CONSERVATION UPDATE: Dedeckera Canyon Incident

There have been rumors and controversial articles in the past few months regarding reported damage in the Dedeckera Canyon area. (Dedeckera Canyon lies between Saline Valley and Eureka Valley.) It has been reported that a miner in the area had destroyed the jeep road running through the bottom of this canyon in an attempt to build a new gravel road for himself. This miner was reported to have been connected with actions in the nearby "White Cliffs" canyon with its endangered petroglyphs. The Ridgecrest office of the BLM had filed suit to enforce reparations. It was further reported that they (BLM) had sent out a survey team to make a permanent record of the state of the rock art, no formal cataloging having been done to date. Since I've always found it better to check into things directly myself, I called Steve Smith, an old time DPSer and BLM ranger for the Ridgecrest office. Steve was well informed about the incident, and arranged a phone conference for me which included Katie Wash, a wilderness specialist who also had direct personal knowledge about the incident. Both were happy to share their information with me. (Note: The interest in Dedeckera Canyon is heightened by the fact that it is the location of a recently discovered species of plants. In the early 70's Mary Dedeckera discovered a new genus in the buckwheat family, the latest such discovery to be made in the US.) So here are the facts in the case A miner did indeed bring a dozer into the Dedeckera Canyon narrows, along with gravel with which to build a mining access road for himself. Fortunately, he was spotted by BLM ranger Stan Zuber on the same day he began his roadwork, and was immediately cited. A number of actions have been initiated by the BLM since that day to properly handle this incident. Steve Smith made an immediate aerial survey of the area. Katie Wash followed this inspection up with an on-foot hike of the entire length of the canyon. Katie was an excellent choice for this inspection since in addition to her professional status as wilderness specialist, she had hiked the canyon a number of times previously, so had a good memory comparison for alterations to the canyon bottom. Katie also was dropped by helicopter onto the petroglyph site to make direct inspection there. She carried with her historical photographs of this site from the BLM files to compare. (Seems there was a record after all.) A special team of six was appointed to inspect and study the canyon area to perform environment assessment and to make recommendations for restoration. This team included a wilderness specialist, a biologist, a minerals specialist, a specialist in air, soil and water, and Mary Dedecker herself. Several field inspections have been made by the team or its members at various times. I'm happy to report that no damage was found at the petroglyph site.

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