S4E2: Good News at Ash Meadows

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT

0:00:01 - (Chris Clarke): 90 miles from Needles, the Desert Protection Podcast is made possible by listeners just like you. If you want to help us out, you can go to 90 miles from needles.com donate or text needles to 53555
0:00:25 - (Joe Geoffrey): think the deserts are barren wastelands? Think again. It's time for 90 miles from Needles, the Desert Protection Podcast.
0:00:37 - (Chris Clarke): Thank you Joe and welcome to this episode of 90 Miles from Needles the Desert Protection Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Clarke. And in today's episode we have a little bit of good news because I figure we need it. This week we're going to be talking with a regular guest on this podcast, Mason Vail, Executive Director of the Amargosa Conservancy, about a recent big victory in the Amargosa Basin.
0:01:09 - (Chris Clarke): Before we get there, I wanted to mention that a couple episodes ago, late last year, I spent some time talking about how the nonprofit environmental advocacy movement we have in this country basically doesn't give people in the general public a whole lot to do. This movement generally says what your value to us, oh general public is your ability to sign a petition every once in a while and basically send us money on the regular. And we at the Desert Advocacy Media Network are as guilty of that as any other organization. We're going to be looking at the way we do things here, changing that up a bit. But in the meantime we are working on a way to have people who listen to this podcast and who find it interesting and worthwhile to share in a bit of community with like minded people.
0:01:52 - (Chris Clarke): A community that helps us get things done, a community that gives its members support. We're still working out the details on how we're going to do that. Choosing a site or an app or something like that, looking at discord. We have a couple of decisions to make, but the best way to be kept informed of our progress on this over the next couple of weeks, which is the timescale we're looking at, would be to go to 9zero miles from needles.com
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0:02:49 - (Chris Clarke): patreon sign up for free and we will keep you in the loop with that. Let's get to our conversation with Mason Vail of the Amargosa Conservancy. We have here with us in the virtual 90 miles from Needle Studio, Mason Vail, Executive Director of the Amargosa Conservancy based in where are we based? In full disclosure, I'm on the board of the Amargosa Conservancy. For listeners who haven't heard that before, are we based in Shoshone?
0:03:18 - (Mason Voehl): We are not. I'm not one of the lucky few based on site in Shoshone. I, I make it work living here in Las Vegas and making the commute out, so to speak, as often as I can get away with. And thankfully it's a beautiful drive pretty much no matter which way you do it. And yeah, you know, Vegas gets a wrap. But I kind of love it here in its own weird way too.
0:03:38 - (Chris Clarke): I was just defending Vegas to a friend over breakfast this morning. I was talking about how, how nice downtown is these days and you know, getting into the bookstores and a couple of the cafes there and vegan taco places and Vegas can surprise some people.
0:03:53 - (Mason Voehl): But if you know where to look, it's got everything you need and a lot of stuff you don't. But you know, it it's having lived a lot of places in my life and especially some really grand destinations in the West. I mean, I'll go toe to toe with anyone who wants to talk about access to some of the most extraordinary, beautiful, diverse public lands in, in the country. We've got it here in Vegas. So yeah, you know, I get up to the Amargosa a fair bit too, so that, that always helps keep me from going totally insane and try to make the best of both those worlds.
0:04:22 - (Chris Clarke): Yep. So we at 90 miles from Needles have been covering the goings on in the Amargosa for a couple of years now. In fact, it was, I think, June of 2023 that we first talked to you about lithium exploration in and around Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. And I understand that there are some recent developments that I'd love to have you update us on. But for those listeners who have not listened to our entire catalog or who are disinclined to go searching for episodes from season two, I wonder if you could walk us through the context that this month's news has happened in yeah.
0:05:06 - (Mason Voehl): You know, in some ways, June of 2023 both feels like it was just yesterday and also feels like it was a long, long time ago. In part because a lot has happened since then. You know, there's was a proposed exploratory drilling project on the northern boundary of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. And I'll never forget looking at that proposed project and trying to cross analyze it against the map. And you know, I remember thinking, looking at the map going, this looks really bad.
0:05:33 - (Mason Voehl): And then we went out there and took a look at the proximity of these boreholes to significant springs in the refuge and we went, this is, this is unacceptably bad and dangerous. You know, this was a junior mining company out of Canada called Rover Metals at that time now Rover Critical Minerals and they proposed drilling up to 30 boreholes down to 300ft deep. They acknowledged they were going to hit Amargosa groundwater in all of those holes. And some of those holes came quite close to Fairbanks Spring, which is the. One of the largest springs in the refuge, home to multiple endemic endangered species of fish.
