Six volunteers have answered most of the district’s 62 emergency calls this year. A federal grant could build a station in Tecopa, and a solar developer’s deal could pay for another in Charleston View. Neither pays for people.
The Southern Inyo Fire Protection District has logged 62 calls for service so far in 2026, already above its three-year annual average of 55, with two of its busier months still to come. Six volunteers do most of the responding, across a district that runs from Shoshone to Charleston View.
At the Inyo County Board of Supervisors’ Oct. 27 meeting at the Tecopa Community Center, the district laid out a schedule that could put shovels in the ground on a new Tecopa station in fall 2027. Earlier the same afternoon, a solar developer described $2 million for a second station in Charleston View. That money arrives only if supervisors approve the 500-megawatt Bonanza Peak Solar project at a hearing that has not yet been scheduled.
Neither pot of money covers staff. “At some point it may become necessary for there to be paid staff,” said Robin Flinchum, president of the district’s board. “We would not be able to raise the money to pay … a full-time person or two full-time people.”
The meeting, one of two the board holds in southeast Inyo each year, also drew residents complaining of sewage odors near Tecopa Hot Springs, a Death Valley National Park wastewater treatment facility underway, and a split in public comment over whether Bonanza Peak needs a full environmental impact report. Supervisors approved new itemized fees at the county-owned hot springs and a change to county renewable-energy code, both without dissent.
Calls up, volunteers down
Of the 62 calls, 42 were medical, six were fires, 11 involved both and three were other incidents, according to Chief Bill Lutze, who presented for the district. Thirty came from the Tecopa and Tecopa Hot Springs area, including Highway 127; 10 came from Charleston View and six from Shoshone.
“We’re traveling pretty much all the time,” he said.
The district has seven members, he said, with six volunteers handling most responses. Recruiting more is its central problem. One recent prospect lived too far away to respond in time.
Communications remain unreliable. A contractor raised the district’s antenna at Ibex Pass, which improved radio coverage somewhat but did nothing for paging. A new paging setup is planned off a sheriff’s substation this fall. The district has bought Starlink Mini terminals for its ambulance and fire trucks and is adding one at its office.
Some fixes are working. A new oxygen cascade system lets crews refill ambulance bottles in Tecopa instead of driving them to Las Vegas or Pahrump. A generator connection finished in May has kept the community water kiosk running through a few power outages.
A Tecopa station, on paper
The county holds a $1.5 million grant for a new Tecopa station, which requires a $500,000 local match. The plan calls for a 4,000- to 5,000-square-foot insulated metal building housing four fire trucks and two ambulances, plus a locker room, decontamination room, medical storage and laundry.
The USDA is reviewing two requests for proposals before they go out. The draft schedule, relayed from county staff:
| Step | Target |
| Proposals received | Mid-December 2026 |
| Vendor and design team selected | Late January 2027 |
| Preliminary report to USDA | Mid-March 2027 |
| Bid package finalized | May–June 2027 |
| Construction contract awarded | July 2027 |
| Construction under way | Fall 2027 |
The district still wants title to the land. It holds a long-term lease from the Bureau of Land Management, which will file for a patent once Southern California Edison finishes a right-of-way driveway, the district said.
Who pays for people
The district runs on a special tax enacted long ago with no cost-of-living adjustment. “Every year our expenses go up,” Flinchum said. Revenue can also fall when private land passes into public conservation and leaves the tax rolls.
Fundraising covers trucks, tires, a transmission, the light bill. The district’s main event this year is the Weird Tales Festival: a film premiere Friday, Nov. 13, at the Flower Building in Shoshone (reservations required) and a festival Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Tecopa Community Center.
But Flinchum said the board has concluded events cannot fund salaries. The district has looked at rotating out-of-area volunteers through on short stints and found the certification paperwork unmanageable. She said the district may come back to the county to ask for help.
The volunteers now carrying the load “are not going to last forever,” she said. “We lost one of our pillars last year.”
Bonanza Peak: a firehouse, if the solar farm is approved
Supervisors took no action on Bonanza Peak Solar. The item was a workshop, held in Tecopa because some residents may have difficulty attending the later approval hearing, said Cynthia Draper of the Planning Department.
The project would cover about 2,400 privately owned acres in Charleston View with roughly 734,000 sun-tracking panels for 50 years. It would use the entire 500-megawatt cap the county set for its eastern solar zone, which also rules out solar development in the Sandy Valley area that shares the cap.
Two draft development agreements commit the developer to $2.5 million:
- $2 million to the county for the Southern Inyo Fire Protection District to build a Charleston View firehouse and buy equipment, paid before the first building or grading permit.
- $500,000 for an environmental impact report to finish the Charleston View Community Plan, plus road signs. Leftover money would go toward firehouse maintenance.
The main landowner, the Mary Lee Wiley Living Trust, has separately agreed to donate 2.5 acres on Old Spanish Trail Highway for the station, said its attorney, Stephen Scow. That donation is not in the agreements.
None of it pays for firefighters. In a July 2025 email in the agenda packet, Death Valley Unified Superintendent Jim Copeland asked that the developer fund five full-time firefighter-paramedics on an ongoing basis, through Cal Fire or the BLM rather than the district. The draft agreements contain no staffing money.
Flinchum raised a different revenue question. A state property-tax exclusion for solar facilities expires Jan. 1, 2027, and the developer has agreed to pay the county in lieu of taxes if a similar exclusion returns. She asked whether the district could share in that payment. The draft agreement splits any such payment in the same proportions as the regular 1% property tax levy; she said the district is funded only by its special tax. No one answered her question at the meeting.
