The newsletter of the Desert Protective Council

A Letter from the

DPC Board

n September 10, 2016, DPCs Board of

Directors sent a letter requesting our
members vote on two issues:
1) Formally approve dissolution of the
Desert Protective Council (DPC) effective
March 31, 2017.
2) Approve the transfer of DPCs mission
and assets on March 31, 2017 to Basin &
Range Watch (B&RW) a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
Of the 51% return received, an
overwhelming majority of members voted
Yes to both issues.
In our letter, we explained that
the 2004 funding acquisition from
an Imperial County land use lawsuit
settlement will be exhausted soon.This
means that DPC can no longer afford
our full-time Imperial County Project
& Conservation Coordinator position,
which has been budgeted since 2005 to
help implement requirements mandated
by the agreement.Additionally, DPC has
been struggling for several years with
empty Board positions that have remained
unfilled.Without staff and a new Board,
administration of DPCs important
work will founder.This is why the Board
recommended Yes votes on the two issues
you have now ratified.
We are confident that merging our
mission and resources with Basin and
Range Watch (B&RW) will be a much better
option, rather than reverting to a volunteeronly organization (as we were prior to
2005).Our mission is still vitally important,
and DPCs 62-year old legacy will remain
for others to build upon.Basin & Range
Watch has already been conducting desert
protection campaigns similar to ours in the

broader Nevada/California desert areas.

You can read more about their mission,
goals and B&RWs Board of Directors via
this link: www.basinandrangewatch.org.
The DPC assets to be transferred to
B&RW will include: a small amount of
money after remaining expenses are
accounted for; the right to digitize old issues
of DPCs El Paisano newsletter (and to
freely make all of them available to public
with proper credit to the source); and access
to DPCs mailing list (except for those
individuals who wish to be excluded).
Our mandate for the 2004 funding
acquisition (which we call the Mesquite
Fund) was to apply those monies toward
projects promoting conservation, education
and protection of public health in Imperial
County.Desert Protective Council has been
a good steward, and our accomplishments
include:
DPC funded teaching and preparation
of courses for fourth and fifth-grade
Imperial County students about their
countys environmental riches.
DPC gave strong financial support to
the newly-developed campground in the
Anza Borrego Desert State Park, which
provided camping experiences for Title 1
school children in Imperial and San Diego
Counties.
DPC supported a variety of research
activities to study potentially harmful
desert impacts, such as the growth habits of
invasive mustard plants.
DPC provided funds to the Imperial
County Desert Museum for building
construction and for their opening
ceremony.
DPC provided significant seed funding
to Back Country Pictures, which enabled
the initial development of Conspiracy of
Extremes, a film which presents the beauty
and historical value of Californias deserts
continued on page 2

Winter 2017 Number 223

by Terry Weiner

s I lounge in the slanting late afternoon, barely warm mid-November

sunlight of coastal San Diego, I feel peaceful in the contemplation of how I plan to
spend time in the new year.
You know I love the desert. I have loved
the desert from the early February morning
in 1972 when my young husband and I, on
one of our several southwestern expeditions
in our VW camper van, crossed into the
overwhelming sunrise of the California
desert from Kingman, Arizona.
I love the way the intense summer
light and heat of the desert blast my
fervid brain clean of thought. I love
the seemingly endless vastness, broad
uncluttered horizons and unobstructed
lingering sunsets. I love the desert plant
palette of light green, grey, pale blue
and dark chartreuse. I love the sparkle
of decomposed granite sand and the
sticky clay of the playas. I love the soft
spring night breezes and the stinging 30
mph winds. I love the magnificence and
harshness and the constant surprises of
the desert. I love just being in the desert,
sitting quietly, doing nothing for hours in
the deep darkness of moonless nights, or
under the day-shade of a desert willow,
ironwood or mesquite tree. There are very
continued on page 2

P.O. Box 3635, San Diego, CA 92163-1635 (619) 342-5524 http://www.protectdeserts.org

