el paisano fall 2008 #202

8/8/2019 El Paisano Fall 2008 #202

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P.O. Box 3635, San Diego, CA 92163-1635 Phone: (619) 342-5524 Website:www.dpcinc.org

Fall 2008 Editor: Larry Hogue Number 202

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

A MAN FOR SOME SEASONS

I have never claimed to be your usual, run-of-the-mill kind of

guy—just ask my wife. Whenever something is “in style,” I

hate the notion of doing, owning or wearing it. Moreover, I ama bit of a Luddite, someone who instinctively abhors the latest

invasion of technology into our daily lives, especially electronic

devices. I yearn for the good ol’ days of simpler times and a

reduced pace of life. Heck, I don’t even own a cell phone! And

Twitter? What’s that?

Maybe that’s the attraction of the desert landscape to

fellows like me; it is a place often shunned by most members of

our urbanized society as too hot, barren, lonely or just plain

dangerous. Yes, confirmed desert rats like me (and you dear

DPC members) are clearly an eccentric bunch. Somehow, we

LIKE those endless vistas of dusty, brown mountains on the

horizon with no evidence of humanity in between. We seek outrugged canyons filled with bare boulders and a silence as sweet

as a Mozart symphony. We actually enjoy the sight of bizarre-

looking lizards, as symbols of throwbacks to earlier reptilian

eras long before humankind entered the picture. A queer fasci-

nation with barbed and other-worldly looking plant life is fur-

ther evidence of this desert affliction. Although denying it hotly

when pressed, lots of us resent the evidence of “progress,” that

hallowed and most cherished American ideal, when its incur-

sions sully the desert’s sublime open space and adversely affect

“our” lizards and favorite desert haunts.

Yes we must admit, true desert-lovers, strange as we may

be, that we even deplore summertime, that other American icon

when countless families enter upon that mystical rite: the family

summer vacation. We desert types impatiently wait for summer-

time’s wane and the approach of winter, or at least late autumn.

More specifically, if you live in or near the lower elevation

Sonoran desert of extreme southeastern California and northern

Baja (aka, the “Colorado” desert region), you impatiently await

Halloween. Outdated mystical practices aside, Halloween

signals the beginning of the long-awaited desert hiking and

camping season. Yeah!! It’s time to dust off the hiking boots,

prepare the daypack with the ten essentials or maybe retrieve

the camping gear from the dark recesses of our respective

garages. Those who hang out in the Mojave or Great Basin

deserts of the American southwest are hardly exempt from the

desert bug; DPCers just happen to have a special fascination

with our local representative arid landscape.How can it be that nearly everybody else’s favorite season

– the summer – is the dreaded time of year when desert-lovers

morosely settle for the consolation prize of a beach or a lake or

some forested crag somewhere? I mean, they’re lovely too

(aren’t they?). I have been criticized by some conservation

friends as having some sort of unhealthy bias against these othe

lands, especially my relative distaste for the chaparral hills of

San Diego, which we jokingly call “mountains.” (Where I was

raised in the Rockies, they qualify merely as brushy foothills.)

Come on, those other folks say, every type of landform has

equal merit and its own proper place in Gaia’s plan. When

confronted I, and desert aficionados like me, will sheepishlyrelent and agree that all is as it should be on Mother Earth. Ah,

but under our breath we still sing the praises of our desiccated

desert lands. Poet Richard Shelton said it best: “oh my desert,

yours is the only death I cannot bear.” So, fellow desert-lovers,

having fallen prey to the mysteries of this most often reviled

place, revel in your quiet admiration for the “long brown land

[that] lays such a hold on the affections,” as Mary Austin put it.

Oh yes, and we can talk over our secret preference around

the bend in that next desert canyon somewhere – or at DPC’s

annual meeting, coming up on October 26th. Hope to see you

there!

Nick Ervin, President

There is something infectious about the magic of the

Southwest. Some are immune to it, but there are others

who have no resistance to the subtle virus and who must

spend the rest of their lives dreaming of the incredible

sweep of the desert, of great golden mesas with purple

shadows, and tremendous stars appearing at dusk from a

turquoise sky. Once infected there is nothing one can do

but strive to return again and again.

