As the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts contend with record rainfalls, climate change and urban development are drying up the Great Salt Lake. We talk to David Smith of Joshua Tree National Park about floods in desert parks, and Zachary Frankel of Utah Rivers Council about saving the Salt Lake.

As the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts contend with record rainfalls, climate change and urban development are drying up the Great Salt Lake. We talk to David Smith of Joshua Tree National Park about floods in desert parks, and Zachary Frankel of Utah Rivers Council about saving the Salt Lake.

Join Chris Clarke and a variety of guests as they explore the challenges and opportunities of the American Southwest's fragile ecosystems. Engaging interviews with experts, activists, and advocates on conservation, land management, and environmental justice. Science and sentiment, politics and philosophy, hiking and history, culture and creativity all go into defending the desert. Be forewarned: We are out to recruit you to the cause.

Join Chris Clarke and a variety of guests as they explore the challenges and opportunities of the American Southwest's fragile ecosystems. Engaging interviews with experts, activists, and advocates on conservation, land management, and environmental justice. Science and sentiment, politics and philosophy, hiking and history, culture and creativity all go into defending the desert. Be forewarned: We are out to recruit you to the cause.

Vital info on protecting our irrepaceable deserts

90 Miles from Needles: the Desert Protection Podcast

90 Miles from Needles is a podcast about the environment, landscapes, and people of the American deserts—the Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Great Basin and beyond. Host Chris Clarke explores desert ecology, wildlife, public lands, history, culture, road trips, conservation and the people working to protect these landscapes.

90 Miles from Needles is a podcast about the environment, landscapes, and people of the American deserts&mdash;the Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Great Basin and beyond. Host Chris Clarke explores desert ecology, wildlife, public lands, history, culture, road trips, conservation and the people working to protect these landscapes.

Record floods and historic drought reveal how climate change is reshaping water across Death Valley and the Great Salt Lake.

S1E16 Flood and Drought; Death Valley and the Great Salt Lake

Listeners in Joshua Tree and Moab may think their homes are overrun with jackasses, but this episode's guest has got them beat. We talk with Dr. Jennifer Anderson, whose diverse career has brought her to stewarding 300 acres of Sonoran Desert landscape in Mohave County, Arizona. But restoring her former 19th Century mine site has not proved as straightforward as Anderson had imagined. Western Arizona landscapes — and others throughout the deserts — are contending with a huge increase in the numbers of feral burros, introduced centuries ago but newly prospering at the expense of the desert. Anderson details the impact her unwanted guests have caused to her part of the desert, and the cascade of unpleasant effects that stem from the donkeys' presence as well as the inability of land management agencies to contend with the issue.

Plus! Our first ever listener contest: correctly identify all the birds in Fred Bell's nature audio and message Chris, and you may win a 90 Miles from Needles T-shirt. The first three listeners who email Chris with a correct ID, a t-shirt size, and a mailing address will get some mail from us.

Citation links and further reading
AZGFD study — Associations between a feral equid and the Sonoran Desert ecosystem — Esther S. Rubin, Dave Conrad, Larisa E. Harding, and Brianna M. Russo; Wildlife Monographs 215, e1083, published June 26, 2024. Fieldwork in 2017–2019 compared areas with and without established burro herds near Lake Havasu and Lake Pleasant.
Environmental Assessment — Big Sandy Alamo and Lake Havasu Wild Burro Gather and Population Control Plan — BLM Kingman Field Office, DOI-BLM-AZ-C010-2023-0025-EA. Official document index for the final revised EA, Finding of No Significant Impact, and Decision Record. Decision issued September 13, 2024. Expand Final Documents to access the assessment.
BLM 2025 Three Rivers Complex gather and daily reports — Official record of the bait and water trapping operation and fertility control work.
Alamo Herd Management Area — BLM geographic profile and appropriate management level.
Big Sandy Herd Management Area — BLM geographic profile and appropriate management level.
Havasu Herd Management Area — BLM geographic profile and appropriate management level.
AZGFD explanation of the burro study — Accessible agency summary of the ecological concerns.
National Academies review of equid fertility management — Methods and Effects of Fertility Management, in Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program A Way Forward (2013).
Mountain lion predation study — Lundgren and colleagues (2022), A novel trophic cascade between cougars and feral donkeys shapes desert wetlands. Background relevant to the predator discussion.
NPS saguaro biology and nurse trees — Background on young saguaros, nurse trees, growth, and roots.
Federal wild horse and burro law — Official U.S. Code PDF covering private-land removal and criminal provisions, including 16 USC 1334 and 1338.

