The desert is love.
It just needs a little water.
Right now, there is a frenzy of botanical reproductive activity occurring across the Mojave Desert. From Death Valley to Gold Butte to Antelope Valley to Kernville and down to Joshua Tree, the northern and western and even southern parts of the Mojave Desert are lit up with flowers after a wet winter, in some places an historic winter, kicked off a big bloom. Things were delayed due to the unusual cold which accompanied the wet weather, and the phenology is all weird as a result. But now that it’s warmed up, the plants have fully sprung into action, the pollinators have emerged, and it is game time for the desert.
An old friend of mine says, “botanists are obsessed with sex,” and of course he’s right inasmuch as the entire flowering process of a plant is simply their means of reproduction. While usually the pace of the desert can be described as fairly languid, during the frenzy of a good spring, everything accelerates. This is quite marked for annual plants, whose whole world revolves around growing for long enough to sustain flowers to reproduce. A substantial portion of the plants in the Mojave Desert are annuals – much higher than in most ecosystems around the world. As much as 50% of Mojave Desert plant taxa are annuals. The entire reproductive process for an annual plant – from germination to vegetative growth to flowering to pollination to fruiting and seeding to die back – can take just a couple of weeks. It is one of the most beautiful, poetic, ephemeral phenomena in the natural world.
We’ve seen waves of flowers as the bloom has progressed in recent weeks. Among our early entrants were the devil’s lettuce (Amsinckia tessellate) which formed dense green patches on the hillsides, rich infusions of biomass to the ecosystem but whose small yellow flowers can only be seen up close. And of course the sun cups (Chylismia brevipes), so characteristic of the desert, starting as small little rosettes of humble prostrate leaves but sometimes growing waist-high with their bright yellow blooms. Following them were the phacelias, including in my area Death Valley phacelia (Phacelia vallis-mortae) and caltha-leafed phacelia (Phacelia calthifolia), also the wider-spread crenulated phacelia (Phacelia crenulata), desert canterbury bells (Phacelia campanularia) and if you are lucky, the small and charismatic roundleaf phacelia (Phacelia rotundifolia). And now, we’re in full bloom at lower elevations, and we’ve got desert larkspur (Delphinium parishii), desert five-spot (Eremalche rotundifolia), Mojave aster (Xylorhiza tortifolia), both types of desert poppy (Eschscholzia glyptosperma and E. minutiflora), purple mat (Nana demissum), and so many more. I saw over 40 species blooming last weekend just in the eastern Death Valley area. While you’ll get a much higher species count in other parts of the desert, for a place that’s mostly just creosote bush and burrobush, that’s pretty good diversity.
And of course it’s not just the plants. Pollinators play a vital role in this process, the huge array of bees and flies and lepidoptera that thrive alongside our abundant bloom. I must say, I’ve seen relatively few pollinators this year. With the profusion of flowers we’ve been seeing, one would expect a warm afternoon to be absolutely abuzz with flies and bees. But in my wanderings over the past few weeks, primarily near my home on the edge of Death Valley, I’ve seen only scattered bees and butterflies. Plants and pollinators have evolved together over millennia and more in a delicate ballet of adaptation to one another, including when during the year they flower or emerge. There is concern among scientists about the timing of plants and pollinators getting thrown off by climate change – called “phenological mismatch”—and the potential consequences of repeated years of mismatch on the long-term viability of populations.
Nonetheless, love is in the air in the desert. It’s not just pollinators who respond – the whole animal kingdom has awakened during the bloom. During the most recent iteration of the drought, it has been eerily quiet in the desert. But not now. I don’t know where the hell they came from, but during this bloom no matter where you go in the desert, there are birds singing. I was walking down a wash coming off the Ibex Hills the other day, and the cacophony of bird song was downright shocking – it sounded like I was at a watering hole in the African savannah or something. I had dozens of lizards scurrying out of my way as I walked. If the desert is love and plants and pollinators are the expression of that love, then vertebrates like us and the birds and the lizards are the ones here to reap the benefits – to give that love back. You could not listen to these birds and not hear the joy in their calls. They reflected my smile back to me.