--H.M. Wormington

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2

CONSERVATION CORNER

By Terry Weiner Conservation & Imperial County Projects Coordinator

As the year progresses toward the Autumnal Equinox, as the

quota of daylight wanes, and the air and sunlight become softer,

I find myself slipping into a meditative mood. September is the

month of my birth and the season of harvest and it has tradi-

tionally been my time of year to reflect upon events and ac-

complishments of the summer. It has become a ritual, a right of

passage into the season of winter. How have you all spent the

halcyon days of this past southern California summer? For

myself, following a weekend-long desert activist meeting in the

White Mountains, I enjoyed a brief interlude of camping in the

Eastern Sierras in early August with my visiting niece from

Massachusetts. For the rest of the summer, the growing on-

slaught of proposals to develop huge energy projects in the

desert commandeered a great deal of my attention.

Our friends in the land management agencies were cer-

tainly not able to take a break this summer because of a flood of

proposals to develop large-scale industrial “renewable” energy

projects on a large swath of our western public lands, in parti-cular in the southwestern deserts. When the Bureau of Land

Management is busy, we conservation groups must become

busy too, because one of our major roles as desert protectors is

to engage with the BLM in helping them craft good, ecologi-

cally sound management plans. This of course requires re-

searching the issues, reviewing documents that are often volu-

minous and technical, such as Environmental Impact State-

ments, and then writing comments as well as participating in

public hearings. The public’s participation in these processes is

critical. One of the important meetings at which I represented

the DPC this past summer was a meeting held in El Centro by

representatives of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior regarding their plan to deal with over 170 proposals to develop huge industrial-

sized solar projects in the California desert. You may have read

about this on our DPC on-line web log (www.desertblog.net).

A concurrent process to these mega-energy proposals for

the desert is the California Energy Commission’s (CEC)

Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI). This is a

statewide project to identify transmission projects that help

meet California’s legislatively mandated, ambitious renewable

energy goals and to decide on where to site them. This initiative

is a collaborative process involving representatives of the CEC,

renewable energy industry people, and environmental group

representatives. One of the goals of the Environmental WorkingGroup of the RETI process is to prioritize areas in the desert for

possible placement of industrial solar and wind developments

based on certain criteria. This process requires vigilance and

close monitoring on our part because the Bush Administration

and the state of California has targeted the desert for production

of thousands of megawatts of electricity.

DPC has contributed comments to the environmental

working group of the RETI process and we have clearly stated

our support for the development of renewable energy with the

following caveats:

• that we first need to focus on conservation and becoming

more efficient in our use of energy

• that development of renewable energy in cities and towns

and other points of use should come before any rush to

build massive energy projects on desert public lands

• that parks, preserves, wildlife refuges, critical habitats, and

other protected areas should be absolutely off-limits to in-

dustrial development, despite its being labeled “renewable

A common misconception about industrial-scale renewabledevelopment, especially solar power, is that it is benign to the

immediate surroundings. For instance, some believe that a solar

farm’s main impact is that it shades the plants and animals liv-

ing underneath the solar collectors. In truth, solar farms usually

scrape the entire project site to provide level terrain. Renewable

development in the desert will destroy all of the natural, cultura

and visual resources within the project area. In some cases,

these impacts extend well beyond the project’s “footprint,”

particularly if it would require building hundreds of miles of

transmission lines to transport the energy produced.

Unfortunately large segments of the American urban pop-

ulation – who have not had the opportunity to learn about or toexperience the wild beauty, the fascinating array of plants and

animals, the awesome quiet and dark skies of the desert –

imagine that the desert is an empty expanse that would provide

a perfect place to meet the nation’s renewable energy needs.

The media have promoted this idea of the desert as wasteland

and some articles have tried to distill the burgeoning outcry

against these large-scale projects down to a case of simple

NIMBY-ism.

Many desert residents and activists have been deliberating

how to respond to the threats and the public perception I have

described above. We decided there is an urgent need to develop

a grassroots voice for the desert from a desert communities’ perspective. I am happy to report that, as a first step toward this

goal, a dozen or so small non-profit desert-oriented

conservation group representatives, environmental justice

groups, desert residents, and property owners met over the

Labor Day weekend in the Coachella Valley and began our

conversation about how to address this major threat to the

integrity of our deserts. (We met at Canyon House, Les and Jeri

Starks’ beautiful, Zen-like high desert retreat in Snow Canyon,

beneath the towering north face of Mt. San Jacinto. A big thank

to the Starks for the use of this vacation rental. More info on

Canyon House: 760-323-4089.)

