|
PRESERVATION ACTION ALERT
Help Protect Backcountry Historic Resources and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
July/August 2026
 |
SOHO strongly urges our members and supporters to speak out against SDG&E’s proposed Golden Pacific Powerlink transmission project because of likely destructive impacts on Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the immense surrounding historic and cultural landscapes.
This proposal, with a preliminary route stretching 145 miles, would introduce major high-voltage transmission infrastructure through one of California’s most treasured public landscapes, bringing prominent transmission towers, access roads, construction staging areas, and long-term industrial impacts into protected desert lands and historic environments that belong to all Californians.
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is California’s largest state park, encompassing more than 650,000 acres of wilderness, wildlife habitat, dark skies, Indigenous cultural sites, paleontological resources, scenic vistas, recreational and camping opportunities, and historic landscapes. The backcountry around the park contains irreplaceable historic resources, including the Warner–Carrillo Ranch House, Eagle Rock, historic travel corridors; and landscapes deeply connected to the history of Native peoples, ranching, settlement, and early transportation throughout the Southern California desert.
At a time when Southern California’s open lands continue to disappear beneath expanding development and sprawl, the Warner–Carrillo Ranch House stands as a remarkable and increasingly rare exception: a National Historic Landmark still surrounded not by subdivisions and urbanization, but by more than 40,000 acres of protected watershed and open landscape. Through decades of stewardship and conservation, this historic site remains extraordinarily intact—offering visitors a rare opportunity to experience a setting that appears much as it did during the era of western migration.
Today, the Warner–Carrillo Ranch House and its environs are the only place that visitors can still stand where generations of 19th-century travelers got their first glimpse of the “promised land” after crossing hundreds of miles along the Southern Emigrant Trail. Now, for anyone gazing across this same unspoiled horizon, which is largely unchanged by time, the experience is profoundly unparalleled.
The restored adobe Warner–Carrillo Ranch House itself is a powerful example of what preservation, conservation, and collaboration can achieve: a place where architecture, history, and landscape remain inseparable. The intrusion of industrial-scale transmission towers and infrastructure into this setting would irreparably damage one of California’s most authentic and significant historic landscapes.
SOHO is deeply concerned that this power project would permanently alter the character and integrity of these majestic historic and cultural landscapes. Once industrialized at this scale, these places cannot be restored.
We are also troubled by the precedent large transmission corridors create. The controversial yet completed 115-mile Sunrise Powerlink opened the door to extensive industrial energy development throughout the region, fundamentally transforming previously undeveloped desert and rural landscapes. The cumulative impacts continue to threaten the ecological, scenic, cultural, and historic values of California’s desert and backcountry.
SOHO urges our members and friends to make your voices heard now, while decisions are still being shaped.
Reach Out to Your Representatives
In your emails, we encourage you to:
- Oppose routes crossing Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
- Oppose routes impacting the Warner–Carrillo Ranch House and its environs
- Support alternatives that avoid protected public lands and historic resources
- Call for full transparency and public review
- Advocate for meaningful Tribal consultation and public participation
- Emphasize the importance of preserving historic, cultural, recreational, scenic, and ecological resources for future generations
Personal letters from residents, park visitors, historians, preservation advocates, Tribal community members, scientists, business owners, and desert supporters can make a real difference. California can pursue responsible energy solutions without sacrificing one of its most extraordinary landscapes and cultural heritage areas.
SOHO will continue monitoring closely and advocating for the protection of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the historic resources that define our remarkable region.
For updates and action opportunities, please stay connected by subscribing to receive SOHO’s eNews and advocacy alerts.
Sample Letter
BACK to table of contents
|
2026
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
|