A Letter from the Board

from page 1

and an important perspective on potential

energy development impacts.For more
information, refer to: http://bcpfilms.com/.
A more extensive listing of DPCs
accomplishments via this mandate is
available on our website at:
http://dpcinc.org/index.php/Mesquite_
Fund/awards/.
As Board members, we would like to
express our heartfelt gratitude to Terry
Weiner, DPC Imperial County Projects &
Conservation Coordinator, for the 11 years
she dedicated service as a full time staff
member.She advised the Board concerning
the status of DPC projects, acted as our
liaison, and faithfully executed important

priorities.Some of DPCs most important

projects were a result of her initiative
and rapport with DPC members and the
environmental community.Since she is
already a member of the Basin & Range
Watch Board of Directors, it is fortunate that
she will remain involved with this work.
We are also grateful to Indy Quillen,
DPC Communications/Social Media
Coordinator, for her 5 years of service in
helping to prepare and distribute El Paisano,
keeping DPC in touch with social media,
and keeping our website up to date.
Finally, the Board is thankful for the
continued support of our members and
contributors throughout DPCs historic

62 years.Your dedication to our desert

environment has guided us through many
challenging times. We share and deeply
understand the disappointment you must
feel at the dissolution of Desert Protective
Council, but also sincerely believe that our
next steps with Basin & Range Watch will
provide the best approach for continued
protection of our precious deserts.

the Laguna Mountains into Anza-Borrego

Desert State Park, l discovered why I had
moved to California and why I would stay.
I camped and explored Anza-Borrego
nearly every weekend in the 1980s and 90s
and eventually expanded my explorations
into the Mojave desert.
My experience and time in the desert

Club where I met our current DPC Board

president, Janet Anderson and Harriet
Allen, my mentor and one of the founders
of the Desert Protective Council.
Involvement and service on the
DPC Board led to one of the finest
opportunities of my lifemy being
hired as the full-time staff Conservation
and Projects Coordinator of the Desert
Protective Council. I am grateful to
Geoffrey Smith who preceeded me as the
first coordinator in 2003-2004.
I have enjoyed the most challenging
and fulfilling career I could have
imagined. My college degree is a BA in
Psychology and I had held jobs in the
field of social work, thus I arrived at
my DPC position lacking a background
in environmental studies, or land use
planning, or the hard sciences. By the seat
of my pants, I had to learn my way around
environmental impact reports, public
land use planning, basic desert ecosystem
functioning, and around the all-important
political process required for desert
protection. I could not have succeeded
in my position without the nurturing and
leadership of many colleagues and the
inspiring work of their organizations.
I am very grateful for the DPC
Board that hired me and for my current
Executive Board members, Janet, Pauline
and Larry, who have continued to guide
me and our organization, and who

With Sincerest Gratitude,

Janet Anderson, President
Larry Klaasen, Vice President / Treasurer
Pauline Jimenez, Secretary

Conservation Corner
from page 1

subtle things happening in the desert too.

A lot of it is perceivable only when I am
quite still of body and mind.
This is the last column I will write for
our El Paisano. My position with the DPC
will end on New Years Eve. I cant quite
grasp the enormity of the transition upon
which I am about to embark, but I know I
will continue to participate in defending
the desert for the rest of my life. I am
profoundly honored to have worked for
the Desert Protective Council over these
past 13 years. I am humbled to have been
a part of an organization with such a deep
and long history of leadership in desert
land-use planning, and desert education. I
am deeply grateful to current DPC Board
directors, all of whom have inspired me
and supported my work in service of the
DPC mission. I have been stirred by the
talents and dedication of our present and
past DPC Advisory Panel members. I am
grateful to them for their contributions to
desert botany, soil science and geology, to
desert literature, desert Native American
history and archeology. I am also grateful
to all of the experts who published
articles on an astounding range of
topics about the desert as DPC quarterly
Educational Bulletins.
A brief history of my love affair with
the Desert Protective Council: In 1976, I
moved from Massachusetts to San Diego
via Santa Barbara. On my first trip over

