SL 15 "Aurora" - The New Dawn for SCBS

It’s been a long and tedious journey, but on October 27, 2024, SCBS completed it’s first new guzzler installation upon a leased parcel of California’s State Lands in the Cady Mountains. This idea of leasing State Land parcels for new wildlife water systems was spearheaded by SCBS’s Glenn Sudmeier during his illustrious tenure with SCBS, and gained traction more than ten years ago. Glenn has been involved with SCBS since the 1970’s, when “once upon a time” it was much easier to simply pick suitable habitat and construct the original above ground tank systems at will. Time and bureaucracy have complicated the process; the passing of the 1994 Desert Protection Act and creation of Wilderness areas has proved to be an almost impenetrable membrane. The Bureau of Land Management offices appear to have prioritized the avoidance of lawsuits over the stewardship of the wildlife within their domain. Meanwhile, SCBS forges forward to do what’s best for the sheep. SCBS is not a political action organization, rather, an organization of like-minded volunteers striving to create the most impactful habitat enhancements which will increase and maintain populations of bighorn sheep. Water in the desert is the limiting factor, it’s scarce and diminishing due to ongoing drought. Without the availability of water, the spectrum of wildlife from bighorns to bees will not thrive. Glenn recognized the potential of the vacant State Lands properties peppered within the Federal lands. By and through his dedication, he lobbed a Hail Mary pass and the SCBS team has completed the play. SCBS successfully has leased 90 parcels of California State Lands with the purpose of building strategically placed Raincatcher wildlife water systems throughout the desert. SCBS is proud to announce the successful installation of our first State Lands guzzler in the Cady Mountains, SL15 “Aurora”. The name of this guzzler was chosen during the installation weekend by the volunteers because it is located in an area of the Cady Mountains known as “Sleeping Beauty” (Aurora is the first name of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty). Coincidentally, the Latin word Aurora translates to “sunrise” or “dawn”. It’s an appropriate name for our inaugural project, the dawn of new SCBS Raincatcher projects.

Each new project is the sum of it’s collective parts, which includes a tremendous cooperative effort in planning and execution by volunteers. Many years ago, Glenn Sudmeier spent countless hours in the field scouting prospective locations. With the ink dry on the lease, SCBS President Steve Marschke joined Glenn in identifying and selecting the first parcels for our first set of projects. This equates to miles of hiking and wearing down of boot leather. Once a location was selected, appropriate surveys were performed. During the spring of 2024, SCBS Board members Jeff Crouse and Jenny Hinojosa (professional vegetation specialists) checked the sites for sensitive species and flagged a few areas to avoid. Native American Tribal Councils were notified of our intentions; they all declined our invitation to participate in the projects. David Nichols, a professional NPS archeologist, physically surveyed the subject project sites and gave SCBS the thumbs up. Project dates were selected in advance, and volunteers recruited.

Early Friday October 25, 2024, the advance crew arrived at Camp Cady to pack and haul the tools and materials. Thanks to Mike Morgan, Marty Ambrose, John Voght and David M’Greene for assembling everything we needed and getting our Big Red Ford truck ready to roll. Marty drove Big Red and one tank/trailer to the project site and Scott Gibson towed the second tank. Volunteers caravanned to the pre-selected camp site. Rodger Lopez, our awesome volunteer cook, had arrived first; Rodger, wife Brenda, and son Stephan Vandergriff immediately got to work preparing Friday’s dinner and making our base camp a home. I can’t begin to tell you how much this makes a positive difference to the volunteers who attend the project, it means so much. Meanwhile, I was busy solving the port-a-potty issue. Our selected group campsite was virtually devoid of cover (a dry lakebed). After a week of fruitless phone calls I discovered that CalTrans had rented every last porta-potty for the nearby freeway projects. At first, Steve did not think this would be a big issue (he’s a guy; me, not having cover in an open camp would be problematic – I had a material interest in finding a solution) After voicing my prediction of what would happen first thing in the morning when the group was trying to assemble in a caravan and leave at 8AM, it was abundantly clear we had a situation. The rest of my planning efforts were expended on the research and development of suitable camp toilets, with enclosures, in a week’s time. This resulted in equal parts angst and “poop” jokes. The effort was well spent, I now have an appropriate solution that can carry over to future SCBS projects if needed. In the end, Gary Thomas exercised his connections and came through in securing a single port-a-potty on a trailer so we had three camp toilets. A redundancy that everyone appreciated.

