return the desert to its natural state," has to be questioned in its ethics and its reading of the preserve's management plan.

We also visited six small-game guzzlers (which some park staff say they would like to remove) and natural springs, which had plenty of water. The contrast between what we saw near the water and where there once was water was dramatic. The difference in wildlife was the difference between a full and an empty glass of water.

It looks like a park service goal is to kill native wildlife and destroy a major piece of human history of the preserve. Did they document the impact water removal would have on the preserve's wildlife? Were the windmills and water pipelines evaluated for their historical value?

We need a change in the management at the Mojave National Preserve, or even the National Park Service, if this is how wildlife and historical resources are going to be "protected" under this watch. The actions taken are wrong and wrong-headed, and it's time for a change.

Jim Matthews is a freelance writer. His column appears on Thursdays. Readers may write to him at 399 North D Street, San Bernardino, CA 92401, phone at (909) 887-3444 or fax to (909) 887-8180. or e-mail odwriter@earthlink.net

HOT PROPERTIES: Private 'Inholdings' in Federal Preserves

by Jim Carlton
The Wall Street Journal

Schofield, Colo. -- Flanked by snow-capped peaks and straddling valleys of spruce, fir and aspen, the wilderness area know as the High Elk Corridor offers scenery of unsurpassed splendor. Accessible by a four-wheel-drive-only road, the land is almost all government-owned, seemingly untouched except by the forces of nature -- until a traveler comes upon a row of new log cabins, smack in the middle of federal wilderness.

"This is the beginning of back-country sprawl," says Will Rogers, staring at the cabins from a dust-covered van. Mr. Rogers is president of the Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based group that is trying to stop this kind of development inside federal wilderness and other public lands. The problem is that the cabins are perfectly legal.

Partly to help settle the frontier, an 1872 federal mining law created "inholdings" -- tracts of private property situated in the middle of national forests or other public land -- thousands of which are sprinkled throughout the vast public lands of the American West.

Many of the properties, which range in size from 10 acres to 2,000 acres or more, have been passed down from generation to generation, as public lands have grown up around them. Most of the inholdings are so remote they were long deemed unfeasible for major development. But in the past few years, as real-estate prices began ratcheting up as hordes of city dwellers started pursuing mountain retreats, some of the inholdings have become valuable properties.

In many cases, there are few restrictions on the sites, which have guaranteed access through public land by road. Colorado law, which governs the privately owned inholdings in the state, allows up to one building per mining claim, with the average claim handed out in the 1800s amounting to about 10 acres. Conservationists say that even one house per 10 acres could equate to hundreds of homes in a pristine area.

In California, a development of multimillion-dollar homes has sprung up on an inholding inside the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. Called Mirada Estates, the development entails about 109 home sites on about 140 acres of private land.

To prevent a similar development in the High Elk Corridor, the Trust for Public Land so far has helped acquire about 1,000 acres of about 6,000 acres of private inholdings and hopes to buy up about 1,500 acres more.

Not everyone thinks development is a bad thing, though. Here in the High Elk, for instance, a handful of longtime property owners are holding out against the conservation push. The eight or so houses they and others have built are mostly modest, one- and two-story log cabins that the owners constructed as summer-time mountain retreats. No one has sold out to a big developer, so far, although some other property owners have plans to add cabins on their tracts as well.

One reason for their reluctance is an emotional pull to the land. For example, Fred Murray, a 69-year-old geologist from Tulsa, Okla., says he won't part with his approximately three acres of lots in one valley because the land has been in his family for nearly a century. His is one of the cabins that have sprung up there over the past 10 years, and he has also pushed for Gunnison County officials to pave the road from Crested Butte to make access easier. "They [the conservationists] are trying to push people like us out," says Mr. Murray, who has been coming to his family's wooded property in the High Elk since a toddler.

But Trust for Public Land officials say they fear too much cabin building, and road upgrading, would pave the way for bigger development, such as multimillion-dollar "ranchettes" that would ruin the wild nature of the corridor. So they are following the strategy, as they have around Yellowstone and other places around the West, of buying land to later sell back to the federal government.

In so doing, the trust has teamed with an unlikely partner, a ski resort, among others. In 1997, the Crested Butte Mountain Resort -- which recently changed ownership -- had joined with two local conservation outfits, the Crested Butte Land Trust and the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, to buy nearly half of the 106 buildable lots in Schofield, an 1800s mining camp that is now a ghost town. Previously, the resort had been criticized by environmentalists for its development around Crested Butte, itself a former mining town.

Part of the resort's concern is economic, because places like the High Elk are a major tourist attraction. Besides the scenery, the area is historically significant, having hosted not only legions of pick-and-shovel miners but also former President Ulysses S. Grant.