0:06:11 - (Mason Voehl): And the big concern at that time was, well, if this drilling project goes wrong, if they hit this portion of the aquifer under some pressure and cause some change in how water's flowing through this section, you know, this could spell real disaster not just for those springs in the northern part of the refuge, but could be a real cascading rippling effect all the way down through the refuge and even beyond.
0:06:34 - (Mason Voehl): And so that was sort of, I've been calling it the lightning bolt that hit the river. I mean, that project was, you know, we rallied a lot of public support and awareness around, you know, full disclosure too. It's important for the conversation. They were looking for lithium in that. I think that's in part why this issue has gotten as much attention as it has. It's certainly a zeitgeist issue. You know, these kind of bids for lithium extraction around the state in the west.
0:06:59 - (Mason Voehl): This one really caught fire because of its proximity to Ash Meadows. And so as a result of us kind of telling that story and really raising the issues that were robustly backed by, by science and our understanding of hydrology in the region. You know, you'd be, you're really hard pressed to find anyone who thought this was a safe or good idea. And thankfully the, you know, especially the local communities and our tribal partners thought so too.
0:07:24 - (Mason Voehl): They, you know, were concerned about this from, from both a place of, of compassion and affection for Ash Meadows. But also this was about water. This was about the long term livability, survivability of this region. You know, Ash Meadows is in one of the hottest, driest places in North America. And groundwater is, is everything to these communities, both of, of biodiversity and these human communities as well.
0:07:48 - (Mason Voehl): So as a result of that public pressure and ultimately litigation, you know, we were able to, to, to attain a rare victory at that time, you know, we got, we were able to compel the Bureau of Land Management to rescind their approval of that initial exploration project and require a more sophisticated plan from the company. And that would entail a more sophisticated environmental review process.
0:08:11 - (Chris Clarke): What is Ash Meadows and why is it important?
0:08:13 - (Mason Voehl): Sure, of course. Ash Meadows National Wildlife refuge is a 23,000 acre oasis in the heart of the Amargosa river watershed. It is the largest remaining oasis in the Mojave Desert and it is a biodiversity hotspot of international importance. The refuge supports at least 26 endemic species that live nowhere else in the world. Only in the refuge, 12 of those have protections as endangered or threatened.
0:08:41 - (Mason Voehl): And it's, you know, we've called, we call it the Galapagos of the desert. It's this weird, improbable habitat nestled on the eastern shoulder of Death Valley National Park. And it feels like another world when you're in it. The whole complex is maintained by this deep, ancient flowing groundwater that is originating from snowfall and rainfall along, you know, decades or thousands of years ago, in some cases from very far afield. So it is a very sophisticated ancient wetland, one of the last remaining of its, of its kind on Earth. And it has been the subject of a lot of conservation effort in, in this, in the state and in the west for going on 40 years now, as of 2024, after you got the.
0:09:26 - (Chris Clarke): BLM to sort of slow things down a little bit on the exploratory drilling, what happened after that?
0:09:33 - (Mason Voehl): Well, we first took a really deep breath and sigh of relief that we were able to avert that, that potential disaster. But we, we knew we couldn't really rest for long. You know, this was, as I said, kind of like a lightning bolt. We started wondering immediately, how was this ever even possible? Like, how did this company come so close to pulling this off? And they came quite close. And that initiated a series of conversations both, you know, within my organization, but also immediately with the partners that we were working with and going, what is, what do we need to do to ensure that this doesn't happen again and again and again? You know, this was certainly the first time that a mining company of this, of this kind really sought to actually conduct an operation like this, we felt strongly it wasn't going to be the last. And in fact, we felt like this company was almost sure to come back in short order.
0:10:20 - (Mason Voehl): So in light of that, it just raised questions around what is, what are the tools at hand and the different land use or land status changes that we might want to start exploring that would better enable us to, to protect this invaluable resource, this invaluable place. And we landed on an administrative mineral withdrawal, which I'm guessing that might be a term unfamiliar to many. A mineral withdrawal is also, a little, it feels like a little bit of a misnomer. It sort of is backwards of what it is. But by default, lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management are open to multiple uses, and mining is among those uses. And so these lands were open to mining, which is why Rover was able to come in and propose this project.