Yes, love is in the air, and it stinks. I came across a very large bloom of Fremont’s phacelia and a type of desert mustard called yellow pepperweed, which stretched for miles along a former alkali lakebed. Fremont’s phacelia, with its beautiful purple flower and startling yellow throat, giving it another common name, yellowthroats; it grew just a couple of inches tall, the inflorescences dominating the plant, far larger than the leaves and the stems. They waved in delicate purple ripples in the wind. And the low-growing pepperweed, the Lepidium, so common in these soils, even in a dry year, and yet upon close inspection, so delicate and intricate in its design. Intermixed with these two dominants were three rare plants – common in this valley but globally unique: a buckwheat, an Atriplex (saltbush), and another type of Phacelia. That first warm afternoon that I encountered this incredible phenomenon, it was over 80 degrees and the scent coming off the flowers was overpowering. Sweet but almost sickly sweet, it hung in the air, it blew in the breeze, the whole desert was awash in the scent of these flowers. I think it was primarily the phacelia causing the rich odor. Looking at maps afterwards, I’d estimate there were at least 5,000 acres simultaneously blooming with this delightful mix of alkali-loving annuals. Delighting all of the senses, soothing the mind. I will think of those fields of flowers on that ancient lakebed for decades to come.
And that’s the thing. These blooms, they never leave us. I first came to the Mojave Desert during the winter of 2004-2005, an epic winter which featured heavy rain that started in October and didn’t let up for months. And starting in early January, the race was on. The flowers began to bloom at the Mexican border and started working their way north rapidly. By February, the whole desert was ablaze with color, from Death Valley down to El Centro and all points in between. It was an incredible time to be a curious 21-year-old who spent his entire life outdoors. I was working on a Student Conservation Association restoration crew, doing habitat restoration on designated BLM Wilderness Areas across the California Desert District. 9 days on/5 days off, camping for the 9 days at our work sites, and then the 5 days off were spent in Joshua Tree rock climbing. I spent month after month surrounded by wildflowers, with Pam McKay’s Falcon guide Mojave Desert Wildflowers my constant companion. Becoming intimate with the plants and flowers of the desert during a period of such abundance rewired my brain somehow. Here it is some 18 years later, and I still haven’t left.
There were many blooms to follow of course. But it took over a decade for the next big one to come into my life. I had moved to Shoshone, California by October of 2015, which saw a period of two weeks of heavy rain in the Death Valley region. These were the infamous storms which culminated in the destruction of Scotty’s Castle. Huge amounts of rain fell throughout the Amargosa Basin. That season, it started at the lowest elevations at the bottom of Death Valley right around New Year’s, and by February the whole of the Death Valley region had exploded in color. While it wasn’t pervasive across the whole desert, for a few months, the Death Valley region was the center of the desert universe. Botanists rediscovered plants that hadn’t been seen in decades. Tourists came from around the world. It was the first time the word “superbloom” commonly appeared in the popular press, per Google. And it was honestly the best couple of months of my life – just running around photographing wildflowers all day every day, one’s nostrils constantly full of the smell of flowers, seeing landscapes in a new way. In its own way, it was a profoundly affecting experience. Inasmuch as it was far more intense, if smaller in geographic scope and shorter in duration than 2005, it was among the most remarkable natural phenomena I’ve ever witnessed.
In some ways, when you love the desert, and especially when you love desert wildflowers, you’re a gambler. Always waiting for that next big spring. That next good bloom. I’m like the poor sap who wandered into a casino in the spring of 2005, sat down at a slot machine, and won the big jackpot on his first pull. Now I’m hooked for life, and every winter I religiously scrutinize the weather, hoping against hope that we’ll get another wet winter and another good spring. That my good friends, the flowers, will come back for a visit. For this ultimate expression of desert love.
And so, I spend a lot of time chasing around flowers during the season. It’s sort of my obsession. I just need to take in all that love, to see it and hear it and smell it and wrap my arms all the way around it and understand its inner workings. How could a place so dry, how could literally just some alkali mud, turn into a field of purple and yellow wildflowers, rippling in the wind? How could these birds, after years of absence, suddenly alight on the desert from wherever the hell they went, somehow keyed into the fact that we got a bunch of rain and there are plants and insects for them to eat? Why do certain annuals appear here and not there?
The desert is already full of mysteries – mysteries I ponder every day of the year. But during that brief explosion of love in the spring, the mysteries expand by an order of magnitude, and the amount of time we have to probe them and contemplate them vanishes so rapidly. By the time it gets hot and the flowers wilt and the birds go away and the insects end their flight and we all settle in for a long Mojave summer, one’s head is just left spinning – how did that incredible beauty, that incredible expression of love, occur here and then leave without a trace except for a few remnant husks and an invisible seedbank?