Over the course of a long day, we aired our individual

groups’ concerns and actions to date and developed goals and a

mission statement. We began developing a group strategy to

inform the public, the media and decision makers of our

intention to protect our desert from gigantic solar and wind

farms and to promote local, point-of-use, low-carbon energy

development as a more economical, less damaging alternative

that can meet California’s aggressive renewable energy goals

equally well. (continued)

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3

Our Mission Statement: “We support sustainable local

energy that contributes to social, economic and ecological

health.” The name of our new group chosen by vote: POWER –

“People Only Wanting Energy Responsibility.” We will be

joining our voice and actions to the voices of people throughout

the California desert and backcountry areas where the threat of

industrial energy infrastructure also looms.

Group members have already leapt into action, with several

of them quoted in a New York Times article on Sep. 24, entitled“Solar Projects Draw New Opposition.” The same article

quoted the Sierra Club’s Carl Zichella, who doubted the

effectiveness of our specific proposal for local, point-of-use

solutions such as rooftop photovoltaic power. Mr. Zichella’s

thinking is very outdated, and it’s unfortunate that it comes

from a Sierra Club representative. While photovoltaic power (or

PV) has long been scoffed at as too expensive and inefficient

compared to “concentrating solar power plants,” that assess-

ment is changing with the advent of “thin-film” PV. Our current

Educational Bulletin reprints an article from Public Utilities

Fortnightly that makes exactly this point. Zichella and other

renewable energy advocates need to catch up to the new solar power landscape, as indeed have Southern California Edison

and PG&E. Both companies have announced huge PV programs

on a scale unheard of before, matching CSP plants in terms of

megawatts produced, and beating them in terms of price.

If you want to participate in this new group’s efforts, please

email me: [email protected] or Donna Charpied of the

Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice

(ccaej) at [email protected]. DPC will need your voice as we

develop and implement our plan of action to promote responsi-

ble renewable energy alternatives and steer these projects away

from the desert. I invite you to share your ideas with me on this

and on your pet desert issues via email, phone or letter.

Meet Howard Wilshire and Jane Nielson,

Authors of The American West at Risk

DPC advisory panel member Howard Wilshire and his wife and

co-author Jane Nielson will appear at two DPC-sponsored book

signings in the Coachella Valley, Oct. 25th

and 28th. The couple

are on a tour in support of their new book, The American West

at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recov

ery, (Oxford Uni. Press, co-authored with Richard W. Hazlett).

Wilshire and Nielson will also be the key note speakers at

DPC’s annual meeting in Twentynine Palms on Oct 26th.

The Saturday, Oct 25th

event will take place from 2:00 to

4:00 p.m., at the Borders Bookstore in Rancho Mirage, Ca,

located at the River Shopping Center, 71800 Highway 111;

Phone: 760-779-1314. For exact location and directions, usethe store locator at www.borders.com.

The Palm Springs Public Library will host a reading on

Tuesday, Oct. 28th, at 6 p.m. The library is located at 300 Sout

Sunrise Way (corner of Baristo). Phone: 760-322-7323.

Website: www.palmspringslibrary.org. Books will not be

available for sale but you can bring your own copy for signing.

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At the end of the Mojave River,

100 miles downhill from mountain woods,

You arrive at this sere topography of white salts,

crusted devil horns, angelic duplexes

of sand dune prayers floating

across the oceanic expanse like tract-home miracles

at the end of ZZYZX Road,

named to create the wordthat would be the last

in the English language dictionary

by a health food preaching, 8th grade dropout

who had three different P.O. Boxes in Baker,

one for his food-supplement business,

one for his Dr. Curtis Springer commentaries

and the other for his skid-row-exile desert resort

where the floodwaters rest their pressures

of cottonwood, pine limbs, suburban garbage

and tangled weeds delivered insanely northward,

to the bottom of a dead inland sea.

