Greetings and welcome to another edition of Sage and Sand. The Mojave Desert is greening up. While much of the fantastic record precipitation hasn’t made it past the Sierra and Transverse Ranges, some has, and we’re sitting at about 105% of our 15-year average annual precip here on the southeast side of Death Valley, which is pretty darn good considering there’s 6 months left in the water year. The green fuzz has appeared across parts of the desert, and mid-elevations (2000’-4000’) have a nice bloom going in some places. After the two most devastatingly dry springs I’ve ever seen, the spring of 2023 is proving to be a godsend. It makes the heart sing. Is there anything more rare than a desert bloom?
Also, a housekeeping note. It appears that Substack has been asking subscribers to this missive to “Pledge Support” for it in the form of promising monetary subscriptions, should I choose to monetize. Allow me to say in no uncertain terms - I am not asking for money, I will not ask for money, this newsletter is not for money. I believe I have turned off the feature asking for pledges now. I appreciate the few of you who have actually gone ahead and pledged money for this effort, but that is very much not the point. Keep your dollars, use it to subscribe to your local newspaper, and I’ll keep spouting off for free.
Types of Rarity
I was recently sitting in a hot spring in a remote and desolate valley in the Great Basin with some gents from the East Coast, trying to adequately convey the rarity of the endemic fish in the nearby wetlands and springs. While present in multiple water sources, the fish’s natural range was confined to the basin we were in – it lives there, in those waters, and nowhere else on Earth. However, my companions noted, it seemed abundant, happily swimming around in the marsh, seemingly oblivious to the resource extraction claims and contracts that encompass and threaten its home.
Well, indeed. Rarity doesn’t need to mean declining. Rarity doesn’t need to mean scarce. There are many types of rarity. A globally rare species, like our aforementioned fish, can be locally abundant. Conversely, a species with a relatively widespread distribution, like for instance our friend the desert tortoise, can still be increasingly rare as populations dwindle. Academic conservation biologists have written extensively about the “seven forms of rarity,” which is an interesting analytical frame for this concept.
But there are other sorts of rarity… I had these folks out from the East Coast to try to share with them why we should step on the brakes on resource extraction in the wildest, least disturbed parts of the Great Basin. My star for the day was of course the fish – precious endemic aquatic biodiversity, the emblem of the unique properties of our beautiful desert and the waters that bring it to life. But, even the very premise of endemism takes a shift in one’s thinking – it’s not just a fish, it’s not just some fish, it’s a very particular kind of fish – one that lives here and nowhere else. Accepting that premise requires some knowledge of and acceptance of the concepts of speciation, evolution, perhaps even hydrogeologic time. It would be so easy to peer into that hole in the carbonate rock, the window into the underworld, with hundreds of gallons per minute of fossil Pleistocene snowmelt spewing out at an elevated temperature… and just see a fish. There’s no doubt, the world of narrow endemic biodiversity and the laws which protect it is an esoteric one.
But, even if said fish weren’t protected under the Endangered Species Act, even if said fish wasn’t recognized as a distinct taxon, even if we will even dispute that such an isolated aquatic relic is even worth saving to begin with… There’s another sort of rarity to the Great Basin. A quality to unique and special that it functionally defines the region, and there are no other regions quite like it. And that is isolation.
Defining the Great Basin is a good topic for campfire repartee, but commonly accepted definitions are disputed. Given the various ecoregional, hydrographic, geologic, and cultural properties at play, I’d tend to draw a line with the Wasatch Plateau and the Colorado River on the east; the Garlock Fault and Mount Charleston to the south; the Sierra-Cascade crest to the west; and the Columbia Plateau to the north. This is, primarily, the hydrographic province. (Excepting the southern Mojave and Colorado Deserts, which are indisputably not part of the Great Basin.)
And within that vast, vast area, the only significant human settlements are primarily on the periphery – Salt Lake City and the I-15 corridor, Las Vegas, Reno-Carson-Douglas. There are much smaller areas of settlement within those bounds, Elko-Spring Valley for instance; Pahrump; Owens Valley. But you’re talking about an area of over 100,000 square miles where the biggest town is Elko. And the biggest town outside of the I-80 corridor is… Ely I guess? It’s the least developed place in the Lower 48 states. And as such, it is incredibly rare. There is only one Great Basin.
