Antelope Valley

The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and the San Gabriel Mountains. The valley was named for the pronghorns that roamed there until they were all but eliminated in the 1880s, mostly by hunting, or resettled in other areas. The principal cities in the Antelope Valley are Palmdale and Lancaster.

Geography

The Antelope Valley comprises the western tip of the Mojave Desert, opening up to the Victor Valley and the Great Basin to the east. Lying north of the San Gabriel Mountains, southeast of the Tehachapis, and east of the Sierra Pelona Mountains, this desert ecosystem spans around . The valley is bounded by the Garlock and San Andreas fault systems. Precipitation in the surrounding mountain ranges contributes to groundwater recharge.

Flora and fauna

The Antelope Valley is home to a wide range of plants and animals. This includes hundreds of plants such as the California juniper, Joshua tree, California scrub oak, creosote, and wildflowers, notably the California poppy. Winter brings much-needed rain, which slowly penetrates the area's dry ground, bringing up native grasses and wildflowers. Poppy season depends completely on the precipitation, but a good bloom can be killed off by the unusual weather in the late winter and early spring.

The Antelope Valley gets its name from its history of pronghorn grazing in large numbers. In 1882-85, the valley lost 30,000 head of antelope, almost half of the species for which it was named. Unusually heavy snows in both the mountains and the valley floor drove the antelope toward their normal feeding grounds in the eastern part of the valley. Since they would not cross the railroad tracks, many of them starved to death. The remainder of these pronghorns were hunted for their hides by settlers. Once abundant, they either died off or migrated into the Central Valley. A drought in the early 1900s caused a scarcity in bunch grass, their main food source. Now, the sighting of a pronghorn is rare, although a small number remain in the western portion of the valley.

Common game species in the Antelope Valley include mule deer and mountain quail. Other common species in the Antelope Valley include the golden-mantled ground squirrel, Beechey ground squirrel, red-tailed hawk, Cooper's hawk, Stellar's jay, leopard frog, and rattlesnake. Other animals in the Antelope Valley are bobcats, mountain lions, and coyotes.

Water issues

Human water use in the Antelope Valley depends mainly on pumping of groundwater from the valley's aquifers and on importing additional water from the California Aqueduct. Long-term groundwater pumping has lowered the water table, thereby increasing pumping lifts, reducing well efficiency, and causing land subsidence.

While aqueducts supply additional water that meets increasing human demand for agricultural, industrial, and domestic uses, diversion of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in northern California has caused and causes adverse environmental and social effects in the delta:

"Over decades, hecompeting uses for water supply and habitat have jeopardized the Delta's ability to meet either need. All stakeholders agree the estuary is in trouble and requires long-term solutions to ensure reliable, quality water supplies and a healthy ecosystem."

The Antelope Valley's population growth and development place considerable stress on the local and regional water systems. According to David Leighton of the United States Geological Survey:

"A deliberate management effort will be required to meet future water demand in the Antelope Valley without incurring significant economic and environmental costs associated with overuse of the ground-water resource."

Human history

The first peoples of the Antelope Valley include the Kawaiisu, Kitanemuk, Serrano, and Tataviam. Europeans first entered in the 1770s, during the colonization of North America. Father Francisco Garcés, a Spanish Franciscan friar, is believed to have traveled the west end of the valley in 1776. The Spanish established El Camino Viejo through the western part of the valley between Los Angeles and the missions of the San Francisco Bay in the 1780s. By 1808, the Spanish had moved the native people out of the valley and into missions.

Jedediah Smith came through in 1827, and John C. Fremont made a scientific observation of the valley in 1844. After Fremont's visit the 49ers crossed the valley via the Old Tejon Pass into the San Joaquin Valley on their way to the gold fields. Later, a better wagon road, the Stockton – Los Angeles Road route to Tejon Pass, followed in 1854. Stagecoach lines across the southern foothills came through the valley along this wagon road, and were the preferred method for travelers before the coming of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1876. The rail service linking the valley to the Central Valley and Los Angeles started its first large influx of white settlers, and farms and towns soon sprouted on the valley floor. The aircraft (now called aerospace) industry took hold in the valley at Plant 42 in 1952. Edwards AFB, then called Muroc Army Air Field, was established in 1933.

Demographics

In recent decades, the valley has become a bedroom community to the Greater Los Angeles area. Major housing-tract development and population growth took off beginning in 1983, which has increased the population of Palmdale around 12 times its former size as of 2006. Neighboring Lancaster has increased its population since the early 1980s to around three times its former level. Major retail has followed the population influx, centered on Palmdale's Antelope Valley Mall. The Lancaster—Palmdale urbanized area is home to 353,619 people.

Non-Hispanic Whites make up about 48% of the population of the Antelope Valley and form a majority or plurality in most of its cities and towns. Hispanics are the next-largest group, followed by African Americans and Asian Americans.

Some long-term residents living far out in the desert have been cited by Los Angeles County's nuisance abatement teams for code violations, forcing residents to either make improvements or move. One of the properties is a church building that was used as a filming location for '' Kill Bill''. The code enforcers have arrived on some of their visits in SWAT-team formats.

Military base

Edwards Air Force Base lies east of Rosamond, 37 miles (60 km) northeast of Palmdale. Edwards AFB's dry lakebeds are the lowest geographic elevation in the valley.
Significant numbers of U.S. military test flights are performed there, and it has been the site of many important aeronautical accomplishments, including the first flight to break the sound barrier, accomplished by Chuck Yeager.

NASA Space Shuttles originally landed at Edwards because the lake beds offer a vast landing area. Although NASA later built a landing strip at Kennedy Space Center, Edwards was retained as the backup in case of bad weather at Cape Canaveral.

NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center is a tenant organization at Edwards AFB. The center is best known for the X-15 experimental rocket ship program. It has been the home of NASA's high-performance aircraft research since it was founded for the X-1 program. The Space Shuttle orbiter was serviced there when it landed at Edwards.

Industry

Aerospace

U. S. Air Force Plant 42 in northeast Palmdale is home to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems, among other aerospace-related companies. Notable projects assembled and/or designed there include the Space Shuttle orbiters, B-1 Lancer bombers, B-2 Spirit bombers, F-117 Nighthawk fighters, F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, and Lockheed L-1011 Tristar passenger jets.

This region also houses the newly dedicated Mojave Air and Space Port. The spaceport is famous as the base of operations for Scaled Composites, the company that designed SpaceShipOne and won the X-Prize.

Much of the work done at these facilities is performed in coordination with Edwards Air Force Base and the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (see above), from the creation and testing of proof-of-concept X-planes, to Space Shuttle operations, to the manufacturing and integration and testing of new military aviation equipment.

With the size of the industry there, Antelope Valley has been nicknamed the Aerospace Valley.

Agriculture

The valley's first main industry as a part of the United States was agriculture. Historically known in the region for its extensive alfalfa fields and fruit crops, farmers now are growing a wider variety of crops, such as carrots, onions, lettuce, and potatoes. As housing tracts continue to build in the middle of the valley, the farm operations are found farther to the west and east sides than in earlier decades.

Electricity generation

The northern reaches of Antelope Valley are part of the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area, the largest wind resource area in California. The valley also has numerous solar farms, some of which are among the largest in the United States.

Manufacturing

* U.S. Pole Company Inc.
* Senior Systems Technology
* Delta Scientific
* Lance Camper Manufacturing Corporation
* Harvest Farms Inc.
* BYD Company

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