Guest and episode links
Sonoran Desert Sanctuary
Anderson-Arroyo Foundation
Fellowship for Desert Reporting
Support 90 Miles from Needles
This episode's sponsor Copper Mountain College
Contact Chris

Listeners in Joshua Tree and Moab may think their homes are overrun with jackasses, but this episode's guest has got them beat. We talk with Dr. Jennifer Anderson, whose diverse career has brought her to stewarding 300 acres of Sonoran Desert landscape in Mohave County, Arizona. But restoring her former 19th Century mine site has not proved as straightforward as Anderson had imagined. Western Arizona landscapes &mdash; and others throughout the deserts &mdash; are contending with a huge increase in the numbers of feral burros, introduced centuries ago but newly prospering at the expense of the desert. Anderson details the impact her unwanted guests have caused to her part of the desert, and the cascade of unpleasant effects that stem from the donkeys' presence as well as the inability of land management agencies to contend with the issue.
Plus! Our first ever listener contest: correctly identify all the birds in Fred Bell's nature audio and message Chris, and you may win a 90 Miles from Needles T-shirt. The first three listeners who email Chris with a correct ID, a t-shirt size, and a mailing address will get some mail from us.
Citation links and further reading
<ul>
<li><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wmon.1083">AZGFD study &mdash; Associations between a feral equid and the Sonoran Desert ecosystem</a> &mdash; Esther S. Rubin, Dave Conrad, Larisa E. Harding, and Brianna M. Russo; Wildlife Monographs 215, e1083, published June 26, 2024. Fieldwork in 2017&ndash;2019 compared areas with and without established burro herds near Lake Havasu and Lake Pleasant.</li>
<li><a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/documents/?id=d9b73ad7-a7f2-f011-8407-001dd803d067&amp;spid=4d1b2a85-a8f2-f011-8407-001dd80db62a">Environmental Assessment &mdash; Big Sandy Alamo and Lake Havasu Wild Burro Gather and Population Control Plan</a> &mdash; BLM Kingman Field Office, DOI-BLM-AZ-C010-2023-0025-EA. Official document index for the final revised EA, Finding of No Significant Impact, and Decision Record. Decision issued September 13, 2024. Expand Final Documents to access the assessment.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/wild-horse-and-burro/herd-management/gathers-and-removals/arizona/2025-three-rivers-complex-wild-burro-gather">BLM 2025 Three Rivers Complex gather and daily reports</a> &mdash; Official record of the bait and water trapping operation and fertility control work.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/wild-horse-and-burro/herd-management/herd-management-areas/arizona/alamo">Alamo Herd Management Area</a> &mdash; BLM geographic profile and appropriate management level.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/wild-horse-and-burro/herd-management/herd-management-areas/arizona/big-sandy">Big Sandy Herd Management Area</a> &mdash; BLM geographic profile and appropriate management level.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/wild-horse-and-burro/herd-management/herd-management-areas/arizona/havasu-hma">Havasu Herd Management Area</a> &mdash; BLM geographic profile and appropriate management level.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.azgfd.com/2025/09/23/feral-burros-threaten-sonoran-desert-wildlife/">AZGFD explanation of the burro study</a> &mdash; Accessible agency summary of the ecological concerns.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/13511/chapter/6">National Academies review of equid fertility management</a> &mdash; Methods and Effects of Fertility Management, in Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program A Way Forward (2013).</li>
<li><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13766">Mountain lion predation study</a> &mdash; Lundgren and colleagues (2022), A novel trophic cascade between cougars and feral donkeys shapes desert wetlands. Background relevant to the predator discussion.</li>
<li><a href="https://home.nps.gov/sagu/learn/nature/saguaro.htm">NPS saguaro biology and nurse trees</a> &mdash; Background on young saguaros, nurse trees, growth, and roots.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/link/uscode/16/1338">Federal wild horse and burro law</a> &mdash; Official U.S. Code PDF covering private-land removal and criminal provisions, including 16 USC 1334 and 1338.</li>
</ul>
Guest and episode links
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.sonorandesertsanctuary.com/">Sonoran Desert Sanctuary</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.sonorandesertsanctuary.com/anderson-arroyo-foundation">Anderson-Arroyo Foundation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://thedamn.org/fellowship">Fellowship for Desert Reporting</a></li>
<li><a href="https://90milesfromneedles.com/donate">Support 90 Miles from Needles</a></li>
<li>This episode's sponsor <a href="https://www.cmccd.edu/">Copper Mountain College</a></li>
<li><a href="mailto:chris@90milesfromneedles.com">Contact Chris</a></li>
</ul>

Burros are magnificent animals. What happens when unmanaged herds overwhelm the desert habitat around them? Dr. Jen Anderson joins Chris Clarke to describe her efforts to restore the Sonoran Desert Sanctuary near Alamo Lake in western Arizona. She recounts damage to palo verde trees, disappearing wildlife, and years of seeking help from the Bureau of Land Management. The conversation brings together desert conservation, federal wild burro management, animal welfare, and hands-on restoration—and includes a detour onto the bridge of Star Trek: Enterprise.

