Pine Tree Wind Farm Part 3

Wednesday, September 12, 2018 7:13:36 AM

Pine Tree Wind Farm

The LADWP's Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm lay's within the Western Tehachapi Mountains (I have seen some maps listing this area as the Sothern Sierra Nevada Mountains). The area stretches from the Jawbone Canyon and Jawbone-Butterbredt Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) to the North Sky River Project and the Jawbone Wind Energy Project to the West.

the southern extremity of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A unique mixing of several different species of plants and animals occurs within the ecosystem transition between the Mojave Desert and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Desert plants such as creosote bush, Joshua tree, burro bush and shadescale may be found in close association with pinyon pine, juniper, canyon oak and digger/grey pine. The varied vegetation provides habitat for a great diversity of wildlife over a small geographic area. Species of note include raptors, the yellow-eared pocket mouse, a variety of lizards and a number of migrant and resident bird species. This wilderness is part of a National Cooperative Land and Wildlife Management Area and the BLM Jawbone Butterbredt Area of Critical Environmental Concern, which was designated to protect outstanding wildlife and Native American values.

The quote above is from the Digital-Desert internet site which by the way has a huge amount of information on many different facets of the Mojave Desert area.

The text above concerns the Kiavah Wilderness area which is just northeast of the Pine Tree Wind Farm area and has much of the same terrain, geology, wildlife, plant life and climate. The description serves the Pine Tree Wind Farm area well.

So in other words the area of Pine Tree Wind Farm is NOT some desolate wilderness without plant or animal life. This area of the Southern Tehachapi Mountains as with the Owens Valley has enough value to all of mankind and needs to be preserved.

The behemoth that is Los Angeles is cannot be allowed to continue to rob, rape and plunder outside of it's own bailiwick. I am not stating that the Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm is in any form a ecological disaster as the Owens Valley is today, but that the people of Los Angeles could and should examine their own responsibility in the many different environmental mistakes they continue to make.

In truth I found the LADWP's Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm to be very clean of trash, the road network limited to what is necessary to maintain the wind turbines and solar panels, NO graffiti at all, zero derelict vehicles and from what I could see no oil spills! On all this and more LADWP should be congratulated.

So here are a few photos to prove that this area is worth saving!

wide view of a canyon at Pine Tree with lots of Pinion Pine

Black bears and Bobcats are known to habitat in this area! One would think that simply by gazing at this photo only jackrabbits and lizards could live in this area.

Wrong again!

Photo of a hillside in the Pine Tree area in Shadow

One of the last photos before leaving was this hillside that was in shadow. A rugged rocky area that has a diverse plant structure. I believe a few of the trees are Blue Oaks toward the bottom center and left. Heading up towards the rocks I believe those are Pinion Pine not Juniper, but cannot verify that as I had no time to explore. Some Big Berry Manzanita may be seen in the center.

Image showing multiple wind turbines among the hills

Ahhh back in the light! Interesting photo indeed! 1st you can see 18 of the 90 GE 1.5 MW 1.5sl or 1.5sle wind turbines at work. All were working at the time of the photo for a potential of up to 27 MW's of electric power.

In the near foreground are some California Juniper trees and Sand Sage (probably not California Sage). The hills in the immediate background are littered with mostly Pinion but some taller Juniper.

Now see the turbine blade just poking out of the hillside to the far left, now gaze just to the right of that blade and look for a long white line going horizontally across the hills. That's right, you guessed it, it's the Los Angeles Aqueduct!

Brown hills left barren after overgrazing

This scene above is undoubtedly due to overgrazing. But also notice the Mormon Tea (Greenish shrub, but is this really Morman Tea or Sand Sage?) in the bottom of the photograph and how they are bending away from the near constant wind. The wind itself makes it a little more difficult for nature to re-populate the hills and valley seen here due to the simple fact that seeds are blown by the wind and cannot easily gain a foothold. Year after year of grazing eventually reduces the vegetation to grasses.

The brownish shrubs are probably California Buckwheat which is thankfully a native plant.

One of the grass type is Cheatgrass which is NOT native to the North American continent anywhere! Much of the brown grass was / is Cheatgrass.

Mormon Tea

(General: Ephedra Family (Ephedraceae). Green ephedra (Mormon tea) is a dioecious, scraggly shrub rarely more than 60 cm to 150 cm high. The vivid green foliage presents a striking contrast to an often-dull gray desert environment. It has been widely planted as an ornamental. This species is used in seed mixtures for re-vegetating depleted game ranges in the mountain shrub and juniper-pinyon types and optionally in the sagebrush type in Utah.)

Information from: http://mojavedesert.net/plants/shrubs/mormon-tea.html

Tehachapi hills covered with Pinion Pine, Juniper, California buckwheat

The horrible invasive cheatgrass covers the immediate foreground here. The larger bushes to the left could be California buckwheat. The hillsides to the right seem to be a combination of Creosote and Pinion.

Hazy photo of the Jawbone Canyon area with the LA Aqueduct in the background

A well grazed hillside with copius amounts of well munched cheatgrass. A 1.5 MW GE wind turbine provides electric power to a hundred or more houses and a couple of strip malls in Los Angeles. Above the well grazed grassy area is a zone of Morman Tea, California Buckwheat and sagebrush, but what else?

Open the photo to full size and you will see a small herd of California Mule Deer. 2 does and a fawn. The fawn is kneeling down facing the opposite direction from the other 2 mule deer. Can't see all 3? Go Here.

The Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus californicus) showing a white tail with a black tip. The mule deer are not eating the cheatgrass, the cattle are doing that chore.

Normally, the California mule deer will prefer hill terrain over flatlands and plains, they especially like oak woodland habitats. California mule deer browsers and typically take about 90% of their diet from shrubs and leaves and the remainder from grasses.