0:11:01 - (Mason Voehl): And what we were advocating for is for a removal of a set area of those public lands from new mining activity. Just saying we want a pause button on new claiming, you know, new exploratory drilling of this kind, at least for a period, so that we can talk about a longer term solution. And so an administrative mineral draw was the path that everyone arrived at and said, you know, this is the most straightforward way to protect that groundwater and to just alleviate this from being a recurring issue.
0:11:30 - (Mason Voehl): So we sat down that road with our partners with us and next to us on that. You know, that led to what became about a 12 month campaign in really pushing that action, ensuring that every community member that was impacted by this was brought along, that we, you know, we're, we're getting their, their perspectives and input at every turn. And that materialized informal support really from the bottom up.
0:11:56 - (Mason Voehl): So that was sort of the, the focus of ours over the last 12 months. And then of course, we got this decision last week that, you know, gave us a real victory, although work remains yet to be done, which I'm sure we'll talk about.
0:12:08 - (Chris Clarke): So what was the decision?
0:12:10 - (Mason Voehl): So the decision in this case and what we were advocating for was, you know, we, we knew that the, with the current Biden administration, you know, there was a very finite window if we were going to see action taken to urgently address this need. And so that was a real fixture of this campaign. It was just making sure this was, this is not something we felt we could afford to wait on. This was not in our estimation a five or ten year horizon. This had to be right now.
0:12:35 - (Mason Voehl): And so, you know, that was very animating and so we were, we came to the Biden administration in this case, we came to the blm, the Department of the Interior, and simply ask them to put the process in motion. And what that means is the blm, or actually in this case, the Secretary of the Interior, has to make a decision to issue what's called a segregation notice. And segregation is a temporary two year separation of these lands that we had defined as being really imperative to be analyzed for the withdrawal. And so for a two year period, the BLM is going to suspend new mining activities on those lands, during which time they can conduct a thorough environmental review process.
0:13:17 - (Mason Voehl): And so it's really important for listeners to know that that sounded obviously very bureaucratic and technical and it actually, it really, really is. But the biggest takeaway is just that this is an initiation to this process. It's a two year period wherein the land manager can conduct that review. So it is not final protection. In fact, we have a lot of work to do to of course now compel a different administration coming in who will handle that process to see it all the way through.
0:13:43 - (Mason Voehl): If successful, we could see a, a withdrawal of these lands for up to 20 years. And that's what we're advocating for. So last week's decision is just the, we call it the, the end of the beginning, so to speak. We've been given that opportunity to fight for that, that action moving forward, but work remains to be done to see it all the way through.
0:14:01 - (Chris Clarke): So assuming that we can get a follow up to this in two years that we like, that puts us down the road 20 years. And I'm wondering whether there are methods that would be more permanent. I mean, clearly there's things like designation as a national monument or whatever, which has gotten really popular in the last couple of weeks. But I wonder, have you thought about really long term strategies or are we fighting battles case by case and looking a year or two out?
0:14:35 - (Mason Voehl): Yeah, you know, in some ways we've had to be so hyper focused on this withdrawal over the last year, knowing that we were very short on time. You know, other, other campaigns like this have, have, I mean, taken years, if not, you know, over a decade, just to get to this point that we've gotten to. And so we had to remain really hyper focused on this being the first step. But we've also been adamant throughout that this was only ever going to be a first step.
0:14:59 - (Mason Voehl): That really what we're fighting for is, is, is a reprieve to, to, to talk through the different tools we could use for permanent Designation, you know, as you said, national monuments, certainly one of them. But because of sort of a, a renaissance almost in the BLM over the last few decades of, of acknowledging they needed more tools to protect the lands and resources that have, you know, high cultural and conservation value.
0:15:26 - (Mason Voehl): You know, we have other tools on the table we could explore. And, you know, looking at things like could this be a national conservation area or just part of the national conservation land system, you know, that would maybe leave intact some of these other uses of these public lands like ohv recreation, hunting. You know, there are myriad uses of these lands, especially because they're located in very close proximity to both the town of Amargosa Valley and also to, you know, some destinations like the big dune, which is a major OHV area which is contained entirely within the mineral withdrawal area.
0:15:59 - (Mason Voehl): So there's a lot of different perspectives and uses for us to consider in that. You know, I, I think in some ways the one I land on the most frequently is probably a national conservation area because it would, it's something that, especially in Nevada, we've used elsewhere to great effect. Nevadans kind of know what that is because they have, you know, Red Rock National Conservation Area, just outside of our door here in Las Vegas.