Sometimes, after spring floods from the San

Bernardino Mountains

jump Silverwood Lake, squeeze through

the dam at the union of Deep Creek and the old

river channel,

coursing like a vintage roller coaster car

on creaking tracks, Manifest Destiny came

through here,

carrying old bits of wagon boards from Mormon

settlers

who followed a page of Catholic Bible torn from

Father Garces,

who led the minions out of this forsaken zone,

rough men of the wild west, who slaughtered the

stray Pai-Ute

and fished for the Mojave Chub in infrequent pools,

under the bridges on Bear Valley Road, at Mojave

Narrows

outracing heavy, long-winded trains,

beneath I-15 past Barstow, a surprise of heavy river

to travelers racing from Las Vegas

and then on quiet, last lap

through Afton Canyon, where the bones

of Shoshone, woolly mammoth elbows and teethsometimes protrude, silent wiles after you carve away

more of your work

and then your waters pause,

gather prayer-like

in one low mass,

Lake Manix was once your name,

You made the pilgrimage yet again

your life span refracting in a progression

of water to light, and making a pretty show

for the travelers heading west, backtracking

along Interstate 15

towards your snowmelt,

exhausted, below sea level now,

your devotion sinks

into miles of sand,

it’s the old, going-nowhere,

the miners and fortune-seekers who

rode the Tonopah Tidewater Railroad

make their splintered benediction to youleave bits of gold and silver dreams,

the ruins of miner’s shacks and homesteader cabins

scattered along your shores.

Photo by Chris Clark

Hundred-Year Flood

b Ruth Nolan

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OFF-ROAD VEHICLE ISSUES UPDATE

by Terry Weiner

The late 1960s and early ‘70s brought about a burst of popu-

larity of recreational off-road vehicles (ORVs). This boom in

popularity and purchase of ORVs has further expanded in the

past 35 years and sales of an increasing variety of ATVs, dirt

bikes, and sand rails continue to soar. Some new models are

more powerful than old types and able to negotiate all types of

terrain and conditions. The ORV industry and owners of ORVscontinue to pressure our public land managers for more places

to “play.” Their voices are loud and well funded. Our ability to

protect our public and private desert lands from the negative

impacts of off-road recreation is to a great extent contingent

upon the quality of the land management and law enforcement

tools we have available. The legislation that currently regulates

the management of ORVs in California is sadly lacking. The

$50.00 fines for violations such as intrusion into wilderness and

closed areas are laughable. The OHV Grant program allocates

only 20% of the State’s total available grant money for federal

and local law enforcement grants. The total trust fund for ORV

recreation will top $55 million in 2008/09 and of that, $7million or so is earmarked for statewide law enforcement.

One of the ways we can build a stronger voice for protec-

tion of our public and private lands from ORV impacts is to

build a coalition of groups and individuals working on this

issue. In August 2007 I was appointed Chair of the newly

formed ORV Issues Committee of the California/Nevada Desert

Committee of the Sierra Club. The purpose of this committee is

to build a public awareness campaign about the threat to our

natural and cultural resources from ORV recreation, and to build

grassroots support for more effective state legislation to protect

public and private lands from ORV impacts. This campaign has

many facets and we intend to engage other conservation groupsas well as community groups and eventually gain support of

state representatives. Our accomplishments over the past year

include developing a wilderness-monitoring handbook and

planning and participating with the Alliance for Responsible

Recreation in a meeting to discuss ORV problems and solutions

with the BLM Desert District Director and his staff. Senator

Feinstein is taking ORV abuse of the California desert seriously

and she designated her local staff person to facilitate this

meeting. I believe that in wearing this “second hat” of chairing

this ORV Issues committee, I am able to expand upon DPC’s

ORV issues efforts in Imperial County. I want to ultimately

expand and diversify the coalition of stakeholders working on

educating the public on ORV impacts and building support for

more stringent regulation of these vehicles.

This summer the committee crafted two ORV-related

resolutions. The Sierra Club Desert Committee at the August

meeting approved these resolutions unanimously. One of the

resolutions involves working with the Air Resources Board to

urge them to include recreational ORV emissions in their

climate change plan. The second resolution addresses the

components of future ORV legislation, including higher fines

for ORV violations with vehicle impoundment for multiple

offenses, special ORV driver’s licenses, points against one’s

driver’s license for violations, mandatory insurance for ORV

drivers, and full-size vehicle registration numbers (to make it

easier for both law enforcement and citizens to identify

vehicles). At their quarterly meeting of the Sierra Club Regiona

Conservation Committee (CNRCC) the weekend of September

13 2008, both resolutions were passed unanimously and we wil

now be able to move full-steam ahead with expanding our educational outreach and building support within the Sierra

Club.

