BLM California Newsbytes Issue 699

Title: Untitled Document

Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument

ISSUE 699 - NOVEMBER 5, 2015

- National Conservation Lands 
- Cosumnes River Preserve 
- Headlines and Highlights
- BLM and DOI Highlights
- Wildlife Question of the Week
- Upcoming Events

NATIONAL CONSERVATION LANDS

15th Anniversary of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument

Join us as we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument on November 6, 2015. For more information visit Friends of the Desert Mountains  (BLM Facebook) 

Related: Discover the Desert (BLM Website)

California Coastal National Monument

Enjoy the amazing view of the California Coastal National Monument at Fort Bragg Glass Beach. (BLM Facebook)

Related: Discover the Coast (BLM Website)

Chicago Botanical Garden Interns Complete a Successful Summer

Interns from Chicago Botanical Garden are headed back to their hometowns across the United States having wrapped up a summer of work in the Great Basin.  They added valuable experience to their resumes and provided hundreds of hours of high-quality work benefiting the public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management in northeast California. (BLM Newsbytes)

New Guidotti Bridge Opens on Fort Ord National Monument

Visitors to the Fort Ord National Monument have better access with a new 104-foot-long bridge spanning El Toro Creek along Guidotti Road. The bridge replaces a failing bridge that was condemned for use by firefighting and other emergency response equipment in 2009. (BLM Newsbytes)

Snow Dust Falls Over Eastern Sierra

BLMer Bob Wick took these photos of Bodie Hills Wilderness and Conway Summit in BLM California several years ago.  Some of our favorite photos of the area! (BLM Tumblr)

COSUMNES RIVER PRESERVE

Cosumnes River Preserve Project to House Giant Garter Snakes

If the rains come as forecast, Horseshoe Lake on the Cosumnes River Preserve near Galt may provide a new home for giant garter snakes. In October, agencies completed restoration of an approximate 3.5-acre pond designed to serve as open-water foraging habitat for the federal and state-listed “threatened” giant garter snake. (BLM Newsbytes)

Cosumnes River Preserve

Volunteer Naturalists Training November 14th! Do you love talking to people about nature? Are you always watching birds, taking walks, reading about on your local flora and fauna? If so, share your knowledge and your love for preserving what’s left of our natural areas! (BLM Facebook)

Sandhill Crane Festival: Conservation Farmer Award Announced

Lodi News-Sentinel, 10/29/2015
The Johnson family, which owns farmland near the Cosumnes River, will be given the Sandhill Crane Festival’s Conservation Farmer Award. The award, presented by the Sandhill Crane Festival Steering Committee and funded by the Morrissey Family Foundation, recognizes an area farmer whose farming practices enhance habitat for cranes and other migratory species that winter in the region. (Read full story) 

Related: Cosumnes River Preserve (BLM Website)

HEADLINES AND HIGHLIGHTS

Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area

The first fee free day of the season is next week! Veteran’s Day, November 11th, visit the Imperial Sand Dunes! No permit is required. (BLM Facebook)

For more information visit Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area (BLM Website)

Rails-to Trails Conservancy

It’s the perfect time of year to experience fall color on California’s spectacular 25-mile Bizz Johnson National Recreation Trail. (BLM Facebook)

Photo of the Week

“The water was like a mirror when these three cranes took off perfectly synchronized.”- Bruce G Miller (BLM Facebook)

A Float Down California’s Aquatic Lifeline

Sacramento Bee, 10/28/ 2015
California’s very own Mississippi is our Sacramento River, a sinuous blue line that slices through a huge swath of land as it writhes south from headwaters encircling Mount Shasta. This mighty watercourse is the central fact of the Central Valley, a lifeline (sent south via an aqueduct) that benefits the state’s agricultural industry as far as the San Joaquin desert. (Read full story)

Central California Advisory Council Meets in Mendocino

Members of the Central California Resource Advisory Council discussed public lands issues from Lone Pine to Fort Bragg at a meeting Oct. 29-30 in Mendocino. The council reviewed the Bishop Campground Business Plan and voted to proceed to solicit public comments. (BLM Newsbytes)

Rain in Foothills Prompts BLM to Lift Fire Restrictions

Sacramento Bee, 11/2/2015
Citing storms that brought rain to the foothills, the federal Bureau of Land Management announced Monday that it was lifting fire restrictions on lands managed by its Mother Lode Field Office. Affected are lands managed by the bureau in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Nevada, Yuba, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Sutter and Mariposa counties. Even with the rain, people need to be careful with fire, officials cautioned. (Read full story)

Related: BLM Lifts Fire Restrictions for Lands Managed by Mother Lode Field Office (BLM News Release)
Related: BLM Ukiah Field Office Lifting Fire Restrictions (BLM News Release)