"If we started losing some of those special areas like the High Elk, it could really dry up our tourism economy," says Jim Starr, a Gunnison County commissioner who sits on the board of the Crested Butte Land Trust.

Indeed, Bill and Beverly Selby from Rogers, Ark., break their red Jeep after four-wheeling down a notoriously tough pass known as the "Devil's Punchbowl," and express shock at the prospect of the surrounding High Elk being bulldozed over. "If we could vote against development here, we would," says Mrs. Selby, who runs an embroidery shop with her husband.

By themselves, the local preservation groups around Crested Butte say they didn't have the financial wherewithal to protect the High Elk, which contains millions of dollars of inholdings. That changed, though, after a chance vacation visit to Crested Butte in 1999 by a Denver resident named Doug Robotham.

At the time, Mr. Robotham had recently been appointed head of Trust for Public Land's Colorado office, and recalls David Baxter, a friend with the Crested Butte Land Trust telling him about the threat to the High Elk. Having backpacked in the area as a boy, Mr. Robotham says he was astonished to find cabins when he hiked back out to investigate. "So I said, 'Let's look at conserving this whole valley,'" Mr. Robotham recalls, kicking a rock as he walks down a dirt road that winds through one of the valleys.

The High Elk was far more complex, though, than most of the 250 or so inholding transactions the trust negotiates each year. With about 260 property owners, the trust faced having to negotiate potentially dozens of deals. So the trust, in 2000, used digital mapping to focus on the lots they considered the most likely to be developed, because of their terrain and other factors.

In all, the groups think they will need about $6.5 million to make all their acquisitions. So far, they have raised about $3 million from public and private sources, and are using the money to persuade owners to part with their properties. Some have needed little convincing, because, they, too, want the land preserved.

"It was the family's desire to keep the land pristine," Judy J. McGill, a real-estate broker in nearby Crested Butte, Colo., says of a Texas-based family's decision to let her sell 40 acres of High Elk land to the trust for $125,000.

Federal land managers say they welcome such deal making as a way to help keep the backcountry wild. U. S. Forest Service officials, for example, say they are long wanted to protect the High Elk, in part, because the corridor sits between two wilderness areas: The Raggeds and Maroon Bells-Snowmass. Foresters worry that too much development could disrupt wildlife migration patterns, such as for the plentiful elk, as well as soil clear-running streams.

But the government hasn't had the time or resources to try negotiating for the multitude of land transfers needed here. "They [the Land Trust for Public Land] really did us a huge favor," says Martha Ketelle, supervisor of the local White River National Forest, "in terms of taking on this project."

The Fight Over the Roadless Rule

by Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren
Cato Institute

The Bush administration set-off a political firestorm on July 12 when it announced that the Clinton administration's rule blocking road construction on 60 million acres of U.S. Forest Service lands will soon go up in smoke. The Bush administration plans to replace it with a regime that essentially allows a state's governor, in consultation with the U.S. Forest Service, to decide how much logging will occur on federal forest lands in that state. While environmentalists predictably went berserk and conservatives naturally applauded the re-embrace of states rights, both camps are increasingly lost in the intellectual woods.

For their part, the environmental lobby is brazenly rewriting history by suggesting that the National Forests are primarily there to save trees from the woodsman's axe. As environmentalist icon Gifford Pinchot, the first director of the U.S. Forest Service, wrote in a speech for Teddy Roosevelt in 1901, "Forest protection is not an end in itself; it is a means to increase and sustain the resources of our country and the industries which depend on them." In short, the National Forests were created not to dance in but to cut in (the reason, by the way, that the Forest Service is an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and not the U.S. Department of the Interior). Public ownership was embraced because, back then, politicians were convinced that scientific management of the forests by federal rangers could maximize timber yields over the long run.

Environmentalists are also on shaky ground when they decry the environmental damage done by logging in the West. America's appetite for furniture, hardwood floors, houses, etc., isn't going to go away just because the trees won't be coming from California or Alaska. Logging will simply shift from the American West to forestlands abroad. While it's perfectly alright to be more concerned about environmental quality in the United States than in, say, Indonesia, we're not sure environmentalists fully appreciate the tradeoff they're embracing.

Republicans embracing this new rule are not much better. Administration defenders, for instance, often cite the need for more harvesting on federal lands in order to keep timber prices from spiraling out of control. But again, we can just as easily get the timber from abroad as from here at home. In fact, during the Clinton administration, timber prices fell through the floor even while a chunk of land the size of the state of Oregon was put off-limits to the timber industry for the very first time.