I would be pleased to hear your suggestions and ideas

related to ORV issues and ideas for what should be included in

future state ORV management legislation, or if you would like

to hear more about the ORV Issues Committee of the Desert

Committee of the Sierra Club.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Comment on OHV Regulations On August 12, 2008, the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking

for the OHMVR Division Grants and Cooperative AgreementsProgram was submitted to the Office of Administrative Law.

The 2008 proposed regulations are currently on the OHMVR

website for your review. The deadline for comments is

Monday, October 6, 2008.

In your comments, please request the changes in ORV

legislation outlined in the article above.

In addition to accepting written comments, the OHMVR

Division will host two public meetings to receive further

comments. The meetings are scheduled in Sacramento on

Tuesday, October 7, 2008 and in San Diego on Thursday,

October 9. Details for the San Diego meeting:

Holiday Inn Express – San Diego Old Town3900 Old Town Avenue, San Diego

(619) 299-7400

6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

For more details, visit the OHMVR Division website:

http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=1164. Or contact

Barbara Greenwood, California State Parks – OHMVRD, 1725

23rd Street, Suite 200, Sacramento, CA 95816; ph: (916) 322-

2651; fax: (916) 324-1610; e-mail: [email protected]

More Desert Issues and Events We’re Following:

• Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan• Peninsular bighorn critical habitat reduction

• 29 Palms Marine Base expansion

• Proposed Ivanpah airport

• Wilderness Monitoring opportunities

• Desert OutingsFor more info on all of these please visit our website (www.dpcinc.org) and our blog(www.desertblog.net).

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DPC’s “Citizen Naturalist” Program: Instilling a

love of the desert in Imperial County’s students

By Pat Flanagan

In his memoir Naturalist, Edward O. Wilson, the great scientist,

naturalist, and explorer with a special love for the small, con-

cludes that “to the degree which we come to understand other

organisms, we will place a greater value on them, and on our-

selves.” Broadsided by

wonder at an early age,Wilson spent hours in soli-

tary watching – anticipating

nature’s monsters quietly

moving through the sloughs

of his backyard waterways.

Because of a childhood eye

injury his “monsters”

necessarily became small –

ants – while his explora-

tions and curiosity seeded a

world-class mind capable of

encompassing the breadth,complexity and order of

nature’s biodiversity. It is

clear that Wilson does not

mean us to build our under-

standing on television docu-

mentaries but on first-hand

exploration, starting very

early in life. Children need to explore, get dirty, blow their

minds with discovery and mystery. The DPC agrees and has

supported Imperial Valley student field trips since 2006. Now,

following a meeting with teachers in 2007, the board is going

the extra step to develop a field trip curriculum for 4 th-6th gradestudents that encourages “dirt time” while also correlating field

trips with the state science framework. (See El Paisano #201.)

Since April of this year I have been working on this

curriculum, called “The Salton Basin’s Living Laboratory Field

Trips.” Before going further let me confess to a personal dream.

I know there is no better way to learn about plate tectonics, fault

zones, mountain building, ancient life, sand dunes, ecosystems,

life cycles, food webs, habitats and adaptations than to look,

touch, smell, walk through, and even slide down the evidence

that proves that what’s in the text book is also real life stuff.

Even better, it’s actually happening where you live! Field work,

while fun, requires a certain discipline. Exploring students are

required to take field notes, to capture their observations for

later reflection and analysis. So here comes the dream – each of

those students, their brains nicked by curiosity, will find them-

selves, who knows when, stunned to stillness, staring in wonder

at what used to be an ordinary sight. A light bulb moment! I also

like to think of them grabbing those field notes, parents, and

sibs and repeating the field trip.