Through no small effort, we’ve brought lots of attention to some of the tiny creatures that inhabit that vast, empty space. Trying to sum up why to oppose some large new industrial development based on the presence of an endemic fish or wildflower or toad is actually really difficult, thanks. But in some ways, focusing on the narrowly endemic species obfuscates the bigger picture. It’s about the protecting the landscape – the biological landscape, the socio-cultural landscape, the spiritual landscape, the geographic & geologic landscape.
Endemic species, those creatures so finely adapted to the unique set of abiotic factors which define the habitat they evolved in that they can’t survive anywhere else without radically changing their own character, they are a product of their environment. As a wine reflects the terroir where it is grown, so do endemic species reflect the terroir of their homes. And the Endangered Species Act is not ignorant of this dynamic. Section 2(b) of the Endangered Species Act says that the purpose of the Act is “…to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved…” (emphasis added)
The ESA protects the ecosystems upon which endangered species depend. An endemic fish isn’t just a collection of genetic material. It’s not just a specimen. And for god’s sake it’s certainly not a fungible biological asset to be moved about like pieces on a chessboard as industry and government see fit. It is indelibly tied to the ecosystem it inhabits. That ecosystem is literally written into the genes of that fish. And so, the fish and the landscape are really one and the same; forever intertwined. They share the same fate.
From a strictly legal sense we are fighting for the species’ habitat. But we have chosen to prioritize those plants or those fish because their terroir happens to be the most isolated, remote, and undeveloped place in the Lower 48 states, and it’s worth saving.
So when we’re fighting for Tiehm’s buckwheat, we’re not just fighting for the genetic material of some weird plant. We’re fighting for the ecosystem those plants inhabit – the Silver Peak Range. A beautiful, biodiverse, hyperarid corner of the Great Basin that just shouldn’t be turned into a damn lithium mine. When we’re fighting for the Dixie Valley toad, it’s not just about some amphibian genetic material. We’re fighting for Dixie Meadows, that big beautiful wetland which sustains so much biodiversity beyond just a toad; and has been sacred to the northern Paiutes for thousands of years. And beyond just Dixie Meadows, it’s about Dixie Valley, that enormous 75 mile long defile full of pronghorn and golden eagles and springs and not a whole lot else.
And with our East Coast friends and our fish… it’s not just about the genetic material of a random minnow. It’s about putting the brakes on the industrialization of the last, wildest place in the Lower 48. A place where, outside of small pockets of civilization (if you want to call Elko that) and some mines, wildlife still by and large is living as it otherwise might, mostly free from direct human interference. We won’t stop every mine. We won’t stop every pinyon from being cut down. We won’t get rid of every cow.
But, if there’s a broad theme to the work, beyond just protecting biodiversity, it’s keeping the Great Basin, by and large, as it is today. That wild country from Denio to Winnemucca, from Battle Mountain to Austin, from Burns to Jordan Valley, from Baker to Callao, from Elko to Ely, from Tonopah to Ely, from Pahranagat Valley to Ely, from Pioche to Ely. Big Smoky Valley, Monitor Valley, Paradise Valley, Spring Valley, Ruby Valley, Death Valley. Walker Lake, Pyramid Lake, Alvord Lake, Malheur Lake, the Great Salt Lake. Humboldt River, Reese River, Amargosa River, White River. Montello, Shanty Town, Middlegate, Osceola, Gerlach. By god, that’s the best country left in these United States, and we aim to keep it that way. To preserve that absolute rarity. The last, best place. Home.
Death By a Thousand Cuts
A beautiful, rare wildflower which grows across the Mojave Desert is threatened with extinction, and the Center for Biological Diversity has swooped in with an Endangered Species Act petition to halt its decline. A tale as old as time, and today our protagonist is the beautiful white-margined penstemon (Penstemon albomarginatus).
