Essence of Life

It was first the Spanish and later Mexican governments who founded a network of Catholic missions, presidios, and pueblos and granted vast amounts of rancho lands to private individuals in their quest to settle present day California.

After signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February, 1848, the Mexican government relinquished present day California to the United States and ended the Mexican-American War.  In this Treaty, the United States respected the rights of Mexicans to pre-war land title claimed within the conquered territories. California was annexed into the United States on September 9, 1850.  In order to confirm these pre-war private land claims, Congress in 1851 established the Board of Land Commissioners by virtue of an Act entitled, "An Act to Ascertain and Settle Private Land Claims in the State of California" and established the California State Surveyor-General's Office. 

The burden of proof was placed upon the individuals seeking confirmation of their land claims, which proved to be a long and costly process (sometimes too long and cost prohibitive).  Once private claims were confirmed, the courts ordered a survey of the lands to be performed at the expense of the claimant.  Boundary descriptions for these land claims, missions, presidios, pueblos, and ranchos, were very difficult to ascertain due to unique units of measurement cited (such as a "smoke" - a unit of measurement defined as the the distance covered by a man on horseback while smoking an entire cigar), ambiguous calls to terrain features, conflicting calls, etc., and more often than not the boundaries had never been surveyed before.

The pre-war confirmed private land claims had to be surveyed before the U.S. Government could conduct their valuation surveys of the newly acquired territories, as these prior land claims were senior to the newly acquired lands and could not be sold by the U.S. Government to other private individuals.  While the rancho boundaries were being surveyed, U.S. Government surveyors were establishing the basis for implementing the United States Public Land Surveys System (USPLSS).  It was determined that California due to its size and terrain required three "initial points", the first being a monument set on the top of Mt. Diablo in Contra Costa County in 1851, then on San Bernardino Mountain in San Bernardino County in 1852, and finally on Mt Pierce in Humboldt County in 1853. From these three initial points, Baselines and Meridians were established in cardinal directions.  Standard parallels were then established north and south at 24-mile intervals parallel with the Baseline, and guide meridians were established east and west at 24-mile intervals, parallel to the Principal Meridian. Once these lines were established, unclaimed public lands were divided into six mile-square townships and then further subdivided into 36 one mile-square sections.

California upon being admitted to the Union acquired sovereign ownership and control of all navigable waters and underlying lands for the public trust, subject to Constitutional authority, for the protection of certain public uses - navigation, commerce and fisheries.  These waters were incapable of private ownership.  It happened that the prior Spanish and Mexican governments held similar views on navigable waters and had enacted similar limitations to private ownership of these waters.  Navigable waters, and the determination thereof, also had to be quantified under the USPLSS. 

Congress passed the Swamp and Overflow Lands Act of 1850, which provided a mechanism for transferring title of federally owned swamp and overflow lands to private parties, in California and other states, agreeing to drain these lands otherwise unfit for cultivation and turn them into agricultural lands and lands for other productive uses.  These lands also required to be surveyed prior to the passage of title, and due to the confusion over what was considered swampland the Government surveyors were relied upon to make the designation and show these lands on their township maps.

Surveyors played a prominent role in California's history.  Many land title problems that exist today trace their origins back to these rancho lands and how they interface with the USPLSS surveys.  Countless land title problems also exist with lands bordering waters reserved for the public trust and lands determined, or not, to be swamp and/or overflow lands. 

It is likely that your local land surveyor could trace the origins of your parcel of land all the way back to the original rancho or government surveys of the mid 1800s.


For more information on the establishment of California's missions, presidios, pueblos, and ranchos, follow this link: 

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/rancho.html

"Look deep, deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."
-Albert Einstein to son Hans Albert Einstein

It turns out that Hans Albert Einstein was a brilliant hydraulic engineer.  He pioneered the study of river hydraulics, process, flow and form.  His insight into the process of river flow and morphology was some of the most enlightening use of engineering mechanics that I ever came across, inspiring marvel and enhancing intuition.  I studied Hans Albert Einstein in college, and I still study his work.

Hans Albert Einstein never finished his work.  He should have picked up a fly rod!

Whoa!
I mean Whoa!

I have my share of interest in Nevada.  My wife was born and raised in Carson City, I spent my junior high school and high school years in Carson City, I even lived in Las Vegas for a while as a kid, probably reached legendary status along the Vegas outskirts for being the all time greatest bare handed lizard catcher in history; I have experienced Nevada's remoteness, its beauty, its hot springs and geysers, its geologic formations, fish fossils in the middle of nowhere, ghost towns, lakes, trout streams -- I could go on and on.

We out west are no strangers to water manipulation and crisis.  Never in the history of the world has more manipulation, alteration, and diversion of natural water courses been achieved than in the American west, and of course never in the history of the world has so much human population thrived in a desert climate.