A Painted Lady butterfly on a desert

lavender shrub. Photo by Tom Budlong

delighted my soul and body, but it also

opened my eyes to the astonishing array
of human pressures threatening the health
and integrity of all of our American
Southwest deserts. My desire to protect
my favorite place on earth evolved into
action. I became aware that I was far from
alone in my concern for the future of our
deserts and thereupon stumbled into the
Desert Committee of the San Diego Sierra

continued on page 3

El Paisano, the newsletter of the Desert Protective Council

Memoriam: Marge Sill, Mother of Nevada Wilderness

he Desert Protective Council, its

members and friends mourn the loss
of an outstanding desert defender and
wilderness advocate. For over fifty years,
Marge Sill of Nevada worked to conserve
the wild places of the west. In 1984, she
helped found the non-profit desert advocacy group, Friends of Nevada Wilderness.
Marge was a tireless conservation advocate.
Her years of advocacy led to the creation
of Great Basin National Park in 1986 and
the passage of the Nevada Wilderness
Protection Act in 1989, which established
thirteen new wilderness areas across the
state, including Mt. Charleston outside of
Las Vegas, Mt. Rose, outside Reno, and
the Ruby Mountains near Elko. Marge
Sill came to be known and honored as the
Mother of Nevada Wilderness.
Marge was born in 1923 Bakersfield,
California and grew up in the Los Angeles
area. She was introduced to the wonders
of the outdoors by her father, who worked
in the oil industry and would take her with
him on geological surveys. She went on to

Conservation Corner
from page 2

have supported and funded a number

of important desert education projects.
The leadership of our present Board of
Directors and wise investment in Imperial
County conservation and education
projects has enabled DPC to continue its
mission and be a major staunch voice for
desert preservation.
I treasure and thank El Paisano
newsletter editors and web site managers
with whom I have worked over the past
decade, namely Janet Anderson, Jim
Ricker, Shirley Harshenin, Larry Hogue
and Chris Clarke. I am honored and
particularly delighted to have worked
with our current newsletter editor, web
manager and social media coordinator,
author Indy Quillen. Ours has been a
great partnership.
I am indebted to, and thank from
my heart, my dedicated colleagues and
friends who are working individually
and with other non-profit conservation
organizations to protect and preserve
our desert national natural heritage. I am

http://www.protectdeserts.org

study math and literature at U.C. Berkeley,

where she received her first taste of
environmental activism. After graduating
in 1949, she married fellow conservation
activist, Richard Sill, joined the Sierra Club,
and moved to Reno where she taught high
school math at Sparks High School for
forty years.
Marge never had children, but over the
decades she has mentored and nurtured
many budding conservationists in the
Nevada environmental community. Her
impacts extended into the California
desert as well. Harriet Allen, founder of
the Desert Protective Council, lauded
her as a wonderfully eloquent, staunch
but compassionate role model for all
conservationists.
Marges love of wild places and her
advocacy blossomed from years of taking
groups on hiking, backpacking and
camping trips all over California and
Nevada. She won others to her cause
of wilderness protection through her
knowledge and her perseverance. She

grateful to my co-founders of Solar Done

Right, the leading voice for local rooftop
solar and distributed generation in west.
Finally, I am heartily looking
forward to working as a volunteer Board
member of what I think of as a sister
organization, Basin and Range Watch
(B&RW). The founders of B&RW perform
extraordinarily fine work educating
the public and advocating for desert
protection. Please spend time perusing
their web site. B&RW, in conference with
the DPC Board, has agreed to work with
our members and to help perpetuate our
mission. They plan to continue to publish
El Paisano. What a gift to DPC and the
desert! Please transfer your support and
donations in 2017 to Basin and Range
Watch and feel free to contact Laura
Cunningham, B&RW Executive Director:
bluerockiguana@hughes.net
Our members and friends have
expressed dismay and sadness over the
dissolution of DPC and I too am brokenhearted to see DPC go away, but I am
confident that Basin and Range Watch will

continued to lead hikes around Reno into

her 70s and early 80s.
Marge Sill died in October at her home
in Reno at age 92. No services have yet
been set, but Sills niece, Judy Cameron said
that her many friends in the conservation
community are planning a memorial
gathering in her honor. Our heartfelt love
and thanks to a great activist and friend.
Rest in peace, Marge.