Fixating on Tiehm’s buckwheat for lo these past four years has somewhat skewed the idea of rarity among people who follow such things in Nevada and surrounding areas. Tiehm’s buckwheat, growing on just 10 acres, is globally extremely rare, but locally abundant. Whereas, the white-margined penstemon has four population centers comprising probably 12 or 15 populations, depending on how you split them up, each likely with thousands or even tens of thousands of plants. Now, each of these four population centers is separated by dozens or hundreds of miles; and within these, some of the populations are struggling mightily and may wink out. This is, by any objective measure, a rare plant. Just not quite as rare as our buckwheat friend.
The white-margined penstemon grows in Amargosa Valley, Nevada, on the sandy slopes of and low dunes near the Striped Hills, the Skeleton Hills, and the Specter Range. 75 miles to the southeast, another population center occurs in Clark County, Nevada, south of Las Vegas. These plants occur in Hidden Valley, Jean Valley, and Ivanpah Valley. 85 miles to the southeast of there is another population center, this in an area called Dutch Flat in Mohave County, Arizona, on the southeast side of the Hualapai Mountains. And finally, 130 miles west of there (and 85 miles southwest of the Clark County populations) is the smallest and most marginal population center near Pisgah Crater, California.
The white-margined penstemon is in a rough spot. It faces numerous threats within its habitats, from off-highway vehicles to cattle grazing to exurban sprawl to energy development to invasive species. It is also existentially threatened by climate change – as an annual which only comes up after winter rains, it acutely experiences the effects of drought – and prolonged and extreme droughts may alone threaten it with extinction. There are other, as yet unrealized threats, like the Clark County lands bill, which may eat up a large portion of the white-margined penstemon’s habitat in Clark County with sprawl, and Greenlink West transmission line and associated energy build-out in Nye County.
We first rattled sabres about petitioning to list the white-margined beardtongue in 2019, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service then commissioned a study and population viability analysis. We decided not to take action until that study was complete, to better inform our decision making and analysis. And boy did that turn out to be the right decision. Dr. Alice Miller of Pyramid Botanical Consultants authored a 92 page report which included both field inventories of the plant and the population viability analysis. You can read it here [PDF]. Her findings were stark. The species has a greater than 50% chance of quasi-extinction within 50 years. (Quasi-extinction defined as population size of less than 10 individuals.) And under a scenario where we have drought twice as frequently as we do now, that chance goes up to 80%. And those numbers are without factoring in the Clark County lands bill, Greenlink North transmission line, or solar development in Amargosa Valley, which Dr. Miller did not put in her analysis. While these are only estimates, they are a clear indication that the plant is in trouble.
So we did what we do. I worked with some scientists and we wrote a petition [PDF]. It’s one of the more comprehensive and complex petitions I’ve worked on, and I feel really good about the result. I think Dr. Miller’s paper and our analysis in the petition has given the Fish and Wildlife Service all of the justification they need to justify listing the white-margined penstemon under the Endangered Species Act.
Now, we harbor no illusions that this little pink wildflower is going to stop the Clark County lands bill or the Greenlink West transmission line. That’s emphatically not the point. But if Greelink West’s alignment could be changed to avoid the penstemon, that would be a win. If the Clark County lands bill keeps Hidden Valley in the public domain, that would also be a win.
Without the protections of the Act, this pretty little plant is likely doomed to extinction. We need to act. Now!
Read more: Nevada Current, ESA petition [PDF].
Not Lands Bill Bait
You may have heard that President Biden designated a new National Monument in Southern Nevada. Avi Kwa Ame National Monument protects the landscape around Spirit Mountain, which is sacred to local indigenous Tribes. It is a rich and biodiverse landscape, encompassing a variety of elevations and plant communities, including a dense eastern Joshua tree woodland. The campaign to protect Avi Kwa Ame has been going on for years and I’m so glad to see it come to fruition.