Here it looks like 4 doe and 1 fawn, all were moving in a easterly direction. This is not the same group as in the photo above with the mule deer under the wind turbine.

It was nice to see that the area around the wind turbines still had a healthy environment as to be able to support a deer population.

The Black-tailed Jackrabbit was seen all over the Pine Tree area. This mammal serves as a food source for many raptors and bobcats plus as always in the West, a favorite Coyote meal!

And this is a fitting end to our journey to the Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm in the Tehachapi Mountains.

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Operational Wind Projects Tehachapi Wind Resource Area, 2018

Cover image of the Operation Wind Projects Tehachapi

Photo and Wikipedia description of the Jawbone-Butterbredt Area of Critical Environmental Concern

Cheatgrass

Bromus tectorum, also known as drooping brome.

Cheatgrass was introduced to North America through contaminated grain seed, straw packing material, and soil used as ballast in ships sailing from Eurasia. This first occurred between 1850 and the late 1890’s. During this time, abusive use of rangelands, coupled with drought, left many Great Basin rangelands in poor condition. Cheatgrass was able to occupy areas where the native vegetation had been reduced, beginning its persistent march across the landscape.

Quoted from:

image banner for Invasive Weeds web site

The reduction of native plants and the increased fire frequency caused by B. tectorum prompted the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to examine if the greater sage-grouse needed to be listed as a threatened or endangered species due to habitat destruction. After the review was completed by the USFWS, Secretarial Order 3336 was signed with the goal of reducing the threat of rangeland fires and preserve habitat by reducing downy brome.

Invasive_Cheat_grass_on_Spruce_Mountain,_Nevada

This is in June when the weed is ready to drop seeds and become a wildfire hazard.

Cheatgrass has a nasty habit of having it's having grow area (stands) dry out by mid-June and that makes wildfires all that more likely to happen earlier in the season. Now these early to mid-summer fires are very tough on the native forbs and grasses. So then the Cheatgrass drops it's seeds prior to the fire season and if no fire burns the Cheatgrass seeds they will germinate with any fall precipitation.

This cycle gives rise to a dense, continuous stand of Cheatgrass that makes additional fire hazards all that more likely. Wildfires then return at quicker intervals that are less than 5 years under cheatgrass dominance. Western sagebrush plains used to have natural wildfire of 60 or more years. Now with every new fire on a 4 or 5 year cycle the cheatgrass increasingly becomes more dominant and continues to expands its range of infestation.

One method of combating Cheatgrass is to have increased livestock grazing begin in early spring as this helps to lower seed production and reduce fuel for fires if the Cheatgrass is grazed to a stubble.

Black-tailed Jackrabbit

(from Wikipedia)

The black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus), also known as the American desert hare, is a common hare of the western United States and Mexico, where it is found at elevations from sea level up to 10,000 ft (3,000 m). Reaching a length around 2 ft (61 cm), and a weight from 3 to 6 lb (1.4 to 2.7 kg), the black-tailed jackrabbit is the third-largest North American hare.

Black-tailed jackrabbits occupy mixed shrub-grassland terrains. Their breeding depends on the location; it typically peaks in spring, but may continue all year round in warm climates. Young are born fully furred with eyes open; they are well camouflaged and are mobile within minutes of birth, thus females do not protect or even stay with the young except during nursing. The average litter size is around four, but may be as low as two and as high as seven in warm regions.

The black-tailed jackrabbit does not migrate or hibernate during winter and uses the same habitat of 0.4 to 1.2 mi (1–3 km2) year-round. Its diet is composed of various shrubs, small trees, grasses, and forbs. Shrubs generally comprise the bulk of fall and winter diets, while grasses and forbs are used in spring and early summer, but the pattern and plant species vary with climate. The black-tailed jackrabbit is an important prey species for raptors and carnivorous mammals, such as eagles, hawks, owls, coyotes, foxes, and bobcats.

There are six subspecies of mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in California:

O. h. californicus - California mule deer (Westside of Sierra Nevada down to southcoast)
O. h. eremicus - Desert/burro mule deer (southwest California, northwest Mexico and Arizona)
O. h. fuliginatus - Southern mule deer (Southernmost California and Baja California)
O. h. hemionus - Rocky Mountain mule deer (Northwest California, western and central North America)
O. h. inyoensis - Inyo mule deer (Sierra Nevada, California)
O. h. columbianus - Columbia Black-tailed deer (Northern California and Pacific Northwest).

The Inland Deserts Region has four of the six mule deer subspecies: the Rocky Mountain and Inyo subspecies in the north and the California, Southern, and Burro subspecies in the south.

The mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) can be recognized by its large ears (mule-like) and black tipped tail.

Deer are generally crepuscular, foraging activity occurs mostly around dawn and dusk, but deer may be active day or night depending on other variables, such as human activity or other disturbances in the area.

Deer diets differ across their range, but high quality digestible forage is selected when available. Not all plants are nutritious for deer. Deer feed on grasses and forbs in the spring and summer, however they are primarily browsers. High quality forage items like young tender shoots, young shrubs, leaves of plants that are high in nutrients, succulent grasses, and forbs are selected. Also, deer eat items such as bark, buds, and acorns.

In the high deserts and chaparral, some common plant species that deer forage are: bitterbrush, sagebrush, blackbrush, ceanothus, and mountain mahogany. In the diets of desert mule deer, Marshal et al. (2006) identified 34 plant taxa, including desert-ironwood, mesquite, brittle-bush, palo verde, burro-weed, and wild buckwheat.

Here I have circled the 3 deer. One was laying down and difficult to spot.