| Tularosa Basin |
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Information AboutTularosa Basin |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT TULAROSA BASIN | |
| landforms of new mexico | |
| endorheic basins | |
| otero county, new mexico | |
| lincoln county, new mexico | |
| natural history of new mexico | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Hydrologically, the Tularosa Basin is a Closed Basin , no streams flow in or out. Surface water that doesn’t evaporate or soak into the ground eventually accumulates at playas (intermittent lakes), the largest of which is Lake Lucero at the southwest end of White Sands . To the north of lake Lucero there are extensive alkali flats, which today produce additional gypsum for White Sands. HISTORY 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 1850's when the United States established its military presence at Fort Stanton (in the Sacramento Mountains (1855-1896), Torreon Fort (near Lincoln ) (1850's), 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 began until the late 1870's when settlers and cattlemen from Texas began moving into the basin. The grasslands in the Tularosa Basin were able to support large herds in the wet years of the 1880's. When the Anglos first started running cattle, in some places the grass grew as high as a horse’s shoulder. One cowboy estimated that 85,000 head were mustered in 1889 in the basin, but said that that was “far too heavy a burden for the range.” The following years were ones of severe drought, and the pastures have never recovered from the consequent over-grazing and erosion which continued in many instances for 75 or more years. Even on the White Sands Missile Range where cattle grazing was virtually eliminated in 1945 , the effects of overgrazing prevalent in the 1890 -1945 period can still be seen almost everywhere. For example, many areas that were known historically to be rich grasslands can now be characterized as desert scrub lands where creosote bush predominates. Since surface water was unable to sustain the cattle herds, the ranchers turned to ground water, and the easily reachable sweet water was mined out from under the basin, leaving only brackish water. Applying the ground water to the surface resulted in additional salts being dissolved and transported back down into the ground water. This increased the salinity of the ground water and by the year 2000 it was recognized that salt in the groundwater needed to be significantly reduced if existing levels of water usage were to continue. The Tularosa Basin National Desalination Research Facility was established in Alamogordo in 2004 as a joint project of the Federal Bureau Of Reclamation and Sandia National Laboratories . It is a national center for researching desalting of the brackish groundwater typically found in inland basins. ECOLOGY Because of the closed nature of the basin, a number of unique ecological niches have developed. There are a significant number of species which only occur in the Tularosa Basin. These include the White Sands pup-fish and the Oscura Mountains Chipmunk. CITIES, TOWNS AND GHOSTTOWNS
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