Tularosa Basin - History

History

Apache, Spanish, and U.S. 'Old West'

When the Spanish arrived in the Tularosa Basin they found springs and small streams coming from the Sacramento Mountains that fed a relatively lush grassland on the eastern side of the basin. While some sheep ranching was tried by the Spanish, and some mining, the area remained firmly under Apache control until the 1850s when the United States established its military presence at Fort Stanton (in the Sacramento Mountains) (1855–1896), Torreon Fort (near Lincoln) (1850s), and Camp Comfort (1858–1859) at White Sands. Under US military protection the first permanent settlement was established in 1862, when approx. 50 Hispanic farmers from the Rio Grande Valley moved to Tularosa. Efforts to control the Apache waned somewhat during the American Civil War and serious Anglo settlement did not begin until the late 1870s when settlers and cattlemen from Texas began moving into the basin.

Grasslands and grazing

The native grasslands in the Tularosa Basin were able to support large herds in the wet years of the 1880s. When the Anglos first started running cattle, in some places the native perennial bunchgrasses grew 'as high as a horse’s shoulder' - 1–2.5 metres (3.3–8.2 ft) depending on species. One cowboy estimated in 1889 that 85,000 head were mustered within the basin, but said that that was “far too heavy a burden for the range” - or beyond its carrying capacity. The following years were ones of severe drought, and the grassland pastures never recovered from the over-grazing which continued in many instances for 75 years or more, and consequent top soil erosion and desertification. Even within the White Sands Missile Range, where cattle grazing was eliminated in 1945, the effects from the 1890 -1945 period of overgrazing can still be seen nearly everywhere in the Range. Many areas that were historically known to be rich perennial grasslands are now xeric desert shrublands, with creosote bush—(Larrea tridentata) predominating.

Groundwater salinization

Since surface water was unable to sustain the cattle herds, the ranchers turned to groundwater, and the easily reachable aquifer of 'sweet water' was pumped out and depleted from under the basin, leaving only brackish water. Applying the groundwater to the surface resulted in additional salts being dissolved and transported back down via groundwater recharge into the aquifer, increasing its salinity. By the year 2000 it was recognized that salts in the aquifer needed to be significantly reduced if existing levels of water usage were to continue. Therefore in 2004 the Tularosa Basin National Desalination Research Facility was established in the basin at Alamogordo, as a joint project of the Federal Bureau of Reclamation and Sandia National Laboratories. It is a national center for researching procedures to reduce brackish water creation and to develop new technologies for its desalination, as it is increasingly found in present day inland basin aquifers with agricultural irrigation and potable water withdrawal demands.