Another oft-heard Republican argument is that much of the land in question is undoubtedly more valuable as a wood-producing zone than for recreational or conservationist uses. But how do they know that? The only way to ascertain whether a scarce resource is better used for this rather than for that is to consider prices and consumer willingness to pay for those alternative uses of the resource. Because public land is kept out of the marketplace, prices don't exist and consumer preferences are never put to the test. Accordingly, there's no way to test the assertion.

Leaving those decisions primarily to the nation's governors rather than to federal bureaucrats does not make intelligent decision-making any easier. All it does is transfer the venue of the fight over extraction versus conservation to about 12 western state capitals. Accordingly, we can't help but suspect that the real policy objective behind this new rule is to transfer such fights to political playing fields where environmentalists are typically weaker and industry is politically stronger.

None of this, then, is really about how to most efficiently use federal lands. Environmentalists primarily care about protecting as much land from development as is humanly possible. Republicans primarily care about ensuring that rural westerners -- primarily Republicans -- have jobs, particularly jobs in the timber industry.

It's time to find our way out of these dark woods. Wanting to protect forests from the axe is fine. Wanting the general public to subsidize your preferences is not. Wanting a job in the timber industry is likewise fine. Wanting the general public to deny others the right to their preferences in order to secure that job is not.

The original mission of the National Forests is no longer operative and the original justification for the National Forest Service is no longer defensible. Maintaining such huge volumes of federal land in such political enclaves guarantees that forests will be managed by political rather than economic or ecological criteria. Caring about the health of our nations forests -- both as an ecological preserve and as an economically valuable resource -- demand reconsideration of public ownership.

Transients blamed for Bowling Alley fire

A house engulfed in flames near Balboa Place in Needles is shadowed by dark smoke clouds.

By MICA THOMAS MULLOY
News West / Needles Desert Star

NEEDLES — Transients are blamed for igniting a wild fire that charred 60 acres of land and destroyed a house near the Colorado River on June 29, a fire spokeswoman said. What is being called the Bowling Alley fire erupted just before 5 p.m. behind an abandoned bowling alley on Balboa Place near the Needles Highway.

The fire quickly spread through heavy brush east toward the river and north and south, threatening residential areas and taking down one house, a shed, trees, desert vegetation, fences and utility lines in its path.

At about 5:30 p.m. flames jumped the river and started spot fires along the Arizona riverbanks. However, those flames reportedly burned themselves out before spreading.

While the exact cause of the blaze is not yet known, fire investigators determined it originated from “transient activity” in the brush behind the abandoned building, said Tracey Martinez, San Bernardino County Fire Department public information officer.

A total of 94 fire personnel responded to the scene along the Colorado River from as far away as Fontana, Calif. By 7 p.m., they had the fire largely controlled and were pushing the blaze toward the Colorado River, said Don Fisher, Fort Mojave Mesa Fire Department public information officer.

“There are several areas where they are actually backfiring it back to the river to burn the fuel down, so a lot of the fire you see has been intentionally set by the fire departments,” Fisher said the night of the blaze.

Specially trained wildland strike teams and bulldozers, along with firefighters and equipment from eight Arizona and California fire departments, were used to control the flames. The fire was completely contained at 11:45 p.m., Martinez said.

The fire was originally under the command of Mohave Valley Fire Department Chief Mel Sorenson. Command was transferred to the San Bernardino County Fire Department at about 7:30 p.m.

San Bernardino County Fire Capt. Tom Marshall said some residences from the Fort Mojave Tribal Village were evacuated as a precaution. Martinez said all of the residents were allowed to return to their homes by early Wednesday morning.

A house near the bowling alley was destroyed in the fire’s path and another nearby home was also exposed to the flames.

Ruth and Philip Neal own the partially-burned home. They said crews reported they were able to save the house along with several others in the area, but they watched their neighbors’ home completely burn. “Hers is completely gone,” Ruth Neal said. “There’s just nothing left, just a shell.”

Needles historian Maggie McShan owns a building near the fire and said it was burning mostly in the Needles Lagoon area. “It’s a disastrous fire as far as wildlife is concerned,” McShan said. However, the historian also said this is not the first fire in the area and in 1992 a larger fire in the Lagoon destroyed three buildings.

Firefighting crews from San Bernardino County, Mohave Valley, Fort Mojave Mesa, Oatman, Golden Shores, Lake Havasu City, Bullhead City, Arizona Fish and Game and Arizona State Fire all responded to the scene.

Park service works on exhibits

By KELLY DONOVAN/Staff Writer
Desert Dispatch

A historic depot once that was bustling with train travelers more than a century ago could be filled with sounds of tourists learning about the desert before the year's end.