My native California holds the record for the most stupendous water infrastructure achievements of all time.  And California is paying dearly for these so called achievements.  California's State Water Project, or Burns-Porter Act, was passed in 1960, and so the California Aquaduct was born, a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines conveying water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California.  A system of countless environmental catastrophes and a system of human dependence, what's done is done.  And we're stuck with it as countless ecosystems suffer as the result of urban needs.  Just look at this straight from the California Department of Water Resources' mouth:  http://www.water.ca.gov/swp/history.cfm


So I ran across an article in the Las Vegas Sun concerning Southern Nevada's impending future.  This statement coming from the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Pat Mulroy, sounded like Zeros dropping bombs on Pearl Harbor, "If we see a real downturn in the hydrology, then I'm not sure we have a choice but to begin pursuing the in-state pipeline."  Ms. Mulroy is talking about a Nevada version of California's State Water Project, piping water from Northern Nevada and potentially the Snake Valley Basin in Utah all the way down to Southern Nevada, or Las Vegas, if the Colorado River basin, Las Vegas' prime water resource, happens to fail in providing adequate supply during a prolonged drought.  This sounds like a declaration of war, Southern Nevada against just about everybody, including Northern Nevada, Utah, California, Arizona, and even Mexico.  Go here for the article:  http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/dec/27/state-water-depends-colorado-river/

Ms. Mulroy's statement may be a glimpse into the real future of the West, she may be right.  Wow!

Las Vegas, I mean of all the strange things going on in Vegas one of the wierdest must be how it exists in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

From an engineering perspective there is no doubt it could be done. 

Who wants this?  Is Las Vegas that influential?  Will Harry Reid be around to pull this off?

Will Nevada repeat California's Water Wars?  Check out what happened with California's Los Angeles Aquaduct:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars#Los_Angeles_Aqueduct:_the_beginning_of_the_water_wars

Here we go again, the aggies against the urbaners. 

The Truckee Meadows Water Authority, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, and the Washoe County Department of Water Resources want more water.  They requested an amendment to the 1944 Orr Ditch Decree and the 1935 Truckee River Agreement suggesting water provisions by the Decree are no longer in the public interest.

On the other hand, users of Decree provided water are facing a 30 percent reduction of supply, namely the Newlands Water Protective Association, Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, the City of Fallon, and Churchill County.  They are not happy, and they are making themselves heard.

For the article, go here:  http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/article/20091226/NEWS/912269993/1055&ParentProfile=1045

To view the Motion to Modify or Amend the Final Decree, go here:
http://www.usbr.gov/mp/troa/index.html

My thanks go to Comstock’s Magazine, especially Rich Ehisen and team for their diligent and balanced reporting on California’s water predicament.  Anybody interested in what is going on should get up to speed by reading the following articles:

http://www.comstocksmag.com/Articles/Dam-Compromise.aspx

http://www.comstocksmag.com/Articles/0909_SR_Water--Hydrating-the-System.aspx

http://www.comstocksmag.com/Articles/1009_F_SR_Water--Spending-Water-Like-Money.aspx

http://www.comstocksmag.com/Articles/1109_SR_water--Peripheral-Vision.aspx

http://www.comstocksmag.com/Articles/1209_SR_Water--What-s-to-Fallow.aspx

Nature’s interconnectivity is hopefully by now common knowledge, and given all the great engineering achievements that controlled California’s water through its history and helped shape its present existence it is not surprising to see that those twentieth century engineering marvels have devolved into lessons on exactly what not to do in order to sustain Nature’s inherent balance. 

The word “OOPS” seems to be the resounding echo bouncing off the parched lands across the state; it is the clarion call of crisis, to be heeded by all hands on deck.  And so politicians, engineers, scientists, environmentalists, lawyers, farmers, fishermen, developers, boaters, swimmers, and anybody that likes to take a nice long shower, or water their garden, or wash their car on a hot summer day are peering over the edge of the riverbanks with shrugged shoulders as if to say,  “sorry little fishies, maybe we got a bit carried away”. 

It seems the California Legislature’s recent passage of sweeping water legislation last November was an act of good faith by all, the result of real efforts, with the potential for real results, cynicism aside.  For legislation summary, go here:

www.cenews.com/news-california_finally_passes_water_legislation-726.html

As with anything to do with politics, the legislation is getting slammed, as it should.  It may hold a lot of empty promises, filled with good intentions, but with no substance. 

The new laws affect both the Sacramento-San Jaoquin River Delta and the rest of the state.  While the laws do not fund much in the way of specific projects, they herald in a new framework for water resource planning and ecosystem protection.  They give the State Water Resources Control Board more reach and also restructure Delta governance with the creation of the Delta Stewardship Council.

The laws call for increased accountability of water resource availability and usage.  In simple terms, the Legislature’s goal is to get every water user to lay their cards on the table and show how much water they are using and what they are using it for.  An example is the call to establish a comprehensive statewide groundwater monitoring program.  Once the water is accounted for, then future legislation will kick in the next phase, making the citizens pay for their use.  How they will achieve this is anybody’s guess at this point because the legislation does not establish procedures for monitoring or enforcement.

In the meantime the legislation includes a significant effort to stress conservation.  All you men should be finding a bush to pee on rather than wasting that flush down the toilet. 

