Cultural and Natural Resources: Conflicts and Opportunities for Cooperation Zzyzx Mineral Springs— Cultural Treasure and Endangered Species Aquarium

Danette Woo, , 222 East Main Street, Suite 202, Barstow, 92311; [email protected] Debra Hughson, Mojave National Preserve, 222 East Main Street, Suite 202, Barstow, California 92311; [email protected]

A Brief History of Zzyzx Human use has been documented at Soda Dry back to the early predecessors of the Mohave and native peoples, who occupied the land when the Spanish explorers first explored the area early in the 19th century. Soda Springs lies in the traditional range of the Chemehuevi, who likely used and modified the area in pursuit of their hunter–gatherer econo- my.Trade routes existed between the coast and inland to the and beyond for almost as long as humans have occupied this continent. These routes depended on reliable springs, spaced no more than a few days’ walk apart, and Soda Springs has long been a reliable oasis in a dehydrated expanse. The first written record of Soda Springs Soda Springs, dubbed “Hancock’s Redoubt” comes from the journals of Jedediah Strong for Winfield Scott Hancock, the Army Smith, written in 1827 when he crossed Soda Quartermaster in at the time. The Lake on his way to Mission San Gabriel. Army’s presence provided a buffer between Smith was the first American citizen to enter the emigrants from the East and dispossessed California by land. He crisscrossed the west- natives. California miners also traveled the ern half of the North American continent by Mojave Road on their way to the Colorado foot and pack from 1822 until he was River in 1861. During 1867 and 1868, the killed by Comanches in 1831. In his journal, army established “Soda Station,” or “Fort Smith wrote of his Soda Lake sojourn: “I Soda,” an army outpost at Soda Springs sub- came to border of a salt plain and at this place ordinate to . From Soda Station, found some holes of brackish water. The the army provided escorts to the stages and water was in holes dug about two feet deep U.S. mail carriers along the Mojave Road and quite brackish. Making some new holes I (Casebier 1999). After the army withdrew in found the water some better.” 1871, Soda Station and other similar posts The U.S. Army followed on Jedediah were sporadically manned by civilian station Smith’s heels. Various government and, in keepers. particular, Army surveys were conducted in The early 20th century brought mining, the 1850s. Lieutenant Robert S. Williamson railroads, and religious colonization to Soda provided one of the earliest written descrip- Springs. The Pacific Salt and Soda Company tions of Soda Lake in 1853. Lieutenant Amiel ran a sporadic mining operation there Weeks Whipple gave Soda Lake its name in between 1907 and 1911. Evidence of the 1854, and in 1857 Edward F. Beale laid out a Pacific Salt and Soda evaporation ponds is wagon route through the for still apparent. In 1906, Francis Marion emigrants bound for . “Borax” Smith had built the Tonopah and This route would eventually become known Tidewater Railroad through Soda “Dry” Lake as the Mojave Road. Numerous massacres of to serve his borax mines near . these emigrant parties by the Mohaves led the From 1907 to 1940 the T&T averaged one Army to establish a permanent post in 1859 at train per day between Ludlow, California, and near present-day Needles. Goldfield, Nevada. The rails were for removed Shortly thereafter, they established a camp at for raw material during World War II and the 84 Cultural and Natural Resources: Conflicts and Opportunities for Cooperation graded bed now marks the boundary of somewhere in the middle. The population Mojave National Preserve south to Crucero on in West Pond was killed in 1984 when water the Union Pacific line. conditions became too bad, even for the Pastor Charles T. Russell founded the incredibly tough Mohave . Hypoxia Watchtower Bible and Tract Society at Soda associated with algae blooms was blamed; this Springs in 1914. Only two written records of may have been triggered or exacerbated by this religious colony, the “Russellite” sect of sewage. Jehovah’s Witnesses, exist. Russell died The present-day , October 30, 1916, and David G. Thompson, operated by a consortium of California state a geologist working for the U.S. Geological universities, was conceived by Dalton Survey, reported the site abandoned in 1917. Harrington at California State University–San Curtis Howe Springer and his wife moved Bernardino when it became apparent that the onto the site in 1944, filing mining claims with Bureau of Land Management was finally going the Bureau of Land Management and San to evict Springer. The Desert Studies Center Bernardino County for over 12,000 acres hosts classes, field trips, and conferences in around Soda Springs. Springer built and Springer’s buildings, restored by the consor- operated the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and tium. Health Resort at Soda Springs for 30 years until the Bureau of Land Management evicted A Brief History of the him in 1974. His daily radio broadcast touted the miraculous healing powers of Jesus, min- The Mohave tui chub ( bicolor eral baths, and elixirs such as Hollywood Pep mohavensis) is the only fish native to the Tonic and Antediluvian Desert Herb