Coyote Crossing

For those of you who followed the Phonehenge story, here’s the broader context for you. It’s yet another example of regional colonialism by the City of Los Angeles: people on the margins of society, who only want to be left alone, are being harassed off land they own by the greater forces of development. It’s like the County read Ken Layne’s Dignity and decided to adopt it as a General Plan.

My quibbles with the Offishul Libertarian Movement are reasonably well-documented, but I have to say that although I was on the lookout for axe-grinding in this reason.tv video, they did a great job.

Hat tip to Wendy at the Antelope Valley Conservancy.

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Ya got yer desert trees, most of ‘em legumes, like this ironwood here.

There’s very little usable nitrogen in the soil in the desert. Plants need nitrogen for crucial metabolic processes, chief among them making amino acids and proteins. Without nitrogen plants fail to grow, then die. The desert’s full of nitrogen, of course: most of the air in the desert, like anywhere else on the planet, consist of pure nitrogen — N₂. And since there’s a lot of that air in the desert soil, then there’s lots of soil nitrogen. But N₂ is chemically inert, almost as much so as the “noble” gases like helium and neon. Plants can’t use it. Plants can only take in soil nitrogen in two flavors: the ammonium ion , NH₄, and the nitrate ion, NO₃. Both of these are made out of N₂ by “nitrogen-fixing” soil microorganisms, which aren’t as abundant in arid soils as they are in wetter places. The nitrate ion carries a negative charge, and so do most soil minerals, so any stray bit of moisture — or in the desert, even a wind that picks up and circulates the soil — will easily carry away nitrate ions. Ammonium ions are positively charged, so they’re attracted to soil particles. But on alluvial fans in the desert, the typical average soil particle is pretty large, which means the total surface area in soil particle is less than in a silt or clay soil, which means the amount of ammonium that the soil can hold isn’t all that great. Down in the flats, where deserts keep their fine-grained soils, there can be a lot more nitrogen — but there’s usually a lot more of every kind of dissolved salt down there as well, in concentrations too high to make most plants truly happy. And even what little ammonium adheres to the soil in the alluvial fan isn’t there for long: each bit of moisture spurs soil microbes to turn that ammonium into nitrite (NO₂) and the nitrite into nitrate, which then leaches away.

So plants up on the alluvial fan have to manage with what nitrogen they can get. Other nutrients — phosphorus, potassium, etc. — they can usually get out of the gravel and sand as it weathers. And in fact, here’s a trade secret well known among plant nutrient salespeople, one of which I was, once. In a most settings, like, say, a backyard garden in Iowa, if you put phosphorus and potassium in the soil — the “PK” in the “NPK” rating on the bag of fertilizer — you generally never have to do it again. But nitrogen, the “N” in the NPK, is like water. It’s fungible. It flows through the local ecosystem, flows into plants and from them into animals, and then — eventually — the more chemically reactive compounds of nitrogen with other elements react with the help of “denitrifying” soil microorganisms to form, once more, that old inert N₂. Like water, it’s a limiting factor in desert plant growth. You can get a little bit from decaying organic matter, the leavings of animals and plants and such as they metabolize, and, eventually, those animals and plants themselves. But organic matter is in short supply in the desert.

Leguminous trees like palo verdes, mesquites, acacias and ironwoods have an advantage here. Like other legumes, they have evolved a partnership with those nitrogen-fixing microorganisms. They provide habitat in their root nodules and some nutrients, and the microorganisms provide nitrogen, and everyone’s happy, and the trees, if they survive for a few decades — like the one in the photo above clearly has — put out bumper crops of seeds, most of which find their way into the gullets of rabbits, ravens, packrats and k-rats and ground squirrels, which consume the seeds’ fats and the proteins and excrete nitrogen, and the seasons they go 'round and 'round.

But not all those seeds get eaten up. Some of them are lucky enough to get buried under an inch or so of gravel in a flood. Not only does this hide the seeds from bored and hungry critters, but it also generally scratches the seed’s tough coat so that water has an easier chance of soaking in. Which it can do in the next storm, or the one after that.

For instance, the one that dumped a few inches of rain on Joshua Tree National Park a couple weeks ago, washing out miles of road and making the gravel very wet. Water seeps into seed, swells the seed, stirs the seed’s insensate senses. The seed moves, opens, eases a root down through the gravel for a few days, then pushes against that root and propels itself up out of the gravel, its “seed leaves” — the two cotyledons that stored the little tree’s initial boost of nutrient — slowly unfurling.

