Purple amole’s last stand: Camp Roberts protects 32 rare species, including one found only there and at nearby Fort Hunter Liggett

Courtesy Photo | The bald eagles on Camp Roberts are used to the military training activities at the 42,000-acre California Army National Guard installation. Photo by Michael L. Moore, Camp Roberts Environmental Office  

CAMP ROBERTS, CA, UNITED STATES

06.12.2015

Story by Brandon Honig 

California National Guard Primary   

CAMP ROBERTS, Calif. - Visitors to the California Army National Guard’s two-week annual training session at Camp Roberts may witness some rare sights — a howitzer dangling from a helicopter, mortars fired under cover of night, remotely operated weapons or even a truck rodeo. But none is more rare than a small purple flower found only at Camp Bob and its nearby Army cousin Fort Hunter Liggett.

The environmental experts at Camp Roberts care for 32 protected, threatened or endangered species, including the bald eagle, vernal pool fairy shrimp and burrowing owl. All of those species, though, are also known to live somewhere “off post,” meaning they don’t depend so heavily on Camp Roberts for survival.

“The purple amole is not very well-understood yet,” said Jeanne E. Mayer, an environmental scientist at Camp Roberts. “We are in communication with the scientists at Fort Hunter Liggett, who we share information with. … We are contributing to the scientific knowledge of the plant.”

When the purple amole, a perennial of the Agavaceae family, was first identified at Camp Roberts in 2000, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said to stay away from the habitat year-round to protect it. Experience at Camp Roberts since then, however, has shown that allowing military training there during the late summer — when the bulb is dormant underground — can benefit the purple amole by reducing the presence of competing plant species. Camp Roberts’ environmental staff now even uses controlled fires to eliminate competing plants while the bulb is dormant.

Those prescribed fires may help the 4- to 16-inch-tall plant survive, but other kinds of blazes pose a real threat to the plant also known as Chlorogalum purpureum.

“Because of the clumped and limited distribution of the purple amole in a semiarid environment, a wildfire could destroy a substantial portion of the population,” Fish and Wildlife warned in a 2008 report. The authors suggested that efforts should be made to find additional purple amole habitats in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties.

The purple amole is currently found at three sites on Fort Hunter Liggett and only one site on Camp Roberts, with 19 miles separating the two. Camp Roberts, though, is home to most of the world’s purple amole plants, with more than 250,000 on about 215 acres in the rain shadow of the Santa Lucia Range. (The largest purple amole habitat on Fort Hunter Liggett was estimated to have 10,000 plants in 2000).

The purple amole also once grew in the flat upland areas near Camp Roberts and Fort Hunter Liggett, but grazing and development have depleted the population, Camp Roberts’ environmental staff said. The two Army bases — two of the area’s only properties that are not subject to farming or development — have therefore become de facto preservation areas.

The extreme rarity of purple amole habitats makes it a special case for the Army, but Mayer said the Army’s efforts to look after the plant are not unusual: The Army is very conscious of protected species on its installations and makes strong efforts to support them.

“I’m new to the Department of the Army,” said Mayer, who began working at Camp Roberts in November, “but the Army really wants to instill a conservation ethic from the top all the way to the bottom. It’s been very proactive in many ways.”

Army installations, in fact, follow higher conservation standards than are required of other landholders, said Mark E. Williams, environmental lead for Camp Roberts. Partly that’s because military leaders want to be good stewards and support biological diversity, but that’s not their only motivation.

“If we were to lose this facility,” Williams said of Camp Roberts, “where would we find another 42,000 acres to train our military units? … Our goal is to benefit the troops by protecting the environment and [consequently] reducing training restrictions.”

The restrictions on Camp Roberts rarely have a major effect on training. In 2003, for instance, a pair of bald eagles got spooked by artillery shells near their roost. The Environmental Office responded by closing some artillery points, merely pushing the training event down the road.

The sound of artillery, of course, would startle almost any species, and Williams said the bald eagles at Camp Roberts rarely get spooked by anything else. One eagle nest is only a mile from a small arms range, and the birds appear to be habituated to the environment.

“They’ve been seen flying around during training and seem unbothered,” Williams said, adding that the base’s controlled fires don’t seem to upset the majestic birds either. “They’ve gotten used to it.”

Camp Roberts has implemented nighttime speed limits to protect wildlife; eliminated some poisons and pesticides; and prohibited hunting with lead ammunition to protect the California condor, which eats carcasses. The post also curbs off-road driving in certain areas; restricts digging near pools and streams; and requires careful surveys prior to any excavation, to ensure the safety of protected animals — and of cultural sites.

In addition to myriad plants and animals, the history of Camp Roberts’ land includes many generations of Native Americans, who left behind a building foundation and a variety of tools and household items.

“I think of us as being like the National Park Service or the U.S. Forest Service — but with tanks. We have the same level of environmental requirements, ” Williams said. “If you see an arrowhead, call us, so we can manage it, curate it and take care of it.”

With more than 3,000 Soldiers descending on Camp Roberts at once for annual training this June, and so many living and cultural resources to protect on post, one might think the influx would be an environmental headache. But Camp Roberts’ experts say they’re well-prepared to handle the traffic.

“The biggest component is the disposal of [dirty] water, which requires some coordination with each of the different units out there,” Williams said. “The Army National Guard was very proactive about planning in advance with us, so we don’t foresee any problems.”

• Date Taken: 06.12.2015
• Date Posted: 06.12.2015 19:51
• Story ID: 166490
• Location: CAMP ROBERTS, CA, US