The National Park Service hopes to open the Kelso Depot as a visitor's center for the Mojave National Preserve later this year, park service spokeswoman Holly Bundock said last week.

The depot in the heart of the Mojave National Preserve underwent an extensive renovation effort starting in mid-2002. The park service is now working on the exhibits for the center, Bundock said.

When it opens, Kelso Depot will welcome tourists to the national parkland with various exhibits, information, literature, an educational area for children and a theater for park-related videos. Also, the Beanery, a diner in the depot, has been restored to its 1920s state, and will be open for business when the visitor's center is done.

In its heyday, the Kelso Depot was a stop for rail travelers on their way between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. During the 19th century, it also offered a telegraph office and a community center for residents of the Kelso community.

The restoration cost about $4.5 million, much of which was secured by Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands.

In other Mojave National Preserve news, the National Park Service hasn't yet removed the cross that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declared unconstitutional earlier this month because it hasn't yet received the official written order from the court.

After receiving it, however, the park service will likely need to take down the cross to comply with the ruling -- unless the U.S. Justice Department seeks a stay while deciding whether to appeal the case. Making that decision could take months.

The U.S. Solicitor General's Office is doing research on the Mojave Cross case to determine whether to appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Department spokesman Blain Rethmeier said last week. The Solicitor General's Office handles the federal government's cases that go before the Supreme Court.

Cross in Mojave Desert Preserve Barred

9th Circuit Agrees 'War Memorial' Violates Separation of Church and State



Made of two metal pipes welded together and painted white, above, the cross in the Mojave National Preserve operated by the National Park Service has been covered by a tarpaulin, right, since the American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government to have it removed. (Christine Wetzel -- Las Vegas Review-Journal Via AP)

By Kimberly Edds
Special to The Washington Post

LOS ANGELES -- A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court decision that a large white cross sitting on federal land in the Mojave desert violates the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state and should be removed.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the National Park Service in 2001 on behalf of a retired park employee. A federal judge sided with the ACLU and ordered the cross, in the Mojave National Preserve near the California-Nevada border, be taken down.

The Department of Justice appealed the lower court's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Rather than remove the cross, the Park Service threw a large tarp over the structure while the case was in court.

Monday's opinion did not specify whether the cross should be removed immediately or could remain covered if the case is appealed to the Supreme Court.

"The [9th Circuit] said this case is really quite simple. Using a sectarian religious symbol is not permissible on federal land," Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, said. "Sometimes you just have to hit them over the head three, four or five times."

A spokesman for the Justice Department said attorneys are reviewing the ruling to determine whether to appeal.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars erected a cross in 1934 in memory of those who fought and died in World War I. A plaque explaining the cross's purpose was placed at the foot of the structure, but the sign disappeared long ago.

After being nearly destroyed several times, the cross -- originally two pieces of wood nailed together and planted in the desert -- has been changed several times. The latest version is made of two metal pipes welded together and painted white.

Officially designated as a war memorial by Congress, the cross has also been the site of Easter sunrise services over the years. In 1999, the National Park Service denied a request to build a Buddhist religious symbol near the cross.

Eliasberg scoffed at the government's argument that the site is a war memorial. "That doesn't honor Muslim veterans, Jewish veterans, atheist veterans or agnostic veterans," Eliasberg said. "It's a preeminent symbol of a religion. If we want to have a war memorial on federal land, the government certainly knows how to do that without using a divisive sectarian religious symbol."

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) crafted a plan to keep the cross in place by transferring the patch of land where the cross sits to the VFW in exchange for five acres of privately owned land elsewhere in the preserve. The legislation was approved earlier this year, but the transfer has not been completed.

Because the land transfer would put the cross on private, not public, land, the government argued that the issue of separation of church and state is moot, and urged the court not to rule in the case.

But Circuit Court Judge Alex Kozinski, who wrote Monday's opinion, said the transfer could take years to complete and provisions in the legislation could allow the land to be transferred back to the government, putting the cross back on public land.

"This case is not yet moot and may not be for a significant time, as defendants conceded that the land transfer could take as long as two years to complete," Kozinski said in a 14-page opinion.

A spokesman for Lewis said the lawmaker would support an appeal to the Supreme Court, but he hopes the land transfer would make that unnecessary.

The ACLU has also challenged the constitutionality of the land swap.

Appeals Court Backs Ruling That Desert Cross Is Unconstitutional

Earlier panel had said symbol in the Mojave Preserve violated the 1st Amendment.