A few missives ago, I railed against a prominent author and scientist who said, “in a desert… you can have the sense that the land is out to kill you as opposed to care for you.” And sure, taking a look at the desert during the hottest, driest, emptiest time of year might leave you with a skewed impression of it. Sort of like, if you considered a northeastern U.S. hardwood forest strictly during the dead of winter, you’d think it was a frozen, barren place. But the desert reaches its full potential, its maximal expression of life and vitality, its height of reproductive and biological activity, during the spring after the rains. And then, you’d be crazy to say the desert was out to kill you. No, it’s as clear as day that during the spring, the desert is out to love you. To wrap you in a warm, flowery, bee buzzing embrace, to provide sustenance for our hearts and our minds which will last for years after the flowers are gone.
Just as the field mouse stores his grain during times of plenty, so we friends of the desert must store its love in our hearts, a reserve to tap into when things are grim and dry in years to come.
As for me, I’m the gambler. And this year I hit a jackpot. And I’m filling my heart with as much desert love as it will hold, to sustain me through whatever lies ahead. Until the next good spring. And I’ll reciprocate that love, and do whatever I can to hold this desert dear and defend it from all comers who threaten it. But in the end, I know that the desert gives me far more than I could ever return to it.
These Guys Tried Saying Toxic Pit Lakes Are Good For Wildlife
Last week was an exciting one for Nevada mining advocates, as all the action on the Assembly Natural Resources committee at the Nevada legislature focused on AB313, the Mining Water Reclamation Act. AB313 would mandate backfill of pit lakes, as well as mandating public disclosure and participation in any exemption process to that mandate.
Pit lakes are the undesirable bodies of water which remain after an open-pit mine is decommissioned. When an open-pit mine goes below the water table, they must pump water out of it to keep the pit dry so they can conduct their mining operations. Once they finish mining and cease the pumping, groundwater quickly rushes into the pit and refills it to the level of the water table, leaving behind a pit lake. Pit lakes can cause severely negative consequences including potentially perpetual pollution. This video from Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada is one of the best and most concise explanations I’ve seen of the problem with pit lakes.
AB313 would mandate backfill of pit lakes, requiring mining companies to clean up their messes. It would be the first really significant reform to environmental management of mines in Nevada in a generation, and would help prevent the worst abuses of Nevada’s land and water by the mining industry.
We had a hearing last Monday in Assembly Natural Resources, and boy was it a scene. John Hadder of Great Basin Resource Watch presented the bill with sponsor Assemblywoman Sarah Peters (D). Bill proponents featured a diverse and broad coalition of people testifying in support of the bill. Most compelling was testimony from Western Shoshone tribal members Fermina Stevens and Mary Gibson, whose communities have been directly impacted by the mining industry and pit lakes. There was broad geographic diversity as well, with testifiers in Carson City, Las Vegas, and Elko. There couldn’t have been a bigger contrast with mining. They packed the front row of the hearing room with their executives and lobbyists, each scowling at the legislators the entire time. Their testimony was terse, highly defensive, and seemed to focus more on the important role mining plays to Nevada’s economy than about the particulars of the pit lakes they leave in their wake. Mining did not bother bringing out their grassroots supporters, perhaps assuming that their executives and lobbyists could just bully legislators into doing their bidding.
Well, it didn’t work. Two days later on Wednesday, the Assembly Natural Resources Committee passed AB313 through work session on a party line vote. There were many cautious words from legislators during the work session, who emphasized that the bill needed work and that they reserved their right to oppose it on the floor. But nonetheless, AB313 lived to see another day past the committee deadline, and now we are working in earnest with legislators to see if the bill can meet their needs while still accomplishing its aims.
It’s not entirely likely that AB313 will become law, inasmuch as there’s a Republican in the governor’s mansion who probably isn’t inclined to stick it to the mining industry. But Rome wasn’t built in one day, and pit lakes weren’t banned in one session. This is how it begins. We’re grateful for Assemblywoman Peters sticking her neck out and taking this bold action; and we’re grateful to the Assembly Natural Resources Committee for giving us a shot. We’ll see what happens but for now, there’s reason for optimism in the Nevada mining advocacy community.
Read more: Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Current.
When You Love Something, You Fight For It
Something quite remarkable happened last week. Readers of this missive will recall our discussion about the proposed geothermal exploration project in Gerlach, Nevada, and the band of local citizens, environmental groups, and one prominent arts festival who had sued BLM over it. Well, it’s not just BLM who issues permits for these sorts of things. Gerlach is in Washoe County, which has county zoning ordinances that developments like a geothermal exploration project must comply with. And therein lay another point of intervention for the good people of Gerlach.