Tea. basin in California. It preferred Although the charges against him—invalid quiet pools in the intermittently flowing mining claims, tax evasion, and exaggerated Mojave River and tended to be swept down- advertising—are certainly true, his main activ- stream during floods. Sport fishermen intro- ities may have been providing sermons and duced the chub (Gila orcutti) in the health food to lost souls and unintentionally 1930s as live bait, and it interbred with the supporting the Mohave tui chub. Springer Mohave tui chub. A isolated relic population claimed to have coined “Zzyzx” in order to of genetically pure Mohave tui chub survived have the last word in the English language. in MC Spring. How the fish got into MC Springer excavated an artificial pond in Spring remains a mystery. The Soda Lake about 1955 and called it “Lake Tuendae.” He playa is a closed basin at the end of the Mojave stocked it with a minnow-sized fish that lived River watershed and, during wet seasons, in a small limnocrene spring nearby, now becomes a real lake with water. The fish could called MC (for Mojave Chub) Spring. This have been washed into the ephemeral lake spring is natural, but needs occasional clear- during floods, with a few becoming trapped in ing of cattails (Typha domengensis) and sedges MC Spring as the waters receded. An alterna- (Scirpus olneyi) to maintain open water. tive explanation is that the fish somehow move Springer also enlarged a water-filled mine underground through fractures in the lime- shaft near Lake Tuendae that became known stone. The Bureau of Land Management exca- as “Three Bats Pond” and, later, “West Pond.” vated a pit adjacent to MC Spring to test this One version of the story is that Springer latter hypothesis. The pit filled with water but enlarged West Pond with dynamite to mine fish never appeared. gold. Another version holds that he was con- The Mojave River originates on the structing a swimming pool. Given that northerly slopes of the San Bernardino Springer needed to pretend to be mining in Mountains and flows northeasterly into the order to hold onto his claims, and that the closed basin of Soda Lake about 100 miles gold he was mining actually came from the away.Twenty-thousand-year-old fossilized purses of his “guests,” the truth is probably fish remains in Lake Manix recall a time when 85 Cultural and Natural Resources: Conflicts and Opportunities for Cooperation

Mohave tui chub lived in its favored habitat feet long in an east–west direction. Water is (USFWS 1984). Lake Manix is now a flat supplied to the lake from a well through a stretch of desert along Interstate Highway15 fountain in the lake center. Lake Tuendae is north of Barstow. The Soda Springs area lies connected to the Soda Lake aquifer by seep- on the western shore of Soda Dry Lake at an age, which has probably prevented a long- elevation of 930 feet. Most of the buildings of term buildup of salinity. Lake Tuendae gradu- the proposed Zzyzx/Soda Springs historic ally fills in with sediments and cattails and district lie on a shoreline outcropping of must be dredged about every 10 years. Permian metamorphic limestone. The Soda The tui chub was listed as endangered by Mountains are Mesozoic granitic and metavol- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in canic rocks flanked by short, low-angle, allu- 1970 and by the state of California in 1971. In vial fans and debris flows characteristic of addition to the original population in MC extreme aridity. Mean annual precipitation at Spring and the population introduced into Soda Lake since 1980 is 3.5 inches, occurring Lake Tuendae, populations of Mohave tui mostly from July through September during chub have been established in artificial the summer thunderstorm season (Mojave impoundments at China Lake Naval Air National Preserve 2002). Weapons Station and Camp Cady. Attempts There are two distinct aquifer systems to establish other populations at San Felipe influencing Soda Springs. Creek (San Diego, California), Rio Santo below Soda Lake is part of the Mojave River Tomas (Baja California, Mexico), Paradise Sink and is recharged from percolation Spa (, Nevada), Piute Creek (San through Afton Canyon and Kelso Wash. Bernardino, California), South Coast Another aquifer appears to be related to car- Botanical Garden (Palos Verde, California), bonate rocks in the Soda Mountains. Two Hole Spring (San Bernardino, Thompson, the U.S. Geological Survey geolo- California), Dos Palmas Spring (Riverside, gist who surveyed the region in 1917 and California), Lion Country Safari (Laguna 1919, observed two or more springs flowing Hills, California), Eaton Canyon Nature from the east side of the limestone formation. Center (Altadena, California), Busch Gardens He wrote of these as “appearing to seep (Van Nuys, California), and Lake Norconian directly from the rock about five feet above the (Norco, California) have all failed. surface of the playa. The largest spring flows into a concrete reservoir about 15 to 30 feet in Where Do We Go from Here? area and 5 feet deep. A small ram pumped In the fall of 2001, the National Park water from this reservoir to a domestic use Service dredged Lake Tuendae, which was tank in 1917 but, by 1919 had been removed” becoming filled with silt and cattails. Some (quoted in