Baby Smoke Tree with Basal Leaves. Photo

by Tom Budlong

charge on with the critically important

work of education and advocacy on behalf
of our American southwest deserts.
I will continue to be available for
communication via email and my cell
phone. terryweiner@sbcglobal.net and 619
342-5524. Thank you DPC members and
friends for your awesome support over the
past decades. It has been a thrill to know
you. Have splendid holidays. I wish you
all a fulfilling 2017 and look forward to
keeping in touch.
Terry Weiner
terryweiner@sbcglobal.net

Summer Wandering and Botanizing in the Great Basin

by Laura Cunningham

Yellow and purple monkey flower (Mimulus

densus), two completely different colored
flowers in the same species and mixing
together in stands!

ummer wanderings in June found us

visiting higher mountain ranges in
central Nevada: the middle of nowhere-but one of my favorite parts of the Great
Basin. The Monitor Range is a long 10,000foot high ridge and tableland cloaked in
aspen groves, pinyon-juniper woodland,
sagebrush, and lush alpine prairies. I
could spend a lifetime exploring just this
one range, yet it is one of dozens running
north-south in central Nevada, the result of
crustal extension in geologic time, pulling
valley troughs apart from intervening
mountain blocks.

Sulphur buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum).

During this trip we decided to access

the highlands from the remote east side,
an expedition that required about 80 miles
of dirt road driving through little-visited
basins northeast of Tonopah. Unlike
the busy Sierra Nevada, these ranges are
usually barren of people except for the few
forest service campgrounds, and one can
gaze out over landscapes completely free of
transmission lines, paved roads, buildings
or structures. Old wooden fences and a few
watering troughs for range cattle are about
all that the traveler sees.
But wildlife is abundantthe feel of
ages past before European colonization can
be imagined. We saw pronghorn antelope
low on the sagebrush basin, a big Rocky
Mountain mule deer buck with antlers in
velvet walking by our streamside camp, and
a herd of elk in their reddish short summer
coats up high on the mountainside.
Our primitive campsite along a rushing
little snowmelt creek was alive with dawn
chorus in the morning. Black-headed
grosbeaks, warbling vireos, robins,
and gray flycatchers sang in the brushy
willow copses. Flocks of noisy bushtits
flitted through the pinyon pines (Pinus

monophylla), while scrub jays called across

the rabbitbrush flats (Chrysothamnus
nauseosus).
But what really astonished us was
the flora of this range, which held many
surprising plant species. Two types of
snowberry greeted us along the canyon
trail along a creek descending out of
the Table Mountain Wilderness Area:
mountain snowberry (Symphoricaros
rotundifolius) and the lovely long-flowered
snowberry (S. longiflorus), which looked
like an ornamental shrub out of a city
botanical garden with its rows of pinkish
hanging tubular flowers along each twig.
White-blossomed dogwood (Cornus
sericea) thickets and wild rose bushes (Rosa
woodsii) formed a dense understory in the
aspen groves (Populus tremuloides) lining
the creek.
Wildlfowers were abundant in the
canyon, with neon red firecracker
penstemons (Penstemon eatonii) mixing
with scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata) and
sulphur flower (Eriogonum umbellatum).
Higher mountain torrents bouncing
through rocky ravines dense with more
aspen held purple-colored shooting stars
(Dodecatheon jeffreyi), red-and-yellow
columbine (Aquilegia formosa), and green
leafy corn lily (Veratrum californicum).
As we climbed high up the trail to 9,000
feet elevation, we entered green mountain
meadows with springs seeping clear water
into the native grasses and bog sedges.
Acres of iris (Iris missouriensis) grew in the

El Paisano, the newsletter of the Desert Protective Council

Summer Wandering and Botanising from page 4

Aspen onion (Allium bisceptrum).

meadows tinting them purple at a distance.

