Surprising recovery

Monday, Nov. 14, 2005 | 7:54 a.m.

INYO COUNTY, Calif. -- George Novak has spent the last 35 years living at a mining camp along the western edge of Death Valley National Park, trying to protect his neighborhood -- a desert oasis called Surprise Canyon.

The canyon carries a stream of cold, clear water through it, providing a place for cattails, willows and ferns, as well as an environment for several animals and a few rare birds.

But it hasn't always been that way. Novak, 85, and his son, Rocky, see themselves as the canyon's caretakers and can detail the canyon's deterioration largely to "them."

"I'm going to keep them out of the canyon until I die," the elder Novak said.

"Them" refers to the four-wheel drives and altered Jeeps that used to plow through the stream's waters, mowing down cottonwood trees, willows and delicate plants in the process.

For all its beauty, the canyon was also a playground -- and a challenge -- for off-road enthusiasts who wanted to test their abilities in the steep canyon.

But vehicle access has been blocked for the last four years, and the canyon has been quiet, now only accessible to hikers. Biologists and environmentalists are seeing signs of recovery.

Plants are recovering and last year a rare Inyo California Towhee, which is listed as a threatened species, flew into the canyon, said Jeff Aardahl, a retired Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologist and manager.

"It (the bird) could be a real indicator of recovery here," said Aardahl, who this month went to work for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued to protect the canyon.

The canyon has been an area of concern since the BLM completed a California Desert Conservation Area plan in 1980, but protecting it has been a difficult task.

The elder Novak, who used to mine the mountains around the canyon, and his son used to try to chase off-roaders away from the canyon.

It took a lawsuit in 2000 by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity to change the situation. The center sued the federal government, accusing it of failing to take care of the canyon and other desert areas.

In 2001 the BLM agreed to block vehicle access to the canyon, noting that the canyon did "not meet the BLM's minimum standards" due to "soil erosion and streambed alterations caused by motor vehicle use."

The BLM and the National Park Service, which share jurisdiction of the canyon, are performing an environmental study to determine what access should be allowed in the canyon. It could range from leaving the canyon closed to vehicles to opening it up for some off-road use.

The Park Service favors protecting the stream, but both the Park Service and the BLM have to agree on what to allow. The BLM has yet to complete its study of the area. While some people involved in the case expect something soon, the BLM officials said they weren't sure when the study would be done.

"It is a rare desert stream there in Surprise Canyon," said Terry Baldino of the National Park Service office that serves Death Valley.

The stream flows out of the Panamint Mountains and drops 11,000 feet, flowing over seven waterfalls before ending in salt flats to the west.

Daniel Patterson, a desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, called it "a real sensitive area."

He noted the damage that had taken place in the lush streambed.

Extreme off-roaders would try to go seven miles upstream to the site of a former silver boom town called Panamint City. To get there, they had to winch their vehicles over the waterfalls in the canyon. Someone had drilled holes in the canyon's walls, giving the drivers a place to insert steel pipes that they could tie their lines or chains to.

The vehicles' big tires ripped up the stream bed, trees were cut or knocked down, and overturned vehicles left oil and gas in the water.

Four years after the vehicle closure, the undisturbed stream supports forests of cottonwoods, willows, cattails and other plants in a rare riparian habitat, said Patterson, who previously worked for the BLM.

The orange-crowned warbler, a migrating bird, has been spotted in the canyon, as well as the buckeye butterfly, 25 desert bighorn sheep, the Panamint daisy and the Panamint alligator lizard. Two endangered birds, the Southwest willow flycatcher and the Least Bell's vireo, eat and rest in the canyon.

Desert riparian habitat amounts to less than 1 percent of the environment in the Southwest, yet supports an enormous population of migrating birds, including the golden eagle, said Geary Hund, California desert and monuments program director for the Wilderness Society.

The endangered birds depend on cottonwood and willow tree forests, but 90 percent of the desert streams are already gone due to groundwater withdrawals, drought and livestock grazing, Hund said.

"It is a very rare and fragile environment," Hund said. "It's unique."

Mary Manning can be reached at 259-4065 or by e-mail at manning@lasvegassun.com.