Henry Sandoz, shown with his wife, Wanda, in 2000, has been taking care of the Mojave Desert cross since 1983. A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that the symbol violates the establishment cause of the U.S. Constitution. (Gina Ferazzi / LAT)

By Eric Malnic, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that a large white cross in the middle of the Mojave National Preserve violates the U.S. Constitution.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena "took a look at this issue and concluded that the case couldn't be clearer; a religious symbol on government property violates the Constitution," said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney for the ACLU of Southern California. "At every level, the courts have rightly agreed with this principle."

In July 2002, responding to a suit by the American Civil Liberties Union to have the cross removed, a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles held that the presence of the 5-foot-tall Mojave Desert cross on federal land near the Nevada border was unconstitutional. The establishment clause of the 1st Amendment requires the separation of church and state.

The painted metal cross stands on a rocky slope called Sunrise Rock, about 11 miles south of Interstate 15. The cross was erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1934 to honor veterans of World War I.

The lower court's ruling in the ACLU's favor was appealed by a group that included Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, Jonathan Jarvis, director of the Interior Department's Pacific West Region, and Mary Martin, superintendent of the national preserve.

In the months that followed, Congress enacted legislation, sponsored by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), requiring the Department of the Interior to transfer the land on which the cross sits to a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post in exchange for a privately owned 5-acre parcel elsewhere in the preserve.

The appellants then argued that because of the impending transfer of the property to private ownership, the constitutional issues were moot and the appellate court should not render a decision on them.

But Appellate Judge Alex Kozinski, who wrote Monday's opinion, disagreed.

"This case is not yet moot and may not be for a significant time, as defendants conceded that the land transfer could take as long as two years to complete," Kozinski wrote.

He also noted that the legislation authorizing the swap contains provisions under which the land could be returned to federal ownership.

Still unanswered, he said, is the question whether the presence of a religious symbol on formerly public land transferred to private ownership still violates the Constitution.

Religious symbols are not unknown on national parkland.

The Chapel of Transfiguration was allowed to remain at Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming after it was found to be a structure of historical significance.

A National Park Service study determined that the Mojave cross, which began life as two wooden planks and is now made of metal pipe, has changed over the years and lacks historical significance.

Last week, Los Angeles County supervisors decided to remove the tiny gold cross from the county seal rather than defend it against a threatened ACLU lawsuit. Advised by county lawyers that the cross on the seal might not withstand a court challenge, supervisors followed the lead of the city of Redlands, which agreed to remove a cross from its logo after the ACLU threatened legal action.

County Speaks Out on RS-2477 Road Issues

By COREY BLUEMEL
Emery County Progress

As a result of a lawsuit filed by USA-All against Emery County, officials, some who have been involved in the roads dispute for nearly 25 years, were on hand to present an explanation of the county's stance to the citizens of Emery County.

Patrick Gubbins, from the Bureau of Land Management, was first to address the crowd. He covered the development of the route designation plan put out by the BLM. " I will say one thing, working in the public sector for 28 years and having worked with numerous county officials, it has been a pleasure working with Emery County. They are a very progressive county."

Gubbins went on to explain that when he took over the Price Field Office, there were two separate resource areas. One was the Price resource center and the other was the San Rafael resource center. There were two separate management plans, so it was undertaken to combine the plans as the offices were combined into the Price Field Office. It was Gubbins' goal to develop a route designation plan within five years. Eleven years later, the plan was implemented in the spring of 2003.

During the process of development, the BLM took more than 12,000 comments from the public into consideration for development of the resource management plan. With 1,200 miles of trails in approximately one million acres of land, the process was lengthy. In the plan, 688 miles of roads are designated for motorized use. Gubbins stated that the plan does not settle the RS-2477 situation and that the BLM will honor the outcome of the RS-2477 decisions.

Sheriff Lamar Guymon was next. He said that the county has wanted an officer on the San Rafael for many years, but because of the lack of funding, putting a deputy out there has not been possible. In the past few years, offers of funding have come about, but the funds have not materialized.

The BLM came forward with the proposition and funding for an officer and as a result, an officer was assigned to patrol the San Rafael. No place in the contract does it allow the officer to enforce federal statutes, only state and county laws and ordinances. The deputy's main duty is to educate the users and hand out information and maps. To date, the officer has handed out more than 500 packets of tourist information and educated those visitors to the area. Very few citations have been written, and those were, as the contract states, only for state and county law violations.

Sheriff Guymon also stated that having an officer present on the Swell has been very beneficial to all concerned, the county as well as the BLM. By patrolling on a daily basis, the officer can note any damage to land or signs, and notify the proper entity. The deputy keeps all parties informed about conditions and happenings on the Swell.

Mark Ward, from the Utah State Attorney General's Office, department of public lands and natural resources, was next. Ward is the supervisor of the team of attorneys involved in the RS-2477 project. He also represents counties on public lands issues. "From our perspective, Emery County has done an outstanding job in the RS-2477 project," Ward said.