Other parts of the meadow were pink with
more shooting star flowers than I had ever
seen in one place.
Montane thickets of mountain
mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius) had
a groundcover of abundant aspen onion
(Allium bisceptrum)--it was a good year for
this dainty little pink globular flowerhead.
I tasted a few shallow root bulbs: sweet and
onion-flavored, all right.

We neared the top of the cliffy mountain

plateau at 10,000 feet, snow patches filling
north-facing crevices, scattered whitebark
pines (Pinus albicaulis) wind-blown
into twisted contorted shapes, and arid
alpine herb and low shrub communities
dominating. Here I found one of my
favorite plants: Siberian sagebrush
(Artemisia frigida), also know as prairie
sagewort or fringed wormwood. It is found
in cold arid montane and arctic grasslands

across North America and Eurasia; its

flower heads have been found in the bellies
of frozen woolly mammoths in Russia, so
I like to think of this small low shrub as a
relict of the once extensive circumboreal
Mammoth Steppe of Ice Age times.
Very different but equally fascinating
is the snow cactus, also called mountain
cactus (Pediocactus simpsonii), one of the
strangest plants I have encountered. We
found several poking above the rocky
alpine slopes, looking out across vast vistas
of the Basin and Range Province. Hiding
under the snowpack in the winter, as the
summer warms this cactus blooms with
very pale whitish flowers with just a hint
of yellow-pink color, and almost too large
for the small cactus that produces them.
We had to sit and marvel at these cactus
blossoms at ground level. Some cactus
bodies were nestled in the alpine gravel
with only their flowers above ground. They
grow as high as 11,88 feet elevation.
We descended the mountain filled with
the wonder and beauty of the Great Basin
ranges, the remote places that are waiting
for more discovery by the explorer, hiker,
and naturalist.

Coast to Cactus: The Canyoneer Trail Guide to San Diego Outdoors

Coast to Cactus: The Canyoneer Trail
Guide to San Diego Outdoors is a new
comprehensive hiking guide for outdoor
enthusiasts that is so much more. Published
by award-winning Sunbelt Publications,
this book is also a field guide to the habitats,
species, and natural features found along
the many trails within the San Diego region.
It is designed to teach appreciation and
understanding of San Diegos biodiversity,
considered one of 35 biodiversity hotspots in
the world. Its like having a trail naturalista
Virtual Canyoneeron the hike with you,
helping you to understand what there is to
see on the trail. Canyoneers are San Diego
Natural History Museum volunteers who
are trained citizen scientists that lead free
public walks throughout the County. This

http://www.protectdeserts.org

book was written and edited by the Museum

Canyoneers.
With over 250 hike options that include
maps, photos, distances, and a variety of
other information, the full-color guide
offers 638 pages in a compact 6 x 9
format and introduces readers to over 500
different species of plants and animals. Its
strategically organized with hikes separated
into four geographic regionscoast, inland,
mountain, and desertand it includes a
listing of all regional trails and watersheds
in the county. For desert enthusiasts, there
are 52 hikes that feature the species and
landforms found in this unique area. Each
hike has a map, symbols showing the habitats
encountered on the hike, and details about
the species that are featured on the hike. The
retail price of the book is $29.95.

