In January 2021, activists set up a camp in the Nevada desert to protest a proposed lithium mine. I interviewed Kevin Emmerich of Basin & Range Watch to get the facts on the ecological effects of lithium extraction.
Basin & Range Watch is a desert defense group based in southern Nevada. They track industrial energy developments on public lands in the US southwest, and I consider them to be the premier online resource for learning about and keeping up-to-date with these projects, which include solar and wind.
Basin and Range Watch is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization working to conserve the deserts of Nevada and California and to educate the public about the diversity of life, cultures, and history of the desert, as well as sustainable local renewable energy alternatives. They seek to protect desert wildlands and species, groundwater resources, dark night skies, culturally important landscapes, local ways of life, and more.
The deserts of the American Southwest have come under a new assault in the last decade. The few, fragmented areas of these austere, rugged, yet delicate landscapes that had managed to survive relatively intact from mining, ranching, military use (including nuclear tests), urban encroachment and motorized recreation, are now being targeted for the development of large-scale “green” energy projects, many of them on public lands.
After Obama’s election in 2008, a raft of federal incentives including grants, loan guarantees and tax breaks were offered for renewable energy with the ostensible purpose of reducing the nation’s carbon footprint. This was greeted by cheers from many environmentalists, but as has been characteristic of Obama’s administration, the hope turned out to be hype. Big corporations have been the beneficiaries and the environment is still the big loser.
Basin & Range Watch is a non-profit that operates out of Beatty, Nevada, in the Mojave Desert. Their mission is to “conserve the deserts of Nevada and California and to educate the public about the diversity of life, culture, and history of the ecosystems and wild lands” there. Central to this mission is opposing the many large-scale solar and wind projects that have been proposed in the area, a number of which have been built, all with deleterious consequences. In these efforts, Basin & Range Watch has sometimes found themselves at odds not just with big corporations and big government but also with big environmental organizations, because some of the latter have gotten cozy with the corporations and the state.
A tiny geological treasure can be found in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California: the “Pebble Plains.” Located near the famous ski town of Big Bear Lake, this 92 square-mile area exhibits a soil type found nowhere else in the world, a combination of clay and quartz fragments left behind by a glacier lake that existed during the Pleistocene Era. Over the last 10,000 years, these ingredients have been subject to repeated swelling and shrinking from the freezes at that altitude (6000-7500 feet) and the sun’s heat at that latitude (34° North), resulting in a unique composition.
Tiny botanical treasures are also found there, collectively called, “Belly Plants” because they are so small you have to get down on your belly to see them. About a dozen of these plant species are found nowhere else in the world, having evolved there in isolation, adapting to the unique soil.
This spring, if all goes as planned, the Marines will kill hundreds of Desert Tortoises in southern California. This is not the first such tortoise kill, but it could very well set a new record-high number.
This assault was originally scheduled for last spring, in 2016 (with the full approval of the Obama administration), and was put off for a year only because of a lawsuit filed by an environmentalist organization. Now, with all chances for legal appeal passed, it is set to commence in late March or April in the Mojave Desert.
The first thing I did after picking out my most recent campsite was scatter some sunflower seeds on the ground by the fire ring. I have been doing this at various sites on my current trip for two reasons. First, as a kind of ritual offering, to acknowledge to the space itself that I am a visitor who arrives with respect; similar to how a person might light a candle in a church. Second, I am imitating Edmund C. Jaeger, a 20th Century naturalist and author, known as “Dean of the California Deserts,” who did the same thing in this very desert in order to attract local wildlife so he could observe them; this is more similar to giving a bottle of wine to your host when you’re a guest.
A few minutes after the sun had gone down, but the stars weren’t out yet, I was finishing up my dinner preparations when I heard little scrabbling noises by the fire ring. I looked over and spotted an animal I had never seen in person before but immediately recognized from photos. The over-sized back legs, long tufted tail, and head nearly the size of the rest of its body were unmistakable traits: it was a Kangaroo Rat!
The Kangaroo Rat’s unmistakable traits.
Specifically, it was “Merriam’s Kangaroo Rat,” known scientifically as “Dipodomys merriami.” Jaeger nick-named them, “Dipos,” and so will we in this essay.
While in Joshua Tree, California, in the Spring of 2015, we met a delightful animal whose scientific name, Ammospermophilus leucurus, literally translates as “white-tailed sand and seed lover.” Commonly known as the White-Tailed Antelope Ground Squirrel, this creature is native to the southwestern U.S.A. and Baja California, Mexico. Although they are technically squirrels, because of their small size we couldn’t help but to think of them as “chipmunks” and to call them “chippees.”
The first one who started showing up by the door when we went outside had a shorter-than-usual tail from a past injury and a plump-ish matronly shape, so we named her “Mrs. Stubbs.”