And most of these get eaten by hungry rabbits within the first few hours of their lives.

But some of them live long enough to put out their first set of true leaves, and perhaps a second set, and a third;

A very few of them will live long enough to grow their own seeds, and the painted ponies go up and down.

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Final Update: The actual location is described HERE. If you go to the Cottonwood Springs Road location described in this post, you will not find us there. You may well have a good time, but you won’t have a good time with US.

{UPDATE: As soon as I posted this, our friend Florian suggested a couple nearby places that he thinks would be better. We're going to check them out tomorrow, and I will update accordingly tomorrow evening. Nothing much should change other than the precise directions. Travel times and list of things to bring will be pretty close to the same.]

I've scouted out a tentative location for the Coyote Crossing meetup on Oct 14-16 to replace a location I had in mind that was made inaccessible by recent flash floods.

That location is along Cottonwood Spring Road {update: NO, it isn't. It's here, instead., just outside the boundaries of Joshua Tree National Park — which is closed at this location due to flood damage.

This is a BLM-managed area, long used as a campsite. Unless there is subsequent flooding, or unless someone in the area comes up with a better place in the next two or three days, this is where we’ll meet.

There will be:

-Newly green post-flood desert plants including creosote, jojoba, ironwood and palo verde;
- probable coyotes singing us to sleep or awake from sleep
- a freeway a mile away with noise level set to “quiet ambiance”
- plenty of private little places to lay out a sleeping bag or two, or a tent if you swing that way
- dramatic evidence of recent flash flooding
- a nice big tree that casts a little bit of shade
- campfire, especially if you bring a little firewood to pitch in
- NO running water nor toilet facilities closer than the convenience store at Chiriaco Summit,which is about four-five miles east on I-10

You Should Bring:

- Something to sit on, and something extra to sit on for others if you can
- food for yourself for as long as you plan to stay, though we’ll see if we can’t do some sort of potlucky thing, and I’ll take care of Sunday breakfast
- water, and lots of it: assume a gallon per person per day
- broad-brimmed hat, sunglasses, long-sleeved shirt/pants, and sunblock
- layers for after the sun goes down
- the usual other assorted camping equipment if you’re camping

You can also bring:

treats, drinks, jokes, binoculars, stories, hiking boots, cameras, and other such jollities

Directions: [Deleted. Look here instead.]

I’ll be there starting around lunchtime on Friday the 14th.

Google Map attached [Updated: no it isn’t.].

If you have not yet RSViPped, do so in comments here or send me an email.

See you there, I hope! [Updated: Not there. Here.]

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Gordon Postcard

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I said this over at Google Plus and realized I should bring it over here.

As those of you who remember reading my old post (linked here) will recall, the issue of Capital Punishment is less abstract for me than I wish it was.

I understand the emphases on Troy Davis’ innocence: they make the case all the more heinous. But execution of the guilty is just as barbaric. It is a conscious choice to say something about ourselves as a society — that we value blood retribution over public safety; that we value revenge over justice; that we value the fetishizing of our congealed hatred over the possibility, however remote, of reform and redemption.

Closure for the bereaved is an elusive thing. Some people never attain it. Some come to terms with their loss sooner than others. Revenge-killing doesn’t bring closure: it merely seals the deep hurt under a layer of assumed finality, so that that hurt can fester hidden away from public view. It makes the grieving worse. It cheapens the bereaved.

We are a lesser country tonight.

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SB 108, a bill that would endanger the Chuckwalla Valley near Joshua Tree National Park by streamlining a resumption of mining, is sitting on the California Governor’s desk. Below is an urgent note from Chuckwalla Valley activist Donna Charpied with more information, and a sample letter you can edit and send to Brown. We must persuade Governor Brown to veto this bill. Please contact him today. And do forward and reshare this message to those you feel may be interested. — CC

Dear Friends,

Tricky things are happening at Kaiser’s abandoned mine at Eagle Mountain, in the form of SB 108.

SB 108 is on the Governor’s desk.  The Department of Conservation has an oppose position, but the bill can only be stopped by a Governor’s veto.  Under current law, Eagle Mountain Mine is considered abandoned and must be reclaimed.  This bill would allow the Eagle Mountain Mine operator to simply indicate a desire to continue mining to get out of abandoned status. 

