Development of Indio Mountains Research Station Headquarters, Phase II

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A grant has been awarded to the University of Texas at El Paso under the direction of Dr. Jerry Johnson for partial support of the construction of a self contained multipurpose building to house an expanded cooking facility and dining area that will also accommodate meetings and classroom activities at the Indio Mountains Research Station (IMRS). The new construction will allow the IMRS to meet the following long-term objectives: 1) Enhancement of research efforts: The IMRS will be linked with four other research sites to create a 1000 km transect across the northern Chihuahuan Desert. All research sites have unique qualities associated with the Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem. Linking research information from these sites will go a long ways toward gaining overall knowledge of the resident biota and ecological factors that produced North America's largest desert. The new building will facilitate the ability of researchers from other sites to utilize the IMRS.2) Development of the site as an educational facility: The IMRS has supported during the last five years, in addition to UTEP, 19 other universities and colleges, three El Paso high schools, and other interested parties as a site for: field trips in biology, geology, anthropology, and environmental science and engineering; faculty, graduate, undergraduate, and in-service teacher research projects; outreach activities; and limited collection of specimens for research and classroom use. IMRS continues to provide excellent opportunities for students to conduct educational projects and field research in a variety of Chihuahuan Desert habitats, especially for minority students who are underrepresented in scientific disciplines. UTEP is the largest majority-minority university in the continental U.S., with 71% of the enrollment being of Hispanic descent. The new building will greatly enhance the ability of IMRS to accomodate these students.3) Protection of the site: IMRS is not only a field station, but is also a nature reserve that is surrounded by private land where livestock grazing is the common activity. Grazing has been excluded from almost all of IMRS for over 20 years and has resulted in significant recovery of a number of native species. With the proposed new facility will come increased IMRS usage, which in turn should lead to even better protection. The new and expanded facilities, which will lead to greater use of IMRS and could allow for the future position of a more or less permanent on-site caretaker.