Tubb Canyon Desert Conservancy

 

Spring 2026

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Emerges

A proposed 500-kilovolt transmission line that would cross Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is raising alarm among residents, conservationists, and business owners who fear detrimental impacts on California’s largest state park and the economy of Borrego Springs.

The project, now identified as the Golden Pacific Powerlink, would run approximately 135 miles from Imperial County to northern San Diego and Riverside counties. In mid-April, SDG&E released a map (See below) showing their preferred route for this powerline, and it is through the Park’s designated wilderness. SDG&E project managers acknowledge there are other potential routes, both north and south of the Park, but describe the route through the Park as “easier.” Supporters of the line describe it as a major energy infrastructure investment intended to strengthen California’s electric grid. Opponents argue the current route would desecrate one of the state’s most treasured public landscapes.

For Borrego Springs, the concern is both environmental and economic. The town’s tourism-driven economy depends heavily on the scenic beauty, dark skies, hiking trails, wildflower blooms, and quiet desert character that attract visitors from across the state and beyond. Residents worry that massive steel towers rising 150 to 200 feet high would permanently alter viewsheds, diminish the visitor experience, and cost the regional economy hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park spans more than 650,000 acres and contains 85 percent of California’s state-designated wilderness. It is home to sensitive wildlife, rare desert plants, archaeological sites, and cultural resources important to Indigenous communities. The proposed corridor runs from Imperial County along Hwy 78 to Tamarisk Grove Campground. From there is angles northwest up Grapevine Canyon and through the Angelina Spring Cultural Preserve.

This is not the first time such a project has stirred controversy. Nearly two decades ago, a similar proposal known as the Sunrise Powerlink faced strong resistance before ultimately being routed south of the Park. Many longtime residents see the new proposal as an unwelcomed return of an old battle.

Anza-Borrego Foundation, the nonprofit partner of the Park, is urging the public to pay close attention during the current stakeholder feedback process. Foundation leaders say the route is not final and that community participation now could help shape what happens next.

“The route is not final,” ABF Executive Director Bri Fordem said in a recent statement. “Right now, during this stakeholder feedback window, the public has an opportunity to get informed and be engaged.”

Beyond the Park itself, the line would also affect rural communities across San Diego and Riverside counties. Residents in Sunshine Summit, Oak Grove, Aguanga, and areas near Temecula have begun examining potential impacts to views, open space, and future development patterns.

Locally, many Borrego Springs residents say the issue goes to the heart of what makes their community unique. The town’s identity is inseparable from the surrounding desert landscape, and any industrial-scale project visible from roads, campgrounds, or trailheads could change that identity for generations.

Public meetings and comment opportunities are expected throughout the year as the project advances toward formal regulatory review. Residents who want to understand the proposal, ask questions, or make their voices heard are encouraged to participate now. Extensive information about the proposed powerline and how the community is responding to this threat can be found at the Anza-Borrego Foundation’s website at https://theabf.org/park-threat.

For Borrego Springs, the next important opportunity to comment on the project is close to home: residents are urged to attend the Borrego Springs Sponsor Group Meeting on May 6, 2026, at 5 PM and stand up for the future of their community and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The meeting will be held at the Borrego Springs Library and online. To obtain the meeting link and agenda, contact Sponsor Group Board President, John Peterson at petersonenv@hotmail.com.

The following week, SDG&E will hold virtual “open houses” on May 12th and May 15th at noon and 5:30PM both days. Information on how to attend can be found at https://goldenpacificpowerlink.com/connecting-with-communities#OH. These meetings will be important opportunities for residents in the affected communities such as Borrego Springs to make their views known to the SDG&E project team.

Now is the time for every concerned resident to make their voice heard. For information on more ways you can support your community and your Park, please visit Borrego’s own political action committee, the Desert Protective Trust.

J. David Garmon, MD
President, Tubb Canyon Desert Conservancy

Winter 2025

TCDC Announces Completion of Phase II of Quest to Check the Spread of Sahara Mustard

Borrego Springs, CA – The Tubb Canyon Desert Conservancy (TCDC) announced today that Phase II of its three-phase project begun in 2014 to discover a biocontrol agent for Sahara mustard has been completed and the results have been published in the journal Molecular Ecology. The study led by Daniel E. Winkler, Ph.D. reveals that the invasive desert weed Sahara mustard (Brassica tournefortii) has spread around the world not by chance, but by hitching rides along ancient and modern human trade routes. Using genome-wide DNA analysis of 312 plants from 31 sites across Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States, Dr. Winkler’s team reconstructed the species’ global invasion history—and found human fingerprints at every turn.

A Weed with a Passport

Native to North Africa, southern Europe, and western Asia, Sahara mustard was long cultivated and foraged as a leafy vegetable before becoming an agricultural and environmental pest. Its genetic trail, the study shows, reflects centuries of human contact. Within its native range, populations from Morocco, France, Italy, and Egypt display extensive genetic mixing—so much so that Egyptian genotypes appear to form a bridge connecting the western Mediterranean and the Middle East. The authors suggest that Egypt, a hub of trade and agriculture for millennia, served as a “genetic crossroads,” mixing lineages that were later exported abroad.

Crossing Oceans in the Age of Agriculture

The study’s genetic analyses pinpoint Egypt—and perhaps adjacent regions in Morocco and France—as the likely source of Sahara mustard populations now thriving in Borrego Springs and the rest of the American Southwest. The weed first appeared near Palm Springs, CA, in 1927, coinciding with the U.S. import boom of date palms from North Africa and the Middle East. The researchers argue that mustard seeds probably traveled as contaminants in the damp soil and fiber wrappings used to ship the palms. Once established in the Coachella and Imperial Valleys, the plant spread explosively through the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts.

Signatures of Selection and Human Mixing

Perhaps the most striking finding is that nearly all populations—native, agricultural, and invasive—show unusually high genetic diversity and “excess heterozygosity.” In plain terms, individuals are more genetically varied than expected for a mostly self-fertilizing plant. This pattern, the authors note, likely reflects centuries of human selection, cultivation, and hybridization with related crops such as canola and Chinese mustard. In effect, human farming practices may have inadvertently bred a weed with the genetic flexibility to thrive anywhere.

Implications for the Borrego Valley

Sahara mustard’s ability to thrive seemingly anywhere is known well in the Borrego Valley where there have been numerous examples of former wildflower fields being type-converted into nothing but a sea of Sahara mustard. Nowhere have there been more dramatic examples than in the flower fields north of Henderson Valley Rd (See photos below) and the flower fields north and south of S22 four miles east of the Borrego Springs Airport.

 

Because of Sahara mustard’s vast expansion in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, the only means of diminishing its impact on native flora is a biocontrol agent that can be dispersed on an ecosystem-wide level. Phase III of the TCDC project is designed to produce that result. Armed with the knowledge that the Sahara mustard in the US originated in North Africa (Egypt and Morocco), researchers from the USDA’s European Biologic Control Lab have, and will continue, to search in Egypt and Morocco for those biological agents that keep Sahara mustard in check in its native range. Once found, these agents will be subjected to exhaustive testing for safety and efficacy in the European biocontrol laboratories and then again in secure, bio-containment labs in the US. If found to be safe and effective, such an agent can be introduced to areas such as the American Southwest, including Borrego Springs, to reduce the unchecked spread of this destructive invasive plant. Though significant progress has been made in this three-phase project, the use of such a biocontrol agent is still 5-10 years away.

(Major funding for this project has been provided by Audry Steele Burnand and Jim Dax.)

• Winkler Phase II Report (PDF)

   

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