The Washoe County Board of Adjustment was considering the matter recently and, the good people of Gerlach allege, failed to adequately notify the community. In fact, notification was sent to the community two days before Christmas, for a hearing that happened four days after New Year’s. Not exactly a good faith effort at community outreach. And while the community had sued BLM over the project, demonstrating their keen interest in it, not a single community member, or literally anybody, commented at the Board of Adjustment meeting. Seems hard to believe people actually knew the meeting was happening or they might have showed up and raised hell. Nonetheless, the Board of Adjustment took silence as consent and approved the zoning conformance permit.
So instead, the good people of Gerlach raised hell with the Washoe County Commission. At a meeting last week, dozens of Gerlachians made the two hour drive to Reno to make their voices heard. The provided compelling testimony, not just about how Ormat’s geothermal project would fundamentally alter their way of life and the environment in the Black Rock Desert, but also how they were seemingly intentionally excluded from the permitting process at the County. And, long story short, the Commission voted 3-2 to overturn the permit. In a demonstration of how topsy turvy the politics become with renewable energy on public lands, it was the 3 Republicans who voted against Ormat and in favor of the small community pushing back against big business.
Good for Gerlach. The fight is surely not over but you’ve got to savor every incremental victory along the way.
Read more: Reno Gazette Journal, Nevada Current, Associated Press.
Quickly…
Amy Alonzo at the Reno Gazette Journal ran a nice piece about botanist Jerry Tiehm, whose name has been catapulted into fame because of a small buckwheat he discovered 40 years ago, which you may have heard of for some reason or another. Mr. Tiehm is working on a botanical checklist for Nevada, hence this story.
NV Energy got FERC approval for various rate-structure incentives for the Greenlink North and Greenlink West transmission projects. It’s interesting how the opposition to Greenlink has remained a mostly marginal proposition (hi, it’s me! I’m on the margins!) despite how fundamentally it could change beloved Nevada landscapes like the Loneliest Road in America. And the political-economic levers have just been pulled one after another by the Biden administration and whoever happens to be in power in Nevada. It’s almost like one of the richest guys on the planet is calling the shots! Hmm.
POWDR Corp. has sold Lee Canyon Ski Area to another ski industry conglomerate, the forebodingly named Mountain Capital Partners. How will Mountain Capital Partners do with the conservation of the Mount Charleston blue butterfly, the endangered species found at the ski area? We’ll be keeping a close eye on them.
Stefan Lovgren has an excellent piece in Desert Companion about the fate of the Colorado pikeminnow, an enormous ice-age relic who once prowled the Colorado River and now clings to existence only due to the constant intervention of conservation programs from the federal government. Mr. Lovgren looks back in history to tell the story of what the pikeminnow once was, and suggests what might have to be done to save it.
Friend of the newsletter Kevin Emmerich of Basin and Range Watch has a good letter to the editor in the Las Vegas Sun about the need to protect species and biodiversity in our development of renewable energy.
Thanks for reading. I’ve taken the liberty of writing a couple of longer form pieces in the last two editions, and I continued that theme today. I appreciate the few readers who I do hear from, but others should feel free to drop me a line, tell me what you think. Like the longer pieces? Prefer bite sized news bits? Given its usual focus on news dissemination and commentary, this newsletter is as much a service to the community as it is a personal indulgence, so let me know what you find useful.
Keep on down that long and dusty trail,
-Patrick
Hi Patrick - I'll quickly weigh in to say that I have both enjoyed and learned a lot from your recent newsletters. The format, with both a long form essay and short updates, is great and it is clear you put a lot of work into each issue. I am a nature photographer and the Mojave Desert (Death Valley specifically) is a primary focus. Photography alone has started to feel superficial so I have been reading more and trying to get involved in some of the conservation efforts in the area. Your writing, along with following you on Twitter, has been a great resource. Thank you for your efforts and willingness to share your insights in this format.
Patrick - Sage and Sand is some of the best conservation writing out there right now. Devoto would be proud. And yes to the longform stuff, we can get news aggregators anywhere. As an aside, I'd love to learn more about why the three GOP commissioners pushed back on Ormat while the two Dems wilted (I can presume), but there may be a story there that is relevant for communities across the west, and not just Washoe County.