Solar Power Can Have a Major Impact Without Major Harm

New York Times, 11/3/2015
In the rush to site solar energy to combat climate change, we got it half right. Building a clean energy future does not have to come at the expense of the environment. We can have it all. Solar energy facilities can spread across thousands of acres, and if not put in the right places, can destroy pristine natural lands, inhibit the ability of those lands to store carbon, and disrupt habitat for imperiled wildlife such as the desert tortoise,bighorn sheep and giant kangaroo rat. (Read full story)

Related: Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan 

Wind Energy is being Unfairly Held Back in California

Sacramento Bee, 11/2/2015
Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law California’s new 50-percent-by-2030 renewable energy standard amid deserved fanfare. But far less attention has been paid to a brewing contradiction: Wind energy projects are being banned or severely restricted in several California counties and, more significantly, across vast federal lands in the state. (Read full story)

CRIT Appeals to Obama in Dispute over Solar Projects

Today’s  News Herald, 11/2/2015
Representatives from the Colorado River Indian Tribes have sent a letter to President Obama, requesting immediate protection for lands threatened by development. CRIT protested the utility-scale Genesis Solar PV project on BLM land about 30 miles west of their tribal reservation, which was approved by the California Energy Commission five years ago. The project unearthed approximately 3,000 sacred objects. (Read full story)

Why the BLM’s Decision on the Cadiz Project Was the Right One: Guest Commentary

San Bernardino Sun, 10/31/2015
Officials at the Bureau of Land Management have to make a lot of sensitive decisions. But their recent decision that a 43-mile, 7-foot diameter groundwater pipeline does not further the purpose of an 1875 railroad right-of-way should not be controversial. (Read full story)

BLM AND DOI HIGHLIGHTS

The Sonoran Desert National Monument

The Sonoran Desert National Monument, a part of the BLM’s National Conservation Lands, contains more than 487,000 acres of Sonoran Desert landscape. In the most biologically diverse of the North American deserts, the Sonoran Desert National Monument includes an extensive saguaro cactus forest and three distinct mountain ranges – the Maricopa, Sand Tank, and Table Top Mountains. (BLM Tumblr)

Fall Foliage

Tonight we’re featuring spectacular fall Wyoming landscapes as the state awaits a nice snowfall! (BLM Tumblr)

Visit One of the Most Spectacular Ghost Towns on Your Public Lands-The Harrisburg Ghost Town in Utah

In 1859, Moses Harris founded Harrisburg, Utah – now know as the Red Cliffs Recreation Area within the BLM-managed Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. A few years later, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “called” the Adams family, among others, to settle in Harrisburg. Quail and Leeds Creek, through a system of ditches, delivered enough water to sustain them until Leeds Creek was diverted further up the road. (BLM Tumblr)

WILDLIFE QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Wolverines are in the same animal family as:
a)bobcats and mountain lions
b)wolves and coyotes
c)weasels and badgers
d)moles and shrews
e)fictional brooding mutant anti-heros

Keep reading for answer below

UPCOMING EVENTS

November 6: Northern California Resource Advisory Council

The Bureau of Land Management's Northern California Resource Advisory Council will convene for a meeting and field tour Thursday and Friday, Nov. 5 and 6, in the conference center at the Red Lion Hotel, 1929 Fourth St. in Eureka. On Nov. 5, the council will convene at 9 a.m. and depart immediately for a field tour to public lands managed by the BLM Arcata Field Office. Members of the public are welcome. They must provide their own transportation, meals and beverages. (BLM Website)

November 8: BLM Offers Burros for Adoption in Davis

Residents of the Davis area will have the opportunity to add some long ears to the family when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will offer wild burros for adoption at the Donkey Welfare Symposium on Sun., Nov. 8 California Wild Horse & Burro Adoption Schedule (BLM Website)

November 21: Public Meeting Scheduled to Address Land Use Changes in the Johnson Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Area

Representatives from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Marine Corps will host a Resource Management Group meeting about changes in land use in the Johnson Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Area on Nov. 21 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.  (BLM News Release)

November 23: Public Comments Due

The Bureau of Land Management  Ridgecrest Field Office, has announced the availability of the proposed plan for remediating contamination for Operable Unit 1 (OU1) at the Rand Historic Mining Complex Site. The proposed plan was prepared by the BLM under authority of the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act  and is the first step in the CERCLA remedy selection process. (BLM Website)

WILDLIFE QUESTION OF THE WEEK ANSWER

Wolverines are in the same animal family as:

ANSWER: c)weasels and badgers

The wolverine is the largest terrestrial member of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels and badgers.

SOURCE: “Wolverine” (BLM California wildlife database)

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