Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Mid-week in Spring Creek Basin, early morning to beat the 100-degree afternoon temps, a couple of *my* BLM guys gathered with me for some fixin’s. Not food; water-related.

BLM seasonal range tech Jim Siscoe came out to fix/replace the broken piece in the wildcat valley water catchment trough! This means that I can leave the valve on for the water to fill the trough automatically as the horses drink it down without turning the valve on to fill the trough and off so it doesn’t drain all our precious water from the catchment tanks. If you were with us in 2021, you’ll recognize Jim as part of the dream team who built the first of two new water catchments in Spring Creek Basin (along with Mike Jensen, Garth Nelson and Daniel Chavez).

Jim had asked that the trough be dry for the work, as he wasn’t sure he’d be able to insert the new piece if the pipe was covered by water.

Obviously, the trough was still about half to three-quarters full! He did say the cool water felt great, and it didn’t hamper his fixit skills at all. 🙂

And really, I don’t think I can be blamed because I’d last filled the trough three days earlier, thinking that would be plenty of time for the horses to drink down the water. (Actually, I was a little worried about them not having water there when they’d gotten used to finding water there. … I needn’t have worried.)

What it means – because when I’ve been out there filling it with two, three, four bands visible nearby-ish – is that the horses have plenty of other water sources (many of which I’ve seen and know about), which, as you might imagine in these scary drought times, gives me a huge sense of relief. And Jim, awesome as he is, went with the flow (get it) and had the new piece inserted and the whole thing fixed in about five minutes flat. 🙂

That done, we went to the northwest valley to meet Anton Rambur (BLM rangeland management specialist). There followed discussion of what it will take to fix the pipe that connects the tanks, broken last fall when the basin got so MUCH rain that it flooded around the middle tank and literally popped it up out of the ground.

Jim points out where they’ll need to start digging to work their way up to that middle tank (as shown, it’s second from left) in order to get it out and get to the below-ground pipe.

See all the green discs at the front of each tank? Those top a vertical culvert that protects and allows access to the bottom of each tank. A pipe comes straight out from each tank and Ts at a pipe that runs horizontally across each each tank. At the far end, a pipe then runs down the hill to the trough, seen behind/beyond Anton and Jim.

Problem pipe. This is the tank that got popped up with the force of that flooding rain last fall. The pipes were no match for the force of that water, so they broke on each side of the T. The only thing that stopped the tank from being lifted right out of the ground was the roof overhead.

The fix: Rent a mini excavator again, use it to fix the road all the way back to the northwest valley, then dig out the pipe and tank. Replace the tank and fix/replace the pipe(s) and valve. We’re also going to put in a midway valve so I can turn it off if we have a problem again because right now, while we have a semi-fix, when I turn on the valves to the two end tanks, water runs down to the trough, but it also backs up and gurgles into that culvert Jim is pointing to. Last job for the mini ex: Build up the berm again at the back of the line of tanks and dig a trench to carry water around/beyond the tanks in the future when it, you know, floods again. Because in the desert, we have to prepare for both drought and the goodness of “too much” water (I mean, nobody ever considers any amount of water to be *TOO MUCH* water in the desert … but it can be destructive when it comes all at once).

Jim and Anton talk over the water cooler … err, water trough. 🙂 Beats an office any day (though it’s always nice to retreat to office AC when the heat is this bad!).

Jim is the resident “weed killer” at Tres Rios Field Office, and he does a great job. Here, he took advantage of being out in the basin to spray cockleburs, Russian thistle (tumbleweed) and Russian knapweed downhill of the catchment in the drainage that leads to the pond (left and dry).

Wider view that shows the catchment up to the left. The trough is barely visible behind that single juniper.

We were out early enough to beat most of the heat, make a good fix, run some water, talk about another fix, spray some weeds. No matter the conditions, we’re makin’ it work.