Ward went on to say that most of the process is extremely confidential with the anticipation of litigation. "Emery County has been very thorough in everything connected with these issues. It has been a massive undertaking to collect the data necessary to assert rights to these roads. Emery County has not lagged and they have done everything the attorney general's office has asked of them," said Ward.

RS-2477 is a vested claim by virtue of a federal mining statute. That vestiture occurred upon the completion of roads, no one ever thought to record when the roads came into being. In 1976, Congress enacted the Federal Lands Policy Management Act and FLPMA effectively repealed the effectiveness of RS-2477. The claims that are being asserted under RS-2477 now have to be documented as being constructed prior to Oct. 21, 1976.

The RMP is not a formal tool to settle the road claims and is only a part of the transportation plan. These contested roads may or may not be RS-2477 roads, but the county will continue to assert its rights and insert the RS-2477 roads into the plan. Emery County has reserved those rights in the management plan.

Ray Petersen, Emery County Public Lands Director, explained to the group that his goal was to demonstrate the consistency of the county in this situation and its relationship with the BLM. With the signed memorandum of understanding, Emery County maintains cooperating agency status.

Petersen read portions of the letters written by the county and his predecessor, Val Payne, concerning the roads and trails in the Swell. Emery County representatives have attended every meeting held on these road issues and they continue to assert their position that they will not give up roads. "Emery County has, and will continue to pursue their rights, they do not intend to let them fall by the wayside," said Petersen. "Emery County has spent more that $100,000 documenting their ownership of the roads. Margaret McMullin has countless letters, personal histories, video taped histories, photographs, and she has also spent thousands of hours collecting the documentation to substantiate Emery County's claim to these roads," said Petersen.

Dennis Worwood expressed to the audience the necessity to work with the attorney general's office and go through the process as their strategy indicates. "I have been involved with public road issues for 25 years. I am the only surviving member of the original public lands council, and this is my last six months," said Worwood.

"Some of the assertions of the law suit are just not true. The county cannot ignore what their attorney says to do, they cannot be vigilantes in this road war. Other counties have removed barricades and taken down signs, and also graded roads. Although Emery County is not doing those things, they are not standing idly by and doing nothing. Emery County's attorney has advised them to stay the course of the strategy.

"This road war is being fought on three fronts, the legislative, the judicial and the executive branches. The San Rafael Swell is the poster child for the Utah Wilderness Coalition who wants to designate 49.5 percent of Emery County as wilderness. Emery County is very active and involved in this fight. Emery County cannot ignore the advice of the attorney general's office and do what USA-All wants," added Worwood.

Agency claims home of woman

By CHUCK MUELLER, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

IVANPAH - A whitewashed bungalow in this old desert mining town southeast of Mountain Pass holds a lifetime of memories for Connie Connelly.

But the National Park Service says the 44-year-old woman, who came to Ivanpah with her parents in 1968, must leave the house by Friday.

The six-room cinder block dwelling, once a general store that stocked provisions for desert prospectors, is on federal land in the Mojave National Preserve, park officials said.

Connie's parents, Don and Pauline Connelly, were issued lifetime leases to live in the house by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which administered the area before the park service took over in 1994. But the documents did not include their daughter's name.

"But it has been my home since I was 8, and all my memories are there," said Connie, who shares the five-acre site with 12 dogs, a cat and a horse.

Her father, a former sheriff's deputy in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, died in 1990 at age 80. Her mother died last year at age 81 after a long illness that had required the family to move to Newberry Springs to be closer to medical care. While they were away from Ivanpah, another family occupied the house, and the Connellys had to buy it back for $8,000.

PAPERWORK PROBLEMS

"It appears that the bureau did not update the lease after it was granted to the parents in 1986," said Jennifer Foster, co-founder of Public Lands for Public Use, a 6-year-old watchdog group that investigates the use and misuse of public land.

As a consequence, Connelly does not possess a current lease or title to the land where the bungalow sits, said Chief Park Ranger Dennis Ziemann.

Without the lease, she is residing illegally on federal land, Ziemann said in a March 18 letter to Connelly that demands she leave the 71-year-old house.

"Failure to comply will result in criminal prosecution and removal of all property on the premises," Ziemann said.

That could mean the park service intends to tear down the house, which qualifies as a historic site because of its age, Foster fears.

"When a structure is over 50 years old, it could be eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places," said desert historian Dennis Casebier.

STANDING FOR HISTORY

Public Lands for Public Use plans to stand at Connelly's side on Friday and over the weekend and longer if necessary, said Foster's husband, Ken, who co-founded the group with his wife.