Incidentally, original drafts of the Clark County lands bill included Avi Kwa Ame, and monument advocates wisely and deftly excised it. Protecting Avi Kwa Ame was, first and foremost, about respecting the Tribes who hold the land sacred. Whereas, the conservation provisions in the Clark County lands bill are transparently being designated in exchange for new land development. Keeping Avi Kwa Ame out of the lands bill helped ensure that it did not become trade bait for sprawl, which would have been incredibly disrespectful to the Tribes involved. There are still Tribal issues in the Clark County lands bill (in particular, a reservation expansion for Moapa); but I’m glad that Avi Kwa Ame and the campaign to save it had its moment in the sun separate from the controversy around the lands bill.
Of course, then freshly minted and mostly clueless Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo put a turd in the punchbowl. While the campaign to protect Avi Kwa Ame has been going on for years and has had widespread support from Tribes, politicians, local government, and any variety of stakeholders, Johnny Come Lately Joe Lombardo felt like he needed to inject his two cents after the designation was done, complaining that he wasn’t sufficiently consulted on the matter. And while it’s true that a wiser move by the Biden administration would have been to designate the monument while Sisolak was still governor, Governor Lombardo had no leg to stand on with his critique of the monument. He called it a “land confiscation,” which is truly outrageous and belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what public lands are. Governor Sherriff Joe doesn’t know or care anyway. He’s just spouting off the red meat talking points his handlers are telling him to.
Read more: The Nevada Independent on designation announcement; John L. Smith opinion celebrating the designation; Las Vegas Sun editorial criticizing Lombardo reaction.
A Couple of Tiny Fishes Head to Court
A couple of weeks ago, we sued the Fish and Wildilfe Service over two tiny Great Basin fishes: the Fish Lake Valley tui chub and the least chub. We filed what are certainly our most common kind of lawsuit, targeting blown Endangered Species Act deadlines. The ESA and implementing regulations have very specific deadlines that the US Fish and Wildlife Service must meet as they respond to endangered species petitions filed by the public. First, they must issue a 90-day finding, which is an initial threshold determination as to whether the petition presents substantial scientific evidence. Second, the must issue a 12-month finding, which is a determination of whether or not the petitioned species warrants protection. A huge amount of the Center’s litigation is simply enforcing these deadlines because left to their own devices, the Service will probably do… nothing.
So, we sued over blown listing decision deadlines for the Fish Lake Valley tui chub and the least chub. These two Great Basin fishes are imperiled by groundwater overappropriation: for agriculture, lithium, and geothermal in the case of the Fish Lake Valley tui chub; and for the proposed Cedar City water grab pipeline in the case of the least chub. You can read more about them in our press releases linked here and here. The Fish Lake Valley tui chub received a positive 90 day finding last year.
Our lawsuit challenges FWS’s failure to issue a 12 month finding for that species. Whereas the poor least chub has been waiting for a 90 day finding for over a year and a half. The least chub is a highly politicized little fish, potentially standing in the way of one of Utah’s highest priority water grabs. Our lawsuits aims to force the Service to issue that 90 day finding and take this little fish out of limbo. This lawsuit alone won’t save these fishes, and the groundwater dependent ecosystems they rely on for survival. But hey may help us get a date certain for listing decisions and, if warranted, help move them on the path to protection.
Read more: Pahrump Valley Times on Fish Lake Valley tui chub; St. George News on least chub.
Busy Beavers Trying to Save Trees
Our attorneys were busy beavers in March, filing another lawsuit, this against a proposed BLM pinyon-juniper clearcutting and sagebrush mowing project in far eastern Nevada. Our suit, along with Western Watersheds Project, challenges the euphemistically titled “Southern Spring Valley-Hamlin Valley Watershed Restoration Project,” which would destroy native vegetation across hundreds of thousands of acres in beautiful Spring and Hamlin Valleys. It would include chaining, where ship anchor chains are dragged between two bulldozers, ripping up all of the pinyon juniper and everything else in their wake. It would include mowing, where they literally just mow down native sagebrush habitat. As well as other destructive techniques. And it targets one of the most important and sacred landscapes in Nevada, beautiful Spring Valley at the foot of Great Basin National Park.