Early in his narrative, Wilson reminds us that it is the Tal-

mud which cautions, “We see things not as they are, but as we

are.” I now live in 29 Palms, north of Joshua Tree National

Park, not San Diego, and when I enter the Salton Sea Basin it is

either from the north, through the Coachella Valley, the apex of

the basin, or from the east through Box Canyon in the Mecca

Hills. Either way, for much of the trip south I am driving in the

San Andreas Fault Zone. Previously, in my San Diego days, I

would arrive at the Salton Sea from the west having traversed

the Peninsular mountain

ranges. Seen against thoseincredibly interesting moun

tains and valleys, the Salton

Basin topography looked

flat – stunningly beautiful,

but flat. That is not how it

is. What was I overlooking?

The short list:

The Salton Basin – its

history, extent, depth, and

regional significance • The

Colorado River through

time • The Colorado River Delta • The beginning of

the San Andreas Fault at

Bombay Beach with its firs

subtle tracks barely visible

Ancient Lake Cahuilla his-

tory and shoreline visibility

• Dos Palmas and Bat Cave

Buttes • The San Andreas Fault bend with the upturned and

twisted seismic effects in the Mecca Hills (Painted and Box

Canyons) • The Brawley Seismic Zone, Salton Buttes Lava

Domes, the Imperial Seismic Zone • The termination of the

East Pacific Rise (active crustal spreading zone beginning near Antarctica), with geothermal fields, boiling mud pots and mud

volcanoes • The Salton Sea State Recreation Area Visitor

Center • Basin sediments three to five miles deep – deeper than

the Grand Canyon • New River Wetlands Project • Algodones

Dunes • Microphyll woodlands and hidden springs • Cultural

and sacred sites throughout the area • A continuous tribal

presence • The new Ocotillo Desert Museum • The fossil

treasures of Anza-Borrego Desert including the marine fossils i

Coyote Mountain • The Fossil Treasures of Anza-Borrego

Desert (Sunbelt Publications) • The life-sized Pleistocene

animal sculptures scattered about on Galleta Meadows Estate

lands in Borrego Springs www.galletameadows.com.

This assignment of helping Imperial Valley students to see

the desert around them has changed how I see. On this earth,

there is no other place like the Salton Sea Basin – literally. It

uniquely connects, breaks, stretches, dips, slides, bubbles,

grows, blooms, floods, blows, buries, and continues to amaze.

In their travels, students will not only experience these obvious

wonderments of the basin; they will also be given opportunities

to look hard for the hidden treasures, treasures that may

reappear in daydreams when least expected.

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7

Senate Committee Approves 3 Wilderness Bills

from the California Wild Heritage Campaign

Approval on September 11 by a key Senate Committee means

legislation to permanently protect wilderness and wild and

scenic rivers in the Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel

Mountains, Riverside County, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon

National Parks is bound for a vote by the full Senate. Together,

the three bills will protect more than 732,000 acres of wilder-

ness and over 80 miles of wild and scenic rivers for futuregenerations to enjoy.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee

voted on and passed the Eastern Sierra and Northern San

Gabriel Wild Heritage Act, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer

(D-CA) and Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), to per-

manently protect 465,000 acres of wilderness and 52 miles of

wild and scenic rivers; the California Desert and Mountain Her-

itage Act, sponsored by Sen. Boxer and Rep. Mary Bono Mack

(R-CA), which will protect more than 190,000 acres as wil-

derness and 31 miles of wild and scenic river in Riverside

County; and the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park

Wilderness Act, sponsored by Sen. Boxer and Rep. Jim Costa(D-CA), to designate some 77,000 acres of wilderness. Our

thanks go to the bills’ sponsors, as well as Senator Dianne

Feinstein (D-CA).

The Senate Committee’s approval was a vital step if the

bills are to pass into law before the 110th Congress adjourns for

the year. The Riverside County bill and the Sequoia-Kings

Canyon bill were both passed in the House of Representatives

June 8, 2008. A vote by the full Senate is all that remains for

these two bills to be passed on for the President’s signature.

The Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage

Act was also approved by the House Subcommittee on National

Parks, Forests and Public Lands. Much work remains to get allthree bills passed by the Senate, and to get the eastern Sierra bill

approved by the House, before the end of this congressional

session. In San Diego and Imperial County, support for current

proposed and future potential federal wilderness and wild river

areas is tracked and coordinated by volunteers working through

a network called ‘Wilderness4All,’ headed up by our own DPC

Board Member, Geoffrey Smith. To learn more and to partici-

pate, visit www.wilderness4all.org.