0:16:21 - (Mason Voehl): And so I think that might add some, some clarity on really what we're trying to do here. You know, there are many, many uses of these public lands that are surely appropriate, surely sustainable with the right management. What we can allow for is the uses like in this case, of course, deep intensive mining, but also potentially something like, you know, large scale solar energy development. You know, at the end of the day, we have to think about what are the uses of these lands that will put the most direct pressure on this water resource that we know is the lifeblood of the region.
0:16:51 - (Mason Voehl): So I think we have some time and I think, I suspect we're going to have to get fairly creative in identifying the right path here. And it's important to me, especially in light of how this campaign has unfolded. You know, we only got to this point because the local communities really believed in what we were doing, and it really aligned with their land priorities, the land priorities of our tribal partners, the Timbash Hasawnee tribe.
0:17:13 - (Mason Voehl): It's really important to me that we continue down that path. And so I, I want us to have time to explore that thoughtfully with a lot of input and see if we can find the right tool for the job, so to speak.
0:17:24 - (Chris Clarke): Right. And I suppose there's a chance that if, if we did get the 20 year withdrawal that our society would have moved on past lithium as an energy storage material. But at the very least, it gives us some. Some time to think about what we want to do.
0:17:38 - (Mason Voehl): Don't go away. We'll be. You're listening to 90 miles from Needles, the desert protection podcast. Sunscreen is your friend.
0:18:15 - (Chris Clarke): We're back with Mason Voehl of the Amargosa Conservancy. If listeners know anything about Amargosa and ash meadows and groundwater issues, the one bit of wonky information they're likely to be familiar with is the Devil's Hole and the Devil's Hole pupfish and the various legal standing and legal protections that that fish has. A capper decision, a Supreme Court decision that essentially protected the fish's water in the medium term.
0:18:46 - (Chris Clarke): Does that play in at all to the. The whole mining issue or is that really a separate piece of the puzzle?
0:18:53 - (Mason Voehl): No, it absolutely does. In fact, I would say it's been a very central feature of the campaign in many ways because, because of the history there with those protections, you're being is probably still the most stringent protections around a single species, certainly in our country, and that means probably in the world. And I think it's also had an interesting political valence to it. You know, I'll just kind of share something interesting that's happened in this campaign, which is, as I mentioned, we've been working closely with the. The rural communities who, who have very strong feelings about this conservation legacy and especially strong feelings about the Devil's Hole pupfish. You know, that pupfish continues to basically kind of run their lives in a certain way. It has curtailed the potential for these towns to perhaps develop in ways they would have liked to over the last 30 some years since that species has received these, these high protections.
0:19:44 - (Mason Voehl): And so, you know, there's a history here of resentment. What's been really interesting the last year and a half now, I think as a result of this campaign, both in the way that we had to approach the litigation concerning Rover Metals, you know, that was a core part was saying, look, we have this, this species and the Devil's Hole pupfish and these mandates to manage groundwater in a way that is conducive to its survival. That I think was really compelling to the BLM to treat this with a lot more care and caution.
0:20:12 - (Mason Voehl): But there's also, I think, an emerging understanding, of course, certainly scientifically as well. Right. Looking at the hydrological studies, you know, we had were able to run simulations through these groundwater flow models that showed that, you know, if there was a mine Permitted of the kind of specifications that Rover Critical Minerals had been advertising to their investors. We could see drawdown in the Devil's Hole over a period of 10 years that would, I mean, be absolutely existential, you know, guaranteed extinction risk, you know, potentially looking at 10ft plus of drawdown.
0:20:45 - (Mason Voehl): And we know, you know, with current pumping and all these anticipated development pressures, you know, that species risk of extinction remains quite high. And you know, the National Park Service is very, very alarmed by that. So I think because of the role it's played here, one interesting turn that's happened politically, so to speak, with those rural partners, one of their mantras through the campaign has been for a long time we have hated and resented the Devil's Hole pupfish. And now it's the pupfish's turn to save us.
0:21:15 - (Mason Voehl): And it kind of is hard to overstate how incredible that is. But I think what they've realized is, you know, this is probably the best leverage we have over protecting both a resource and an economic driver in Ash Meadows. And also just protecting the water that comes out of our faucets and sinks. That may be down to the pupfish and its outsized influence on groundwater management to do that. And so I think that turn is just remarkable.
0:21:41 - (Mason Voehl): I will look forward to seeing just how, how that continues to go in light of not just these mining threats, but of course, these other pressures we're facing, from large scale solar industrial use to every use of water in the basin.
0:21:54 - (Chris Clarke): So what's next? I mean, I recognize that we have a bit of a chaos agent coming into power in this week. And thank you for bringing us some good news in a week when our listeners probably need some. But do you have a game plan for the next few months? And then the follow up question will be, how can people help?