Duffield-Stoll 1994). Water chem- fish were killed when an inflatable dam, which istry suggests that a fracture system through was holding water in one half of the lake while limestone provides a conduit for water flow to the other half was being dredged, slipped. Ten MC Spring. The spring tends to have a pH of dead fish were sent to the University of San around 8.5, as compared with 9.5–10 in Lake Diego for necropsy and all were found to be Tuendae, and low dissolved oxygen. The fact infected with the Asian tapeworm. The Asian that cattails and sedges in MC Spring must be tapeworm is a parasite believed to have cut back about every 18 months or so suggests entered the U.S. in shipments of grass carp that the existence of this open pool of water, and spread to California by live baitfish. It is with a surface area of 250 square feet and a known to have deleterious effects on fish of the volume of 1,000 cubic feet, is anthropogenic. Cyprinid, or minnow, family of which the tui Springer or his associates most likely chub is a member. The Mohave tui chub introduced the tui chub into Lake Tuendae shares Lake Tuendae with the Saratoga and West Pond. The oblong impoundment of Springs pupfish (Cyprinodon nevadensis Lake Tuendae is about 125 feet wide by 500 nevadensis) and the exotic mosquito fish 86 Cultural and Natural Resources: Conflicts and Opportunities for Cooperation

(Gambusia affinis), native to southeastern sustain and potentially recover the chub must U.S. Gambusia has traditionally been intro- consider the rich and varied history of human duced to control mosquitoes but also may occupation that substantiates the National consume eggs and larvae of endemic fish. Register nomination and the calculated visitor Spring 2003 saw an anomalous plankton attraction of Lake Tuendae. Here can be bloom in Lake Tuendae, perhaps related to found a collection of structures comprising the dredging. Predation on zooplankton by Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Resort, a Gambusia also could allow ecological release beleaguered population of fish in Lake of phytoplankton in the lake and exacerbate an Tuendae, and the sole remaining source pop- ecological imbalance. Tests of the water ulation of Mohave tui chub in the wild at MC showed alkaline pH (9.5), total dissolved Spring. solids of 2130 mg/L, and salinity of 2.2%, still The National Park Service faces multiple within the range tolerated by the chub. challenges as steward of the endangered Small, isolated populations are susceptible Mohave tui chub living on historic lands. to extinction, commonly resulting from multi- There are presently no plans to reintroduce ple stressors. Isolation, small population size the chub into the Mojave River drainage or to (estimated at about 5,000 in Lake Tuendae increase artificial habitat at Zzyzx or else- and 500 in MC Spring), poor water quality, where. The preserve is seeking funds for maintenance requirements reflecting an assessment of the Asian tapeworm impact and aquarium-like environment, and invasion of is working towards revisiting the recovery exotic species all stack the odds against the plan with USFWS and the California Mohave tui chub. Objectives in the recovery Department of Fish and Game. In the mean- plan for delisting the species depend greatly time, a die-off in any one of the existing on hope. The plan, which was approved on impoundments would severely reduce both September 12, 1984, calls for establishing the remnant population and its potential for populations in Afton Canyon and Mohave recovery. Narrows where perennial ponds persist. Exotic species found in these habitats include References black bullhead (Ictaluras melas), green sun- Casebier, Dennis G. 1999. Mojave Road fish (Lepomis cyanellus), fathead minnows Guide: An Adventure Through Time. (Pimephales promeloas), and the Mohave tui Essex, Calif.: Tales of the Mojave Road chub’s old fecund nemesis, the . Publishing Company. These species would have to be eradicated Duffield-Stoll, Anne Q. 1994. Zzyzx: History before Mohave tui chub could be reintro- of an Oasis, San Bernardino County, duced and expected to survive. Actions California. Northridge, Calif.: California intended to destroy exotic species could spill Desert Studies Consortium, The over and impact other species such as the pro- California State University; Santa Susana tected western pond turtle (Clemmys mar- Press, University Library, California State morata) in Afton Canyon. Assuming compli- University–Northridge. cations could be overcome, the reintroduced Mojave National Preserve. 2002. Cultural chub would still need to contend with floods. Landscape Inventory Level II: Zzyzx The recovery plan recognizes this and makes Mineral Springs Historic District, Mojave delisting contingent on the re-established National Preserve. Oakland, Calif.: populations surviving at least one flood. National Park Service. In reality, Mohave tui chub populations U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1984. Recovery will likely be maintained in aquarium-like Plan for the Mohave Tui Chub, Gila bicol- environments for the foreseeable future, com- or mohavensis. Portland Ore.: U.S. Fish plicated, yet enhanced, by their presence with- and Wildlife Service. in the fabric of the historic footprint. Efforts to ✥ 87