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The 'Carrizo Plain' is a large enclosed plain, approximately 50 miles (80 km) long and up to 15 miles (24 km) across, in eastern San Luis Obispo County, California. It contains the 180,000 acre (728 km²) Carrizo Plain National Monument, and it is the largest single native grassland remaining in California.
The plain extends northwest from the town of Maricopa, following the San Andreas Fault. Bordering the plain to the northeast is the Temblor Range, on the other side of which is the California Central Valley. Bordering the plain to the southwest is the Caliente Range. The community of California Valley is on the northern part of the plain. The average elevation of the plain is about 2,200 ft (700 m). Soda Lake, a 3,000 acre (12 km²) alkaline lake, is in the center of the plain. It receives all of the runoff from both sides of the plain because it is an enclosed basin. At 5,106 ft (1,556 m), Caliente Mountain stands as the highest point in San Luis Obispo County.
The Carrizo Plain is one of the easiest places to see the San Andreas Fault; it is clearly visible along the eastern side of the plain, at the foot of the Temblor Range. It is best seen in early morning and evening light, when shadows make the topography visible. In addition to its spring wildflower displays, Carrizo Plain is famous for Painted Rock, a sandstone alcove adorned with pictographs created by the Chumash people around 2000 BC.

Contents

Management

Fauna

Access

Manager suicide

External links

Management

Carrizo Plain National Monument, created by President William J. Clinton, is a component of the BLM's National Landscape Conservation System. Land management of the Carrizo Plain is a joint project between the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, California Department of Fish and Game, and the Nature Conservancy, which owns much of the land. There is also an Advisory Board appointed by the BLM made up of various public interests. One of the current range management projects involves removing non-native grasses by selective cattle grazing early in the season (when non-native plants first emerge). Later in the season, the cattle are removed and native plants have a competitive advantage versus the non-native vegetation. The Advisory Board began holding meetings in May, 2007 for the first time since the death of the first monument manager, Marlene Braun, to begin a new Resource Management Plan process.

Fauna

Wildlife of the Carrizo includes the San Joaquin Kit Fox, the Giant Kangaroo Rat, reintroduced Tule Elk, and Pronghorn. The Le Conte's Thrasher of the Southwestern United States has a disjunct north range in the Carrizo Plain because of its hotter climate and ecology.

Access

California Highway 166 passes the south entrance to the Carrizo Plain, and California Highway 58 crosses through the northern portion. Connecting them is narrow Soda Lake Road, the only dependably passable road through the plain, except when it rains. It is gravel for much of its extent.

Manager suicide

Marlene Braun, M.S. in Soil Science, UCR, a 13-year employee of the Bureau of Land Management who ranked at GS 13, and the first monument manager of the Carrizo Plain National Monument, committed suicide in her Carrizo Plain home on May 2, 2005. She had begun making great strides in protecting native species until discussions over the Resource Management Plan (RMP) broke down with the arrival of a new field office supervisor. In 2005, the Department of the Interior Office of the Inspector General conducted an investigation into her suicide. An August 8, 2005 letter from the Office of the Inspector General says there was a conflict between Braun and her supervisor, Ron Huntsinger, which went back to 2004. She was allegedly suspended for five days in January 2005 for writing an email that Huntsinger allegedly claimed injured his reputation. According to the letter, the Bureau of Land Management Region office also conducted an investigation into the matter. The Office of the Inspector General has a heavily redacted report without its appendices available on Marlene Braun's suicide. The report indicates there were management problems prior to Braun's death, makes no conclusions as to the failure of the Bakersfield Field Office supervisor to provide a more timely rescue, and cites errors in procedure when computers and other items were taken from her home by BLM employees.

External links

★ Carrizo Plain National Monument Official BLM Website

★ Carrizo Plain, USGS - 3D photographic tour featuring regional geology

★ Carrizo Plain, Sierra Club

★ The Friends of the Carrizo Plain

★ Carrizo Plains: The Nature Conservancy