0:22:14 - (Mason Voehl): Well, I'll say my, the game plan over the last six days now since this news broke, the number one most important thing to me has been to ensure that we don't just brush past this win. It's easy to do. So, you know, in the work that we do, these wins always feel temporary. They're never definitive. You know, there's always the next, the next phase, the next fight. But over the last five days, I think my number one priority has been to communicate to both the coalition of partners that have been working on this and to these local leaders who helped us get here, like, hey, you know, let's, let's take this win. This was a hard fought one. It came as a buzzer be leader in this last week of this administration.
0:22:52 - (Mason Voehl): And so that's been the plan to date. But now, of course, we have to make that pivot looking forward and especially knowing that, you know, this action, this is a really unique situation we're in. You know, we had this process initiated by one administration. We have a incoming administration with a totally different set of, of perspectives and values driving their decision making. And this one is a complicated one.
0:23:16 - (Mason Voehl): So I think in some ways, you know, we've already had to field a lot of questions around, like, well, isn't this, you know, isn't this just going to get ripped up on day one? We'll see that that's possible. Right? And we're, we're bracing for that. And even if that happens, I still feel like we have a lot to be proud of in getting this issue so far and we will continue to work on it. But I think what makes our campaign a little bit unique is just the broad, diverse base of support that it's garnered. You know, we've worked with really, in some ways, unconventional conservation allies here in these communities who historically have never really partnered with us on an initia like this.
0:23:49 - (Mason Voehl): And these are rural communities who, you know, Knight county voted 71% for the incoming Trump administration. So in some ways we are hopeful that the administration will care about that, that they will care to listen to the local government leaders who have been passionate champions on this issue. And so we're working very hard to make sure that those, those avenues of communication are opened up to ensure that, like, there's an understanding this is about, because frankly, this is about more than conservation. You know, this is about the survival of these communities at every turn.
0:24:21 - (Mason Voehl): So what that looks like in the short term is we have at present an opportunity on February 27 for a public meeting. As part of this process, the BLM has announced a 90 day comment period starting on the day of, of the segregation action. So that'll go through April 15th. And as part of that, there will be a public meeting in Amargosa Valley on February 27th. And I see that as probably one of our biggest opportunities for folks of every kind who have supported this issue to come out and to continue to voice that support. You know, we want to illustrate that there is, of course, a very strong local contingent of supporters on this, but that, you know, this is not a provincial issue. Right. This is one of those defining issues in the West. And so we hope that desert lovers, especially from everywhere, will come out and just make clear how special these places, Ash Meadows and Death Valley and the Amargosa river are and how important it is that this incoming administration see this action all the way through.
0:25:24 - (Mason Voehl): So that is sort of the initial opportunity. We will be putting out information about that public meeting certainly over the coming weeks. So stay tuned for that. And in that 90 day comment period, also really, really important. And you know, I think in some ways there are, there will be, and I promise you there will be plenty of groups submitting, you know, technical comments that will help guide that process.
0:25:44 - (Mason Voehl): But this is, this is the American people's pathway to this, this action. Right? This is, you know, NEPA was designed to both inform us of these things happening and it gives us a place to speak from in terms of what we want the current administration to consider as they, they weigh this action. And that's really meaningful in this case, in this case, you know, the, they're studying an area of 309,000 acres of public land.
0:26:09 - (Mason Voehl): That's a big area and they're going to be looking for every reason to trim that down, make it smaller, make it, you know, less cumbersome. From our perspective, this is about groundwater. We feel the science justifies withdrawing not just that area, but arguably a much larger one from mining. And so we are looking to the public to help us support that concern. Just saying, look, we want to see the maximum area withdrawn that's aligned with science, aligned with what the communities are asking for and align what's with what's really going to help the agencies continue to manage these special places for the long run.
0:26:44 - (Mason Voehl): So lots of opportunities for those who care about this issue to participate. The best way for you to keep up with that is going to be to keep up with my organization. You know, we're going to be putting things out on social media through our emailed newsletters with a high degree of frequency in the coming weeks. And so make sure you follow us, make sure you subscribe for that newsletter. If, if after the next 90 days you decide, well, I've done my thing and said my piece and you want to move on from us.
0:27:11 - (Mason Voehl): No, no hard feelings whatsoever, but that is the best way for you to stay plugged in. And we'll make sure that we're providing every resource to, to help folks participate.