Spring Valley has been an epicenter of conservation activity in recent years. Of course, it was the proposed site of much of the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s pumping for their dastardly pipeline project, which we and our allies killed in 2020. It is now the site of the proposed Bahsahwahbee National Monument, which is a Tribal effort to protect the sacred Swamp Cedars, a valley-bottom stand of Rocky Mountain juniper trees that are sacred to the Western Shoshone. (Incidentally, the Swamp Cedars were not targeted in the “restoration” plan we are litigating.)
Our lawsuit challenges the adequacy of environmental review BLM gave the project under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Joining us in the litigation are Western Shoshone tribal elders Rick and Delaine Spilsbury, whose ancestors lived in Spring Valley and who have been intimately connected to the landscape there their entire lives. The Spilsburys have been stalwarts fighting to conserve this area for decades - they are an inspiration to me and they are people whose tenacity and kindness I try to emulate in my life. I’m so glad they were able to join us in this litigation.
Pinyon-juniper removal is a crock. It’s used to greenwash any number of destructive uses of the land, including ranching and mining. It’s badly misguided and ultimately serves to enhance the powers of entrenched interests in rural Nevada while leaving a path of utter destruction in its wake. We hope this case provides a beachhead in the fight against this campaign across the Great Basin.
Read more: Press release; Courthouse News
Quickly…
Geothermal developer Ormat sent a Notice of Intent to Sue to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, alleging that they improperly listed the Dixie Valley toad under the Endangered Species Act. Their arguments are mostly fluff, strongly contraindicated by a lengthy case history which shows that the Service was perfectly correct in listing the toad. The Service is also backed up by a number of independent scientists. It’s possible Ormat was just trying to take an offensive action because they were worried about looking bad in an LA Times article. Either way, our busy beaver attorneys I mentioned now have to play defense over the toad’s listing. Read more in the Los Angeles Times.
We got a bad ruling in our case against Governor Lombardo and former state Senator James Settelmeyer, over what we allege was an unconstitutional appointment of Sen. Settelmeyer to lead the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The judge ruled that the increase in salary which the legislature created for the director position Sen. Settelmeyer now holds was less than the inflation rate at the time and thus does not constitute an increase in the emoluments of the position. We are currently mulling over our legal options. Read more in the Nevada Current.
Speaking of geothermal, the San Francisco Standard has a long investigation into the Burning Man geothermal lawsuit up in Gerlach and some of the tensions at play there. A worthy read for diving into the issue beyond just the flashy headlines.
Hugh Jackson had a good commentary in the Nevada Current about economic colonialism in Nevada and the prospects for such a phenomenon with the burgeoning new lithium economy. Mr. Jackson proposes a special lithium tax on production in Nevada, something sure to be met with howls by industry but which happens to be a damn good idea. Many of Nevada’s problems can be traced back to the lack of an income tax and lack of state funding – a lithium tax could inject accountability into industry while shoring up badly needed social programs in Nevada. Kudos to Mr. Jackson for being forward thinking.
This interview with BLM Nevada director Jon Raby is worth a read for people who geek out on BLM stuff. I disagree with basically every move Raby makes, and heck we just sued him last week (again). But I do like knowing more about my sparring partners.
The Elko Daily has a long look at the state of mineral exploration in Nevada, although much of it seems to be a PR campaign from the Nevada Division of Minerals to keep themselves relevant. Nonetheless, an interesting read for those tracking the most polluting industry in America.
There was a very interesting piece in The Indy about the fate of the nuclear test dummies used at the Test Site in the 1950s to see their fate after a nuclear bomb detonated overhead. I wish we’d see more of this sort of writing about ephemera across our region. Fun read.
Looks like things have gone downhill at Jerritt Canyon Mine, that small to mid size open pit mining operation in Elko County north of I-80. They’ve suspended operations and will be laying off a couple hundred people. Their ore body must be pretty tapped out if they’re in dire straights, because the price of gold was $1,984/oz. at last check, which is sky-high. I’m sure they won’t go belly up and leave taxpayers with a huge mess on our hands and a bond that is totally insufficient to remediate it. That never happens. Read more in the Elko Daily.
Thanks for reading. Keep on down that long and dusty trail,
-Patrick