“Entering public lands” read the small brown sign in the upper right-hand corner of the wooden Bureau of Land Management (BLM) kiosk. The only other signs posted there, larger by far, said “No Dumping” and “Please Close Gate,” though all that was left was the gate post.
What was left of the Atwell Island Restoration Project and Recreation Area was what I went to see Sept. 8 after attending the Deer Creek Storm Water District board meeting. A fire had started Aug. 19 just south of Alpaugh in the BLM land. Lots of fire crews were called, then released as federal forces manned the scene. It took days for the fire to die out; some believe that the 3,000-plus acre parcel was allowed to burn, having become horribly overgrown since the project ended around 2012 (the project report can be found at www.tularebasinwatershedpartnership.org).
I wrote about this land a year ago in “Small World.” I’d quoted Jack Mitchell, the previous owner who had sold it to BLM, as saying “It’s gone back to tumbleweeds.” When I visited the burn last week, I was surprised to see tumbleweeds still standing, dead but not charred. “It’s really hard to get tumbleweed to burn,” my friend Bob told me later, speaking from decades of firefighting experience. “You have to really smash them down, and still it’s hard.”
One surprise was finding the observation deck, located near the center of the land, still standing. It was quite by accident: I was just winding my way on clear dirt roads surrounded by charred grassland, passing by fence posts and power poles upright, mostly unharmed. I noticed a few charred trees together, and there it was, looking like a ferry boat landing surrounded by black dirt.
Why it was there wasn’t apparent until I walked up to the end. You could still see the outline of the pond that had surrounded it, which allowed visitors to see the birds from inside the thick margin of tules. Much of that vegetation was not completely burned, as if it had more capacity to resist the heat and flames. Perhaps it was because they were lower and the flames went over them. I’ll never know. But the trace of the pond that had enchanted so many birds and bird lovers alike was still there to encourage us to think bigger about what this precious piece of public land still could be.
The restoration project had been the heart and soul of many people. Alpaugh Irrigation District sold them water for the ponds, even though the parcel is located within the adjacent Atwell Island Water District. The Tulare County Resource Conservation District had managed the funding that came in from many sources; one of their board members, Tom Daley, was heavily involved. When he died before the main features were finished, a plaque was made honoring his contributions and installed on the observation deck. I saw no plaque when I was there last week, however.
Jack Mitchell’s opinion is that, thanks to the fire, all the wildlife is now gone that he had hoped to protect with the restoration. But as I drove around I wasn’t so sure. I heard a meadowlark’s song, the cries of crows and their flapping wings, other bird songs, blackbirds maybe. A large hawk perched in the top of a snag near the observation deck lingered until I got too close, then took off, sure to return to that perfect viewpoint. Two great blue herons surprised me when they took off from a partially-singed willow inside the bank of a deep dry ditch. I have prayers about the burrows of lizards, snakes, mice, even kangaroo rats and kit foxes — prayers that those burrows were deep enough after all, seeing how shallow the burned ground actually was.
Few locals approve of what’s become of that land since the project died. What it could become, with local involvement and other members of the public — we are, after all, its owners — is an important question. So is the question of what will happen if Deer Creek, White River and Poso Creek again merge in floodwaters this winter. The western half of the BLM parcel is slightly higher in elevation, straddling part of Sand Ridge, while the eastern half is lower, in the bed of Ton Tache Lake fed by all three streams. They can make one mighty mess out of soils not protected by vegetation.
We need local hands tending our public lands.
Trudy Wischemann is becoming a friend of Atwell Island. You can send her your stewardship ideas c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247. This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of the Mid Valley Times newspaper.