S5E33: From Starfleet to the Sonoran Desert: Coping With a Burro Onslaught

As promised a few episodes back, Chris explores a sneaky trick developers sometimes try to use to evade legally required environmental analysis of their projects. Segmentation, the term of art for dividing a large project into smaller pieces to obscure the environmental impacts of the whole project, is likely to become more frequent as the Trump administration keeps hacking away at environmental protection laws.

Chris provides a handful of illuminating examples:
Cadiz gets the Interior Department to assess the company’s Northern Pipeline separately from the pumping it would enable, prompting new desert protection lawsuits.
A non-desert example: 14 years ago, frontline community groups successfully challenged an upgrading of Chevron Oil’s refinery on Richmond, California. Though their allegations of segmentation (called “piecemealing” in California state law) didn’t sway a judge, the case illustrates how reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes segmentation.  
As the Federal approach to NEPA changes, Chris briefly examines what the erosion of CEQ regulations means for protecting the public and the environment from improperly segmented project proposals.
An Imperial County victory: the court overturned a data center’s lot merger approval and required environmental review of the entire development.
Fred Bell shares the dawn chorus from Sabino Canyon in Tucson.
Apply for DAMN’s Fellowship for Desert Reporting, and support independent desert journalism through a donation to 90 Miles from Needles.

Cadiz lawsuit by Tribal Nations, NALC and NPCA, July 28, 2026: identifies plaintiffs and explains their objections to separate pipeline review.

Cadiz lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club, July 28, 2026: Earthjustice’s account of the parallel challenge.

NPCA and NALC’s 2021 Northern Pipeline lawsuit: background on the earlier approval and litigation.

Communities for a Better Environment v. City of Richmond, 2010 appellate opinion: the decision distinguishes the successful project-description and greenhouse-gas claims from the rejected piecemealing claim.

Earthjustice on the Richmond refinery appeal: the community groups’ account of the outcome.

City of Imperial data center information and court documents: includes the September 9, 2026 decision, tentative decision, petitions and project documents.

KPBS coverage of the September 9 data center ruling: accessible explanation of the ruling.

Department of Energy history of CEQ regulations: official timeline and links to the rescission rules.

January 8, 2026 CEQ final rule: official Federal Register publication.

Podcast and support links

S5E1: Standing Up to Tech Giants: Desert Locals vs. California’s Largest Data Center