Wilderness and wild and scenic river designation for these

lands will mean that a wide range of recreational activities will

be allowed, including hunting, hiking, camping, backpacking

and fishing; but that development, such as road building and

motorized access, will not.

DPC is a proud member of:

DESERT PROTECTIVE COUNCIL – WHO WE ARE

Nick Ervin, President

Geoffrey Smith, Vice President/Secretary

Larry Klaasen, Treasurer

Martha Bertles, Fifth Officer

Terry Weiner, Imperial Projects & Conservation Coordinator

Shirley Harshenin, Webmistress – www.nutheadproductions.com

Larry Hogue, Communications Consultant

SUPPORT DPC BY JOINING, RENEWING

OR MAKING A SPECIAL DONATION

Membership in the Desert Protective Council is the best way to

support our desert conservation and education goals. Just fill ou

the form below and mail it in with your check. If you are

already a member, you will now receive a reminder when it’s

time to renew. And if you’re a life member, you do not need to

renew. However, you can always use the form below to send in

an additional donation. Your support ensures that DPC will

remain a strong voice for conservation in all of our deserts.

Much of our current activity is based on projects inImperial County, as required by the settlement of the Mesquite

lawsuit. But these funds cannot be used for many general

operating expenses or for our many projects and issues in other

parts of the desert. That’s why your support is so important!

DESERT PROTECTIVE COUNCIL NEW AND

RENEWAL MEMBERSHIP FORM

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8/8/2019 El Paisano Fall 2008 #202


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P.O. BOX 3635 SAN DIEGO, CA 92163-1635

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Big Solar Land Rush..................................... page 2

Annual Meeting Invite .................................. page 3

100-Year Flood (poem by Ruth Nolan)........ page 4ORV Issues Update....................................... page 5

Making of a Citizen Naturalist...................... page 6

Wilderness Bills Update ............................... page 7

Okay, so it’s not truly a desert, but it overlooks one: On

Sep. 4, I had the opportunity to accompany Craig Deutsche on a

wilderness monitoring expedition to McCain Valley. The goal:document changes in the landscape, both

positive and negative, and provide a report

to the Bureau of Land Management. This

both provides land managers and rangers

with information about these lands that they

might not otherwise get, and lets them know

that people care about the public lands and

wilderness areas they manage. Plus, it makes

for a great day in the outdoors!

We scouted the BLM lands to the east

of McCain Valley Rd., which provide a good

buffer zone between the road and the Car-rizo Gorge Wilderness to the east. We also

visited the Sacatone and Carrizo overlooks,

and hiked a portion of the Pepperwood Trail.

What we found: On the positive side,

the BLM has done a good job of signing the

areas east of McCain Valley road as “closed

to vehicles.” On the negative side, we docu-

mented several spots where dirt bikes and

other vehicles had gone around the signs and

even around considerable stretches of fencing.

There are several old jeep tracks in this area that people seem to

insist on using. Fortunately, the wilderness itself is relatively

safe from vehicle incursion because it drops away so steeply tothe desert below. On the other hand, the

chaparral habitat on the more level area

west of the wilderness is not well repre-

sented in the wilderness preservation

system, and it could use more protection.

On the Pepperwood Trail, we found that

many of the signs marking the trail need

replacing.

All of San Diego and Imperial

counties’ wilderness areas could use more

citizen monitoring. From the rugged

slopes of the Carrizo and Jacumbawilderness areas to the dunes of the

Algodones Wilderness and the sunbaked

rocks of the Indian Pass Wilderness, there

are lots of opportunities for volunteers to

adopt a wilderness or wilderness study

area. If you’re interested, contact us at

“connect AT dpcinc DOT org” or

Craig Deutsche at 310-477-6670 /

“deutsche AT earthlink DOT net”.

FAVORITE DESERT PLACES: McCAIN VALLEY/CARRIZO GORGE WILDERNESS

“Thumb Rock” in McCain Valley, rumored tohave first been climbed by the DPC’s ownLarry Klaasen

el paisano fall 2008 #202

Documents