#dixie valley

[tadbitrowdy]

Music is quite honestly, my life. It fuels me. Lately I have been my feels and these are the songs that often get me up in my feels.

1. More Than My Hometown. 

2. Leave me Alone - Tyler Braden

3. Better Luck Next Time - Kelsea Ballerini

4. You Promised - Brantley Gilbert

5. I Hope by Gabby Barrett ft. Charlie Puth 

[rjzimmerman]

In Nevada, a tribe and a toad halt a renewable power plant

A rugged, remote corner of Nevada’s Great Basin region finds itself at the epicenter of a confrontation between some of President Biden’s pressing priorities.

Excerpt from this story from the Washington Post:

An Adele song blasted from a stereo. Workers put up a fence near a massive heat exchanger and other equipment awaiting assembly here in the Nevada desert. After about a decade of grinding its way through the federal permitting process, Ormat, a geothermal company, was building a new power plant in Dixie Valley to produce renewable energy.

“The millions of tons of carbon that we don’t put into the air have a positive effect,” Paul Thomsen, the firm’s vice president of business development, said in May as he shielded himself with his pickup’s door from the wind whistling through this sagebrush-speckled valley.

But soon came another legal snag. The company halted construction in August while federal agencies meet to discuss whether the project should move forward. The rugged, remote corner of Nevada’s Great Basin region found itself at the epicenter of a confrontation between some of President Biden’s, and the nation’s, most pressing priorities: renewable energy, wildlife conservation and Indigenous rights.

The new geothermal plant would tap some of the same underground heat that provides habitat for a rare toad found nowhere else on Earth. And for the first people to populate Nevada, the hot springs represent an ancient and sacred healing place that would be unimaginable to lose.

“We don’t have a church that’s in a building, like a Catholic church or a Mormon church or a Presbyterian church,” said Leanna Hale, land and water resources director for the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe, as she walked down the road near the plant site. Hale’s tribe has sued to stop plant construction and has asked the administration to protect this area from further development. “This is our church.”

Those same springs sustain the Dixie Valley toad, a black-freckled amphibian found only here. Scientists described it for the first time five years ago.

An ancient lake once covered northwestern Nevada, attracting the ancestors of the Paiute and Shoshone to its shores to fish. As the basin dried out, Dixie Valley toads and other animal populations became isolated and evolved on their own, helping make arid Nevada one of the nation’s most species-rich states.

“It’s such unique, cool biodiversity,” Gordon said. “People thought it was just tumbleweeds.”

[lucasdeshazer]

dixie valley, nevada

[thelastdaysofleonard]

Dixie Valley, Nevada, diptych, 2015.

Having some of the best artesian springs in Nevada, the Dixie Valley had a long tradition of ranching for a small number of families in the remote valley. However, in the 1980s, the Cold War expansion of military control over Nevada’s public lands saw the US Navy force the residents out and buy out the ranches–eventually burning most structures to prevent scavenging. Today, many of the ranches are fenced off as protected archeological sites, despite the continued military training. The valley is open to the public, but the ranching traditions are replaced with flyover airspace and a scattering of mock warfare installations.

Image © Chris Gillis. More at thelastdaysofleonard.com

[thelastdaysofleonard]

Dixie Valley, Nevada, diptych, 2015.

Having some of the best artesian springs in Nevada, the Dixie Valley had a long tradition of ranching for a small number of families in the remote valley. However, in the 1980s, the Cold War expansion of military control over Nevada’s public lands saw the US Navy force the residents out and buy out the ranches--eventually burning most structures to prevent scavenging. Today, many of the ranches are fenced off as protected archeological sites, despite the continued military training. The valley is open to the public, but the ranching traditions are replaced with flyover airspace and a scattering of mock warfare installations.

Image © Chris Gillis. More at thelastdaysofleonard.com

[thelastdaysofleonard]

Dixie Valley and the Stillwater Range, Nevada, 2015. Click to enbiggen! 

Image © Chris Gillis. More at thelastdaysofleonard.com

[bumblerae]

Spent the day exploring Dixie Valley.