BVEF Awards $65,000 to UCI for Air Quality Study

eople come from all over the world

to enjoy the flora and fauna of the
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, to take in
the scenic vistas, to marvel at the majesty
of the Milky Way in our Dark Sky, and to
breathe the pristine desert air. But in recent
years the desert air has at times not been so
pristine. In fact, there have been days in the
last two years in the Borrego Valley when
visibility was less than 200 feeta veritable
brown out. No one knows if the perceived
decline in Air Quality is a consequence
of a declining Salton Sea, off road vehicle
activity, the scraped desert under new
solar farms, or all of the above. But no one
doubts the impact of declining Air Quality

Left, satellite image of Salton Sea on a

calm day. Right, satellite image of dust
blowing over the southern end of the
Salton Sea the next day, which was a
windy day.

on human health and on tourism, the

economic driver of the region.
Keeping with the idea that you cant
manage it if you cant measure it, the
Borrego Valley Endowment Fund (the
Fund) has awarded a $65,000, 3-year grant
to the University of California, Irvine
(UCI) to study Air Quality in the Borrego
Valley. This grant to develop objective
measures of the changing air quality in our
community furthers the Funds mission
to invest in projects that will improve the
health and wellbeing of all members of our
community, said Bob Kelly, President of
the Fund.
The 3-year study will use data generated
by seven weather monitoring stations
currently deployed in the valley as a result
of a $270,000 grant from the National
Science Foundation awarded in 2015 to
Dr. Travis Huxman, Director of the UCI
Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert
Research Center. These weather-monitoring
stations have been augmented to include
particulate matter (dust) monitors as a
result of a $15,000 grant from the Borrego
Water District. Two of the seven weathermonitoring stations can be easily seen at
the Borrego Springs Elementary School
and the Wilcox Well facility along Borrego
Springs Rd.
The study will be conduced by UCI
researcher Charles Zender, Ph.D. and
doctoral candidate, Morgan Gorris. Dr.
Zender is a world-renowned researcher
who specializes in understanding the
movement of particulate matter (dust) in
the atmosphere, and Ms. Gorris will be
working under his guidance. Dr. Zender
noted, Well find out whether air quality
and visibility have degraded in recent years
and, if so, why. We hope this information
increases understanding of how to preserve
or even restore the ambience and viewshed
that makes Borrego Springs a regional
treasure.
The first year of the study will focus
on combining data from the new groundbased monitoring stations with decades
of NASA satellite data to create a baseline
understanding of air quality in the Borrego
Valley over the last twenty to thirty years.
The second year of the study will use this
baseline to develop a predictive air quality

Correlation between wind velocity and

particulate matter concentration at one of
the monitoring stations.

model similar to those models used for

weather forecasting. The third year of the
study will use the predictive model to
specifically identify those sources of dust
that impact our air quality.
This project is an exciting example of
the growing synergy between the world
class researchers at the UCI Steele/Burnand
Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center and
the community of Borrego Springs, and it
is a fulfillment of the universitys mission to
engage in scientific endeavors that make a
difference in peoples lives.
The study began in March 2016 and
will run through 2018. Input from the
community is sought in the form of reports
from the public of particular days in which
air quality is perceived to be noticeably
poor. These community reports will be
coordinated with data from the ground
monitoring stations and satellite data. If
you would like to participate in this study,
please submit your reports to Morgan
Gorris at mgorris@uci.edu.
J. David Garmon, MD is the
president and a founding director of
the Tubb Canyon Desert Conservancy,
a 501(c)(3) dedicated to preserving the
biodiversity and scenic beauty of the
desert southwest. Dr. Garmon is also a
trustee of the Borrego Valley Endowment
Fund. He divides his time between San
Diego where he is engaged in the fulltime practice of psychiatry and Borrego
Springs where he replenishes his soul.
He may be contacted at contact.tcdc@
tubbcanyondesertconservancy.org.