Saturday, October 26 was a beautiful morning with a fiery sunrise that lit up the sky in shades of pink. Rodger and crew had prepared a terrific hot breakfast, and the crew enjoyed food and fellowship. Everyone was excited to get started, and feeling great after seeing that our excavator machinery had arrived. Chuck Thomas of Diversified Excavating has participated in many SCBS projects, and provides his expertise at a significantly discounted rate. Incredibly, he is willing to tackle the arduous effort to deliver his equipment to the work site. Usually, Chuck will need to drive the tracked excavator for the last miles at an excruciatingly slow pace, and this project was no exception. Our crew of 30 people caravanned to the work site and immediately got busy preparing a pad for the Hypalon rain mat. Hypalon is a synthetic rubber material that is resistant to chemicals, temperature extremes, and ultraviolet light. It’s extremely durable. It’s also very heavy, each roll we had at the project weighed about 800 pounds. Chuck arrived on scene and began to dig the holes for the two Raincatcher tanks just as the work crew had finished clearing and raking the pad for the rain mat. Once all the rocks were removed and the surface was raked fine, there was an all-hands-on-deck exercise to manipulate the heavy Hypalon rain mats. As it turns out, once the mats were unfurled, it was discovered that they were facing the wrong direction. All the volunteers lined up along the perimeter of the four edges, and in one team effort the mats were rotated counter clockwise in one effective maneuver. Most of the crew members were needed to stretch and adjust the mats in place. Then the entire team spread out over the landscape, harvesting sizable rocks and carrying them over to be placed upon the rain mat. Sounds rudimentary -but this proven method using native materials keeps those rain mats in place for decades in the harsh Mojave environment. Chuck Thomas excavated the hole we needed with precision. His focus and professional integrity is priceless, and with his expertise we almost finished the installation in one day. The high temp was 86 degrees, no wind, and some disbursed cloud cover.

As the day was winding down, a second team arrived on scene. Lead by Monte Hammer, another volunteer group had arrived hauling water in totes. SCBS would like to recognize Karen Pizzitola and Kristie Livingston of Ludlow and the Newberry Springs Community Center for their valuable contributions of water for this project. The volunteers delivered a total of 3,870 gallons, so this guzzler is ready for business. On this occasion, the hose from the pump was laid down on the rain mat and the water flowed in naturally. This was of great interest to the crew as we were able to observe how the rain mats worked in collection and directing the water to the tanks. Incidentally, this was helpful in making plumbing adjustments to make the system collection efficient. We immediately noticed the presence of dragonflies and bees – they could smell the water. We have no idea where the dragonflies came from. Another surprise were two mylar balloons that came wafting down from the sky as we worked (they were immediately pounced upon). After enjoying a delicious spaghetti dinner and a blazing group bonfire, some members of the group were able to observe the Atlas comet as the sun set. I can’t express in words how good it feels to be out here with these people performing great work for the wildlife. It was also a pleasure having four members of the CDFW as part of our team. We returned to the guzzler site in the morning to finish up loose ends, and by noontime the crew had disbursed. This was a history making, monumental weekend for SCBS. It’s the beginning of a new era and the launch of new opportunities to make an impactful difference. These new State Lands wildlife water systems will benefit every critter in these arid places. SCBS invites you to participate in our future projects, we anticipate 2-4 new systems a year with the generous funding provided by our partners of the California Wild Sheep Foundation. CDFW’s “Give A Lamb A Drink” (GALAD) foundational support is poised to make our dreams an attainable reality – all we need are folks like you to volunteer for the scheduled installations. You can also help by making cash donations to SCBS, as there invariably some uncovered expenses with every project.