The Fosters filed a notice of intent Monday to appeal the issue in Connelly's behalf with the U.S. Department of Interior's Board of Land Appeals, claiming the BLM's legal description for the bungalow site is inaccurate.

"The coordinates cited in the bureau's lifetime lease of 1986 are wrong," Jennifer Foster said. "The lease says the house is in Section 32 of Township 15, but it really is in Section 31."

"Accordingly, the Bureau of Land Management may never have had the right to charge the Connelly family for a lease in the first place," Jennifer Foster said. "The federal government may owe Connie a ton of money."

"The bureau later corrected the erroneous section numbers, but the coordinates are still wrong. Her house isn't where the lease says it is. It's a mile away, across the (Union Pacific) railroad tracks on patented (private) land."

Documents in the San Bernardino County Recorder and Assessor's offices show that Connelly holds possessory rights to the house, and her tax payments are current.

Ziemann said Connelly has refused to comply with procedures that would allow the park service to provide her with relocation assistance.

Mary Martin, superintendent of the 1.6 million-acre national preserve, told Jennifer Foster in an April 5 letter that she wants to see "a positive resolution to this issue."

"(But) all the information in our records and those of (the) county and Bureau of Land Management clearly indicate that Ms. Connelly is illegally occupying federal land."

A PRICE FOR MEMORIES

Martin could not be reached for further comment this week, but park service spokeswoman Holly Bundock in Oakland said, "We've offered Connie Connelly relocation costs, including rent for 2 years and moving costs. In lieu of rent, we would buy a like house somewhere else. But she has declined that."

Connelly acknowledges she met with Martin and a park service real estate official Jan. 7.

"They wanted me to file a disclaimer and sign it over to them," she said. "They offered me $3,000 to relocate. But you can't put value on your childhood home. You can't put a price on memories."

The diminutive woman, who claims Mandan and Sioux tribal heritage, lives on occasional sales of her watercolor paintings and from jobs as a horseshoer and store clerk.

Her Spartan surroundings at the 2,400-square-foot bungalow include a wood stove and oil lamps. She hauls water from Nipton, 17 miles away, in two 55-gallon drums mounted in the bed of her 1973 Ford pickup. And every six weeks she shops for groceries in Nipton or in Searchlight, Nev.

When mid-summer temperatures climb to 110 degrees, Connelly turns on a generator to power a couple of fans in the bungalow.

"I'm not fussy about anything," she said. "It's not necessary to have a new wardrobe or newfangled gadgets."

The eviction controversy has sparked interest in Washington and Sacramento.

"We are aware of the situation," said Jim Specht, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, who represents the east Mojave. "He has asked his staff to look into it."

State Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, who represents some San Bernardino County desert areas, said he was told by a Lewis staff member that the congressman would work with local officials to ensure the issue is resolved consistent with the law and that due process is followed.

Bob Smith, area representative for county 1st District Supervisor Bill Postmus, said he has asked a survey team to study the coordinates to determine if the bungalow is on private or public land.

"If it's on private land, we would intervene to determine the legality of a federal agency being involved," Smith said.

Connelly's five acres lie within a 40-acre tract that was privately patented under the Homestead Act, according to an original land patent signed on March 7, 1912, by President William Howard Taft.

"Accordingly, the Bureau of Land Management may never have had the right to charge the Connelly family for a lease in the first place," Jennifer Foster said. "The federal government may owe Connie a ton of money."

State Wants Firms to Get Share of Water Funds

Critics say 2-year-old Prop. 50 allows only nonprofits and public agencies to benefit.

By Nancy Vogel, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

SACRAMENTO - California health officials are preparing to reverse a long-standing state policy by letting private companies tap voter-approved water bond money that has historically been restricted to public water districts.

Several public agencies and consumer groups are fighting the move, arguing that voters had no indication that for-profit firms might benefit when they passed Proposition 50, a $3.4-billion water bond measure, two years ago.

State health officials are just now drafting rules for dividing up the Proposition 50 money and are being heavily lobbied to make sure procedures allow private firms to compete for shares. The firms gained the support last year of a key lawmaker who presides over state water issues.

"We have a multifaceted water system in California that runs the gamut from public to private," said state Sen. Mike Machado (D-Linden), who heads the Senate Agriculture and Water Resources Committee. "So we have to try to deal with all aspects of it."

Officials at the state Department of Health Services say they are inclined to agree. Next week the department is expected to complete guidelines that will allow private companies to compete for $485 million in Proposition 50 money.

Machado said he would try to make sure the rest of the bond money was similarly available to investor-owned companies.