Fellowship for Desert Reporting

Support 90 Miles from Needles

Copper Mountain College

As promised a few episodes back, Chris explores a sneaky trick developers sometimes try to use to evade legally required environmental analysis of their projects. Segmentation, the term of art for dividing a large project into smaller pieces to obscure the environmental impacts of the whole project, is likely to become more frequent as the Trump administration keeps hacking away at environmental protection laws.
Chris provides a handful of illuminating examples:
<ul>
<li>Cadiz gets the Interior Department to assess the company&rsquo;s Northern Pipeline separately from the pumping it would enable, prompting new desert protection lawsuits.</li>
<li>A non-desert example: 14 years ago, frontline community groups successfully challenged an upgrading of Chevron Oil&rsquo;s refinery on Richmond, California. Though their allegations of segmentation (called &ldquo;piecemealing&rdquo; in California state law) didn&rsquo;t sway a judge, the case illustrates how reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes segmentation. &nbsp;</li>
<li>As the Federal approach to NEPA changes, Chris briefly examines what the erosion of CEQ regulations means for protecting the public and the environment from improperly segmented project proposals.</li>
<li>An Imperial County victory: the court overturned a data center&rsquo;s lot merger approval and required environmental review of the entire development.</li>
<li>Fred Bell shares the dawn chorus from Sabino Canyon in Tucson.</li>
<li>Apply for DAMN&rsquo;s <a href="https://thedamn.org/fellowship/">Fellowship for Desert Reporting</a>, and support independent desert journalism through a <a href="https://90milesfromneedles.com/donate">donation to 90 Miles from Needles</a>.</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://www.npca.org/articles/11474-tribal-nations-and-conservation-groups-sue-to-protect-mojave-desert-water">Cadiz lawsuit by Tribal Nations, NALC and NPCA, July 28, 2026</a>: identifies plaintiffs and explains their objections to separate pipeline review.
<a href="https://earthjustice.org/press/2026/lawsuit-challenges-trump-administrations-latest-attempt-to-drain-mojave-desert">Cadiz lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club, July 28, 2026</a>: Earthjustice&rsquo;s account of the parallel challenge.
<a href="https://www.npca.org/articles/2859-tribal-and-national-parks-groups-file-lawsuit-to-defend-mojave-desert">NPCA and NALC&rsquo;s 2021 Northern Pipeline lawsuit</a>: background on the earlier approval and litigation.
<a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ca-court-of-appeal/1519671.html">Communities for a Better Environment v. City of Richmond, 2010 appellate opinion</a>: the decision distinguishes the successful project-description and greenhouse-gas claims from the rejected piecemealing claim.
<a href="https://earthjustice.org/press/2010/appeals-court-chevron-refinery-expansion-plans-illegal">Earthjustice on the Richmond refinery appeal</a>: the community groups&rsquo; account of the outcome.
<a href="https://www.imperial.ca.gov/276/Data-Center-Info">City of Imperial data center information and court documents</a>: includes the September 9, 2026 decision, tentative decision, petitions and project documents.
<a href="https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2026/09/09/court-overturns-approval-of-imperial-county-data-center-orders-environmental-review">KPBS coverage of the September 9 data center ruling</a>: accessible explanation of the ruling.
<a href="https://www.energy.gov/nepa/history-ceq-nepa-regulations-and-guidance">Department of Energy history of CEQ regulations</a>: official timeline and links to the rescission rules.
<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-08/pdf/2026-00178.pdf">January 8, 2026 CEQ final rule</a>: official Federal Register publication.
Podcast and support links
<a href="https://www.90milesfromneedles.com/s5e1-standing-up-to-tech-giants-desert-locals-vs-californias-largest-data-center/">S5E1: Standing Up to Tech Giants: Desert Locals vs. California&rsquo;s Largest Data Center</a>
<a href="https://thedamn.org/fellowship">Fellowship for Desert Reporting</a>
<a href="https://www.90milesfromneedles.com/donate">Support 90 Miles from Needles</a>
<a href="https://www.cmccd.edu/">Copper Mountain College</a>

How developers split projects to sidestep environmental review—and how communities fight back. Cadiz groundwater, Chevron and an Imperial County data center.

S5E32: Hiding Big Projects in Small Pieces

Desert Dispatch Media is bringing together artists and communities to document how the AI buildout is affecting desert lands and the people who live there. Chris talks with organizer Melinda Matson Spina, filmmaker Jodi Darby, and musician Sage Bond about their planned community-led documentary, a short film for public assemblies, and the stories they hope to gather across the Southwest.

Sage describes composing with sounds and materials from the land, while Jodi explains how footage contributed by community members can shape the larger film. Chris also surveys actions communities and tribal governments are taking in response to proposed data centers.

Links and further reading


Desert Dispatch Media


Listen to Sage Bond on YouTube


The Border Chronicle and its fifth-anniversary celebration


Virginia’s Data Center Accountability Framework
Gallup: Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area — In a March 2026 national survey, 71% of U.S. adults opposed construction of an AI data center in their local area.


Support 90 Miles from Needles
Episode image is from a satirical website dated 2013

Desert Dispatch Media is bringing together artists and communities to document how the AI buildout is affecting desert lands and the people who live there. Chris talks with organizer Melinda Matson Spina, filmmaker Jodi Darby, and musician Sage Bond about their planned community-led documentary, a short film for public assemblies, and the stories they hope to gather across the Southwest.
Sage describes composing with sounds and materials from the land, while Jodi explains how footage contributed by community members can shape the larger film. Chris also surveys actions communities and tribal governments are taking in response to proposed data centers.
Links and further reading
<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://thedamn.org/desertdispatchmedia/">Desert Dispatch Media</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@sagebond8919">Listen to Sage Bond on YouTube</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.theborderchronicle.com/">The Border Chronicle</a> and its <a href="https://www.theborderchronicle.com/the-border-chronicle-turns-five-whats-next/">fifth-anniversary celebration</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.energychief.virginia.gov/datacenters/">Virginia&rsquo;s Data Center Accountability Framework</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx">Gallup: Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area</a> &mdash; In a March 2026 national survey, 71% of U.S. adults opposed construction of an AI data center in their local area.</li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.90milesfromneedles.com/donate/">Support 90 Miles from Needles</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/index.html">Episode image is from a satirical website dated 2013</a></li>
</ul>

Meet the artists behind Desert Dispatch Media’s community-led documentary about AI infrastructure, data centers, and desert communities.

S1E16 Flood and Drought; Death Valley and the Great Salt Lake

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90 Miles from Needles: the Desert Protection Podcast

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