0:27:20 - (Chris Clarke): And where can people find the signup form for this email newsletter?
0:27:24 - (Mason Voehl): Well, you can email Chris Clarke and he'll. I'm just kidding. You can go to.
0:27:27 - (Chris Clarke): [Crosstalk] Our website will work, but if you don't, if people don't want to talk.
0:27:30 - (Mason Voehl): To me, if you don't want to talk to Chris, you can go to amargosaconservancy.org donate and that page both has a space for you to subscribe to the newsletter. And while you're there, you can also make a donation. I just want to, you know, take a second to. I know a lot of listeners on your shows, Chris, are also members of ours and members of other organizations. You know, this is a victory for all of you as well.
0:27:54 - (Mason Voehl): I mean, we would not have gotten this opportunity a if you hadn't made sure to spread the story, share, you know, elevate the awareness of this issue and also through your donations, like, we. We relied on those at these critical moments to see us through these. These kind of really active periods of the campaign. And we are certainly in one of those right now. So if you have the means, we always appreciate donations.
0:28:16 - (Mason Voehl): But you can do both. Donate and sign up for the newsletter on that page.
0:28:19 - (Chris Clarke): Great. Okay. Anything. I should have asked you that. I didn't.
0:28:24 - (Mason Voehl): We don't have a crystal ball of what happens next there. There are so many wild cards and strange variables with this campaign. The incoming administration, what they think about water, what they think about lithium. I promise you it'll be interesting. And so if for no other reason, you know, follow us, because I think this is one of those really unique stories in the making. And come what may, we're going to just continue to do exactly what we've done, which is lead with the truth and with science and with local communities with us. And I think we've got a good shot.
0:28:58 - (Chris Clarke): All right, and we will put links to various social media platforms that Amargosa Conservancy works with on our show. Notes. I don't know if you guys are on Blue sky yet, but it's been pretty fun so far.
0:29:09 - (Mason Voehl): I'm making the migration over. I've been fielding a lot of requests as to why we're not on there yet. So. Yeah, we'll see you there.
0:29:16 - (Chris Clarke): That's good stuff. Mason Voehl, thank you so much for joining us.
0:29:20 - (Mason Voehl): Well, thanks, Chris, and a true pleasure to kick off the season with you. I hope it's a good one.
0:29:45 - (Chris Clarke): And that wraps up this episode of 90 Miles from Needles, the Desert Protection podcast. In this most consequential of weeks, I hope you are staying sane, not doom scrolling too much getting outside. Getting outside is important. My spouse and I went for a really wonderful hike in the new Chuckwalla National Monument instead of staying glued to the news all day on the 20th, and it turned out to be a really good move.
0:30:11 - (Chris Clarke): It reminded us of what's important taking care of business here. We have no new donors to announce since last week, which is not particularly surprising. There's a lot of other stuff competing for your charitable attention, especially including the fires in Los Angeles, but lots of other organizations gearing up to contend with the Trump Administration 2.0. Nonetheless, if you want to throw a little cash at us to keep us reporting on desert issues during the Trump era 90 miles from needles.com
0:30:43 - (Chris Clarke): donate. You can go there and set up whatever kind of support you'd like to. Whether it's a one time donation or recurring on a monthly or yearly basis, all the options are there for you. I want to thank Mason Voehl of the Amargosa Conservancy for talking with us and bringing us a little bit of good news. Thanks as well to Joe Geoffrey, our voiceover artist, and Martin Mancha, who is responsible for our wonderful podcast artwork.
0:31:12 - (Chris Clarke): Our theme song, Moody Western is by Bright side Studio Author. Music in this episode is by ABCD Music via envato.com you can find us on social media these days, especially at Bluesky at 90 MFN BSKY Social. That'll be in our show notes with a link. This is a marathon folks, not a sprint. Pay attention to what you need to, but don't burn yourselves out. And we are here to help. We're going to be bringing you breaking news for the next four years, but also some reminders of why we do this work, what's beautiful about the desert and the people in it.
0:31:58 - (Chris Clarke): Now don't forget, if you want to get in on the ground floor of our online community talking about ways to protect the desert while keeping each other healthy and sane, go to 90 miles from needles.com Patreon Sign up as a free member and we will get you the info you need when we have it. And we're looking at sometime early February for that. In the meantime, remember to breathe and if you can remind me to do the same, I'd appreciate it.
0:32:23 - (Chris Clarke): Stay well, we need you healthy and I will see you at the next watering hole. Bye now. 90 miles from Needles is a production of the Desert Advocacy Media Network.