And then there is the proposal to use $11.1 billion (BB) of state funds for a variety of purposes, not only in the Delta, but throughout the state.  Funding for water storage ($3 BB), Delta restoration including levee improvements ($2.55 BB), restoration projects in 21 watersheds other than the Delta ($1.7 BB), regional water management ($1.4 BB), water recycling and conservation ($1.25 BB), groundwater cleanup ($1 BB), and drought relief and wastewater treatment improvements ($455 million) is provided.  The funds to support these investments will be placed before California voters in a bond measure for an up or down vote on November 2, 2010.  Whoa, not exactly great timing, considering our current economic position.

What does all this mean?  It seems we are in a situation where everybody stands to lose a great deal, everybody.  No water, no nada. 

This legislation does not solve our problems, it merely outlines a framework for which our water problems can be identified, quantified, and perceived in analytical and measurable terms so that sustainable solutions may be developed and implemented some time in the future.

As a member of the civil engineering and earth sciences community I welcome the new legislation with skepticism.  It seems strange that we should come to a point where the legislative goal is to identify and quantify every last drop of water for it to be sold off as a commodity like everything else.  The idea forces me to remember Chief Seattle, or the Zen monk meditating next to the waterfall, a vision of man as a thread within the fabric of nature; and then to visualize bar codes on raindrops, scientists playing dueling calculators on mountain peaks between the California/Nevada state line appropriating each drifting atmospheric water molecule to its respective state allotment, a thought I have not run across in my science fiction reading, nevertheless it appears we may be heading in this direction.  Welcome to the 21st century.

Growing up my parents moved me to various places across the west. I was blessed with the opportunity to experience nature in various and different settings, always living on the outskirts of town with the Rockies, the Mojave desert, or the Sierras as my back yard. I remember locking away the trash from the bears, locking away my sister’s horse feed from the deer and elk. I remember the local restaurants on Sundays always filled with ranchers, loud, bustling, big steak dinners on every table. Roadtrip after roadtrip looking out the window of our 1973 Power Wagon, the landscape typified the picturesque western scene, the giant mountain peaks, the late summer streams trickling from between the peaks down across the valley floors, the countless cattle dotting the landscape, the little ranch homes with surrounding poplar trees nestled against the hillside just above the floodplain indicated by the dense dark green grass line at the base of the hillside, all of the cowpies I would have to dodge getting to that little creek to drop my trout line.

I remember during my college days learning about the Amazon rainforest and how it was being burned down to make way for cattle grazing. I was stunned. I never ate a Big Mac again; I did not even eat beef for nearly four years, not even on holidays. It jaded my perception of the ranching industry as a whole. It seemed as though everything going wrong in the world, including global warming, was the fault of the ranching industry and the fast food industry’s quest for cheap beef. Every person in Wranglers and Justins was a villain, black hat wearers and white hat wearers alike. I had been hypnotized by the hocus pocus act, and that act became center stage environmental policy on Uncle Sam’s traveling circus.

Thankfully I soon reached the age of reason. That vegetarian diet left me docile, which ran against my nature, and nothing beats a big steak dinner, or a lamb burger, after a long surf session, or a hike. Those western landscapes were the same as I remembered, not the impending inferno or Armageddon that the scientists or academic establishment seemed to want me to believe. I was finished with college, I had done my time, and I survived with my reasoning faculties intact. One of the benefits of my studies later in life was the development of an intuitive feel for natural processes and how they function. Things were making sense on a deeper level.

And so I am not surprised to have run across an article in the September 2009 issue of Ecological Applications, Agricultural Research Service scientists Tony Svejcar, John Bates and Kirk Davies demonstrated over a 14-year period the benefits of livestock grazing to help rangeland recover from wildfires.

As reported on the USDA’s ARS site: “The scientists conducted a controlled burn on all the sites in 1993, and then measured vegetation cover, vegetation density and biomass production in 2005, 2006 and 2007. They found cheatgrass had infested a large portion of the ungrazed sites, leaving these areas even more vulnerable to future fires. However, cheatgrass did not become problematic on the sites that had been grazed. On these sites, native bunchgrass cover was almost twice as dense as bunchgrass cover on the ungrazed sites. The team concluded that the litter in the ungrazed sites fueled hotter fires that killed off much of the perennial vegetation, which allowed quick-growing invasive annuals to become established.”

Click here to read the USDA/ARS report.

Interestingly, and although the article mentions nothing of it, the established environmentalist stance is that grazing equals erosion. The idea is that the livestock eat up all the vegetation, stampede all over the ground, and then the rains wash all the soil away, eventually leaving nothing but a barren desert behind.

No doubt overgrazing could lead to this end; however, there is another benefit to grazing that the above mentioned article does not address. Implicitly, the vegetation is returning season after season, in fact the article concludes that native vegetation was nearly twice as dense as that of the non-grazed areas. Why? It seems logical that the livestock are tilling, reseeding, and fertilizing the ground, allowing for roots to take hold and vegetation to flourish. With denser vegetation and more root structure to hold the soil in place, it then makes sense to say that proper grazing management also leads to improved soil stabilization and erosion control.

Long considered obvious to the generations of ranchers who have been the caretakers of our western landscape, it is nice to see science finally making efforts to catch up.