In 2002, proponents heralded Proposition 50 as a way to protect, expand and clean California's water supplies and to preserve river parkways and wetlands. The official state voter guide included the statement that bond money "would be available for expenditure by various state agencies and for loans and grants to local agencies and nonprofit associations."

Previous water bond measures in California, including those passed in 2000 and 1996, limited grants of the bond money to public agencies and nonprofit groups, although private companies have been able to get loans through a fund for safe drinking water.

"Water in California is enshrined in our state Constitution as a public trust," said Juliette Beck, coordinator of the "Water for All" campaign of Public Citizen, a national nonprofit consumer advocacy group. "We think it's imperative that public funds go to support public water systems and never end up in the coffers of multinationals or private companies, period."

Officials with the private water companies, however, argue that their customers are taxpayers too, and therefore should be entitled to the benefits of a statewide bond issue that all taxpayers will be paying back over the next 25 years.

"Twenty percent of the state's population is served by these utilities; everybody pays for the bonds, so everybody should be able to compete fairly," said Christine Frahm, a lobbyist for Southern California Water Co. in San Dimas. The company would like to use Proposition 50 money to help pay for the replacement of main water pipes in Norwalk and Artesia, she said.

Stan Ferraro, a vice president with California Water Service Co., which serves 460,000 people from Los Angeles to Chico from its headquarters in San Jose, is also interested in getting Proposition 50 grants for his company. He said state aid would help keep customer rates from rising.

"It purely is saving our ratepayers from us having to go out and borrow the money," Ferraro said.

But public agencies and consumer advocates argue that taxpayer-financed water bonds should not be used to aid investor-owned companies, some of which are subsidiaries of large, European-based corporations. There is not enough money available to pay for all the worthy projects sought by public agencies, they argue.

The state health department's original draft guidelines on distributing Proposition 50 money banned private water company applications.

But the agency reversed itself after private water firms — which have spent more than $800,000 on lobbying in 2003 and so far in 2004 — stated that the Proposition 50 language passed by voters did not unequivocally restrict the money to public agencies.

"Unless there's some specific section that prohibits the funding to go to private entities, since the private enterprises provide water to consumers and it improves water quality, our read of it is, it's acceptable," said Rufus Howell, assistant chief of the department's Division of Drinking Water and Environmental Management.

That position is supported by a legal opinion issued Feb. 27 by the state legislative counsel's office at Machado's request.

Unlike previous water bond measures, Proposition 50 was not written by the Legislature, but largely by Joe Caves, a Sacramento attorney who has worked for various environmental groups. Many lawmakers, as well as public and private water purveyors, supported the bond issue, and private water companies donated $52,500 to the "Yes on 50" campaign.

"We didn't put in a prohibition," Caves said. "We just didn't speak to the issue."

Last year, Machado introduced a bill that would make private water companies eligible to tap Proposition 50 funds.

His bill would also open the bond money to mutual water companies, which are not-for-profit water districts owned by customers.

Machado said the bill had nothing to do with the $25,000 in campaign contributions he accepted last year from private water companies, including $20,000 from Southern California Water.

"It's a question of health and safety," he said. Many private water companies serve poor communities, he said, especially in eastern Los Angeles County and the southern Central Valley. "I realized we weren't addressing the needs of all the constituents who were supporting the bonds."

Machado's bill is stalled in the Assembly, but he said it was no longer necessary, given the pending health department guidelines for distributing bond money. He said he would try to ensure that the Department of Water Resources, State Water Resources Control Board and other bond-disbursing agencies that have yet to write guidelines would also allow private water companies to compete for the money.

The health department's proposed guidelines are less restrictive than Machado's bill. His legislation includes provisions to ensure that the California Public Utilities Commission prevent private companies from earning a profit from any bond-funded improvements, such as a water treatment plant. The PUC regulates 144 investor-owned water companies and sets the rates they can charge.

Public water agency officials expressed concern that mere administrative rules would be more lax than what Machado proposed.

The senator expressed certainty that the PUC would oversee the use of any bond money a private company might be awarded and guarantee that shareholders and corporations would not profit from it.

But PUC officials have yet to determine how they will deal with the novel situation, said PUC spokeswoman Terrie Prosper.

The issue never arose in the 2002 campaign for Proposition 50, which encountered only minor opposition, from the California Farm Bureau and taxpayer groups resistant to more state borrowing.

Those who represent public water agencies say they have become aware only in the last few weeks that they could be competing with private firms for Proposition 50 money. The Assn. of California Water Agencies has yet to weigh in on the issue.

Jerry Jordan, executive director of the California Municipal Utilities Assn., sent a letter last week to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Health and Human Services Agency secretary warning that the proposed set of guidelines "undermines and contradicts long-standing state policy."