You can read the bill at http://www.legislature.ca.gov/the_state_legislature/bill_information/bill_information.html. Search on Senate Bill 108.

Attached below is a sample letter asking the Governor to veto SB 108.  The instructions for contacting the Governor can be found at http://gov.ca.gov/m_contact.php.  Letters must be received before October 1st.  I apologize for the lack of timely notice.  You can’t “attach” a letter, but after clicking on “submit” from the link to contact the Governor, you can type or paste one in.  Of course, you can always send it via snail mail (best), or by fax.

It does not matter if you do not belong to an organization, your letter is important.

You all may recall that we have a campaign, Give It Back!, that is designed to restore 29,775 acres of land in the Eagle Mountains to Joshua Tree National Park.  If SB 108 is not vetoed, our campaign will be shot dead in the water.  This has implications for the dump (yes, it can come back), the hydroelectric project, future big solar projects in the Chuckwalla Valley, and the resources of our Park, Joshua Tree.

Please encourage as many people as possible to oppose this bill.

In Solidarity,
Donna Charpied

The Honorable Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
Governor, State of California
State Capitol
Sacramento,  Ca 95814

RE: SB 108 (Rubio)-Request for Veto

Dear Governor Brown:

[On behalf of the members of [Organization]], I am writing to respectfully request your veto of Senate Bill 108.

Current law requires surface mining operations that remain idle for more than a year with the intent to resume to obtain an Interim Management Plan (IMP).  Mines that do not obtain an IMP within the mandated time frame are considered abandoned and must be reclaimed.  The purpose of this law is to prevent mines that are closed from adding to the legacy of abandoned mines so prevalent in California.

SB 108 would allow abandoned mines to be reopened under reclamation plans that do not meet current minimum state wide reclamation standards.  Mineral resources are vital and necessary to California’s economy, but SB 108 would reward mine operators by imposing no consequences for ignoring State law in an attempt to pay lower annual reporting fees.  Mining fees are based on reported mineral production.  SB 108 would allow mine operators who incorrectly reported mineral production in prior years to simply file adjusted reports without provided verifiable proof of “corrected” production.  SB 108 is simply bad public policy.

Mines that have become abandoned should at least be required to obtain a reclamation plan that meets current reclamation standards prior to being allowed to reopen.  Mine operators should not be allowed to change reported production unless they provide verifiable proof that information is correct.

For these reasons, I respectfully request your veto of SB 108.  Please do not hesitate to contact me should you like to discuss our position on the measure or have any questions.

Sincerely,

[NAME]

[Position]
—

0 comments on "URGENT: Save the Chuckwalla Valley; Tell Jerry Brown to Veto SB108"

I went, I took some photos, I came back. I was really only able to explore the southwest corner of the site. I’ll be going back to look at the rest of the tract, especially as we get a chance of fall bloom. The ocotillos I saw were in full leaf, so there’s some chance of that.

I only explored a small portion of the proposed SEZ, like I said, and some of that time I spent looking at places about a hundred yards outside the SEZ — an artifact of the messed-up map I took with me. The portions I explored were upland, relatively: at about 1250 feet with better drainage, the saguaros and other big plants were fairly lush. Perhaps down by the Bouse Wash, lower and hotter and saltier, the land looks more like what the Wilderness Society claims it does as they advocate for this land to be turned into an industrial facility. Despite my suspicions and prejudices I haven’t honestly seen enough of the place to say whether TWS is right or wrong.

What I did see: sideblotched lizards and western whiptails scurrying for cover as I approached. Doves flying against a purpling sky. Acacia and palo verde twice my height or more, and mature saguaros possibly four times my age.

I saw sandy soil pockmarked everywhere with the homes of wild things, and close-packed desert pavement holding down the desert soil against a steady wind, devoid of life at first glance but showing a legacy of previous annual bloom to anyone who looked closely. I saw places where woodpeckers had made their homes, prime habitat for elf owls. (Didn’t see either bird species, but that’s what that hole in the saguaro says.)

I saw young saguaros and old ocotillos and I saw the sky turn dark and cool. I saw lots of things worth seeing.

But I didn’t see enough to know whether The Wilderness Society is wrong to offer to sacrifice the place. I cannot honestly say, based on my experience yesterday, that they are wrong. Maybe every other acre of the place is as they describe.

I need more data.

I will be going back.

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