Seed scatterers: Plants restored on disturbed wildlands

Friday, July 26, 2002 | 11:10 a.m.

Christo Morris slipped a brown paper bag over the gangly branch of a creosote bush, pinched it shut and shook. He gently pulled the bag off and peered inside at the little white balls that fell into the bottom.

The seeds of the native Mojave Desert plant -- looking like tiny cotton balls as they were harvested -- hold a key to the future of parts of the Las Vegas Valley.

The seeds from healthy plants will be used to replant wildlands that have been stripped by activities such as construction of transmission or natural gas lines or fires.

Workers spent about three hours Thursday collecting seeds near the Harry Allen power plant north of Las Vegas with plans to replant land disturbed by transmission towers being built from the plant.

"The ideal situation is to do a custom collection, that is collecting seeds specific to a nearby site" where plants have adapted to the environment, said Morris, a biologist and restoration coordinator for Nevada Power Co.

Efforts to encourage plant growth after natural disasters such as wildfires or after humans disturb the land are under way in Southern Nevada's desert and surrounding mountains.

Since 1995 the Bureau of Land Management has required any project that disturbs federal parcels to restore natural landscapes, including relocating yucca plants and cactus. Officials say hundreds of acres have been affected and need to be replanted.

BLM botanist Gayle Marrs-Smith said the bureau works with the Forest Service, the Nevada Division of Forestry, and utilities such as Nevada Power to replant lands in the deserts and the mountains. The BLM is analyzing the possible effects of 15 proposed energy projects, from power plants to natural gas pipelines, she said.

First biologists, botanists and other environmental scientists get out on the ground to assess damage. Then they write plans to restore the land, either letting nature take its course or aiding the recovery by replanting natural plants.

The same process is followed, even when the damage is natural.

"We don't expect things to recover overnight," Marrs-Smith said. The process takes years.

Although it took wildland flames less than a week to burn 4,300 acres of the Spring Mountains last week, forest experts agree that it will take several years to green Lovell Canyon, about 25 miles west of Las Vegas. Federal supervisors are analyzing the assessment of the wildfire.

For the crews working on Thursday, collecting the creosote seeds was the quick part.

Morris and his team of eight volunteers did the gathering north of the Harry Allen plant.

Creosote, with small green leaves and scrawny branches that can grow taller than a man, is the second most common plant in the Mojave Desert, next to white burr sage.

The seeds will be used this fall to replant areas disturbed by Nevada Power's construction near the plant.

Collecting local seeds, rather than buying them from a vendor, gives the plants a better chance, Morris said.

Because the seeds are already adapted to the local weather, survival rates improve, he said.

Gatherers netted about five pounds of the seed, which drops from the bushes when it is ripe.

Right before it rains or immediately after an autumn downpour, Morris will plant the harvested creosote seeds in holes on the disturbed ground. Over the next five years he will check on the planted area to see if his efforts have succeeded.

In addition to replanting creosote, Morris is also doing research on how to preserve and grow desert plants such as mesquite.

Morris and Nevada Power are not alone in the restoration efforts.

Native Resources, an Arizona company that came to Las Vegas in 1996, gathers native seeds and has been working with Nevada Power on its Harry Allen project since 1999, biologist Doug Sheehan said.

Las Vegas developers have jumped on the bandwagon, even though they are not required to restore areas on private property. Still, major projects as Lake Las Vegas, Summerlin and the Anthem developments have been doing restoration, Sheehan said.

"You would be surprised at how the major developers in Southern Nevada are more environmentally responsive," Sheehan said.

The biggest project now in progress is Lovell Canyon.

The survey of Lovell Canyon has been completed, but any plans to restore the charred acres must be approved by Forest Service supervisors, Forest Service spokeswoman Beth Short said.

While perennial grasses should restore themselves on the mountainsides with enough rainfall, Forest Service experts worry about erosion.

Higher in the mountain range pinyon pine and juniper burned from the wildland flames. There's not much natural grass growing there, said Kerwin Dewberry, natural resource specialist in the Las Vegas office of the Forest Service.

For stabilizing soils burned to a crisp, Dewberry said chaparral shrubs would help.

Two years ago when wildland fires burned 3,000 acres of forest in Cold Creek Canyon and Trout Canyon, biologists, botanists and other specialists surveyed the areas, noting natural growth near streambeds in the mountains just three weeks after the flames were gone.

Later that summer, the last urban stand of mesquite trees in a public place, Sunset Park, went up in flames and was not restored because the park was under renovation.