El Paisano, the newsletter of the Desert Protective Council

Basin and Range Watch, a Desert Conservation Nonprofit

he southwestern deserts of North

America hold a special fascination
for many people. The stark and colorful
landscapes, the diversity of specialized
plant and animal species, the cultures
and history, the open vistas, the ability to
explore arid wilderness far from cities. This
is how I came to see the Mojave Desert in
1985 on a UC Berkeley zoology field trip
(a course taught originally by herpetologist
Robert Stebbins). We camped at the Granite Mountains in the East Mojave Scenic
Region, long before it became Mojave
National Preserve. I was enchanted and
wanted to absorb as much as I could of this
land, and make sure it stayed this way
wild and vast forever.

Death Valley hike in Lemonade Canyon.

Over the years I came here often and

brought friends. We explored as many
places as we could: Joshua Tree National
Park, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park,
the Algodones Dunes, the Owens Valley,
the Colorado River, the Mojave River, the
Amargosa River, the Grand Canyon, and
north up into the Great Basin. And many
places with no name. I always felt there was
more to learn about this land of mysterious
jagged mountains and broad basins dotted
with creosote or sagebrush. We identified
birds and lizards, marveled at sightings of
bighorn sheep, sketched plants, took notes
and photos, hiked, tried not to get stuck
in the sand, watched the sunset colors on
rock, admired primordial starlit night skies
in camp, always wanting to explore deeper.
I finally came to live in the desert fulltime in 1999 when I married a park ranger,
Kevin Emmerich, who had worked in
Death Valley National Park since 1991 and
not only brought an extensive knowledge

http://www.protectdeserts.org

of the area, but also of desert activism with

the goal of preserving this land intact. I
learned quite a lot about the threats to
this region and the environmental laws
that govern our public lands. Together we
formed a team and we soon decided to
forge a new group to help conserve our
beloved desert.
We began Basin and Range Watch
in 2008 as an informational grassroots
website to educate people about the
issues surrounding the desert. In 2016
we became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the
goal of conserving our desert ecosystems
and local community quality of life, while
emphasizing sustainable ways of living,
such as rooftop solar, as the best form of
renewable energy. We also advocate for
water conservation, and the best possible
management of our public lands using
science.
I befriended Terry Weiner of the Desert
Protective Council (DPC) several years
ago and I have never met such a passionate
and experienced protector of the deserts
especially those places such as the Imperial
Valley, which are often overlooked by many
environmental groups. We formulated
plans to cooperate to conserve the desert
against threats, and when the unfortunate
timing of DPCs dissolution came, we
talked about options to continue the
important legacy and enormous history
of work of this unique and irreplaceable
desert group.
So many famous and knowledgeable
desert experts, scientists, and advocates
have carried the Desert Protective Council
through the decades, helping to educate
and conserve these amazing desert

Solar power tower at Crescent Dunes near

Tonopah NV.

landscapes. It is a daunting task to continue

this mission. But we feel with the help of
DPC staff and members, we can continue
the goal of desert conservation started in
1954. We hope to carry forward desert
activism across California, Nevada, and
Arizona.
During these changing times, from
President Obama to the new Trump
administration, with possible deregulation
and weakening of environmental
protection laws, we feel it is more
important than ever to continue the fight to
defend our deserts. Please join us. We will
have an email newsletter in the near future,
a membership form, and will continue the
El Paisano.
Thank you,
Laura Cunningham
Executive Director
www.basinandrangewatch.org.

The DPC Board encourages our

members and friends, who have
earmarked contributions for DPC,
to please send them to Basin &
Range Watch, to help them continue DPCs desert education and
conservation mission.
Go tohttp://basinandrangewatch.orgto donate online or mail
your contributions to B&RW
P.O. Box 70 Beatty, Nevada 89003.
7

El Paisano #223 Winter 2017

Desert Protective
Council
Since 1954
protectdeserts.org

P.O. Box 3635

San Diego, CA
92163-1635

Favorite Desert Place

This photo by Tom Budlong was taken at the edge of the Cleghorn Lakes Wilderness, Mojave Desert.

The newsletter of the Desert Protective Council