The Amargosa River Defies the Desert<br />“These are true oases.”<br />The Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, part of the Amargosa River system, hosts more endemic species — those found nowhere else<br />— than any other place in the United States, surpassed by only one other location in North America, a desert oasis in Mexico.<br />The legendary Devil’s Hole pupfish is the world’s rarest fish species and one of the first species in the United States to be listed as endangered.<br />But the greatest threat of groundwater pumping is to several species of inch-long pupfish, tiny iridescent blue fish so named<br />because they seem to play with one another like frisky puppies.<br />Last year, three residents allegedly broke through the fence<br />that guards Devil’s Hole and sprayed gunfire, took off their clothes to soak in the hot water, threw up in the pool, and left a pair of boxer shorts in this critical fish habitat.<br />The average temperature in the Mojave has increased some 3 degrees in recent years,<br />and warming of another degree or so could prevent the Devil’s Hole pupfish, which already has poor reproductive capabilities, from propagating at all.<br />But the federal and private protections are useless against the biggest threat of all: the pumping of groundwater from the giant underground aquifer<br />that feeds the Amargosa, which eventually may throttle the river and the delicate ecosystems it supports.<br />Many of the region’s most stunning features — deep turquoise springs, warm pools, hanging gardens<br />— are protected in Ash Meadows, where 11,000 gallons of water pour into desert pools each minute.