Water
Construction would use up to 1,094 acre-feet of groundwater over about 18 months, and decommissioning up to 729 acre-feet, according to the staff report. Operations would use about 0.014 acre-feet a year. Staff said the construction figure assumes round-the-clock work and actual use should be lower.
Stephanie Lauer, speaking for Bonanza Peak Solar, said testing showed the developer’s existing wells near Charleston View likely lacked capacity. One collapsed. The developer now plans a new primary supply well about 1.7 miles north of the nearest Charleston View wells, still on leased land, which needs county and state permits.
Residents within a half-mile of a project well could have their wells monitored during construction, with remedies if levels drop. The staff report describes that program as a voluntary service, not CEQA mitigation.
County staff said a more current hydrology report will be ready before the project returns for approval.
Calls for a full Environmental Review
The county is relying on an addendum to the environmental impact report it prepared for its 2015 renewable energy general plan amendment, supported by 14 project-specific technical studies.
Laura Cunningham, Bill Helmer of the Old Spanish Trail Association and author Wynne Benti, asked for a full EIR. Helmer said the National Park Service treats the Old Spanish National Historic Trail as a corridor extending five miles to either side, not a single line. The county’s cultural study placed the documented trail about 1.5 miles south of the site and found no effect.
Benti said much of the water supply assessment rests on historical data and that she could not review much of the record because it was posted recently.
Stacy Simon, an attorney temporarily working in the county counsel’s office, said CEQA limits further review when an EIR already exists and the new studies reveal no new significant impacts. “It’s not a time issue,” she said. “It’s really a legal issue.”
Patrick Donnelly of Shoshone, speaking for himself rather than the conservation groups he works with, recalled the Hidden Hills power-tower proposal for the same land, which would have pumped about 700 acre-feet a year. He said he did not want solar development anywhere in his desert, but that this developer had “pretty much done what we’ve asked”: it dropped a battery storage system after objections, chose not to grade the site flat and committed to off-site mitigation and the firehouse money.
Charleston View residents Michael Sumpter and Gary Barclay pressed on dust, truck traffic and the condition of Old Spanish Trail Highway. The developer said construction traffic would come from Nevada Highway 160 and use a single site entrance off Old Spanish Trail Highway; staff said most supplies are expected from Las Vegas. A county condition requires repair of any damage to the highway; staff said one restricting trucks from Highway 127 could be added.
Construction would employ 450 to 600 workers, the developer said, housed in Pahrump and Las Vegas. Operations would need eight to 10.
The sewage pond, again
Three people who live or do business near the sewage pond at Tecopa Hot Springs said the odor this summer was the worst they had experienced.
Larry Levy, who has lived directly north of the pond since 1999, said the smell wakes him at night, comes in through his swamp cooler and can at times be tasted. For his first decade there, he said, odors came about a week each spring and fall. After an aeration system was added, “it started and it never stopped” this year.
Levy said he first complained to the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board in 2017 and was told the odor was a nuisance violation that would be addressed. He said he is weighing improvements to his home but expects he would have to disclose the odor to any buyer. “It’s unacceptable, and yet it continues,” he said.
Raymond Reed, who recently bought a nearby hot springs resort, said guests have left because of the smell, which is worst on heavy mornings. A neighbor who identified himself as a chemist living northeast of the pond said it reeked from late June through September and asked that the issue be placed on a future agenda.
Speakers raised possible health effects, including hydrogen sulfide and airborne bacteria. No test results were presented.
The board could not respond: under the Brown Act, supervisors cannot discuss or act on items not on the agenda. The chair said staff in the room had noted the comments.
Other public comment
Death Valley Unified School District superintendent Jim Copeland said the district appears to be the first school in Inyo County with a student’s parent in ICE detention. “It’s really hard to look at students and not know … whether they’ll ever see that parent again,” he said. He thanked county employees for handling the situation with decency and respect.
He also described feral dogs multiplying in Charleston View, including a pack that surrounded a car and left a frightened driver calling for help, and asked for a leash law. Michael Sumter, a 15-year Charleston View resident, said the community lacks animal control and building enforcement and is treated as second-class.
Hot springs fees split three ways
Supervisors approved an itemized rate structure at the county-owned Tecopa Hot Springs and Campground, replacing a $45 nightly bundle with separate $15 charges for a campsite, an electrical hookup and a soak. The $35 annual locals pass is unchanged.
Concessionaire Lance Hamrick said the bundle drew complaints of overcharging, so the operators broke it apart. “We’re really not changing it,” he said. “We’re just dividing it.”
That holds for a single guest who wants all three. But Hamrick also said the old $45 rate “included two soaks,” and neither he nor the staff report said whether the new $15 soak is charged per person. If it is, two campers with power who both soak would pay $60. The staff report says the change “may increase revenue, depending on visitor patterns.”
The county’s cut is unaffected. Under the concession agreement, Flippin Happy Campers & Lance Hamrick LLC pays the county the greater of $10,000 or 5% of gross receipts in 2026 and 2027, rising to the greater of $15,000 or 7% from 2030. The county can return that money for approved facility improvements.
Hamrick showed photos of repainting, new lattice and an accessible ramp from the kiosk to the private pool, which has a wheelchair lift. Pavers to replace the gravel paths to the men’s and women’s sides are next. A delivery truck making a U-turn knocked out power to the general store this summer; Hamrick said finding a contractor willing to come to Tecopa to bid on the repair has been hard.
Asked from the audience, he said pools are cleaned three times a week. Repainting them properly means stripping to bare surface one pool at a time, he said, and gave no date. “I didn’t win the lottery,” he said.
Locals’ passes will be collected around the first of the month as the operators move to a new reservation system that stores photos for verification.
News from Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park reports seven fatalities over the past three and a half months, Superintendent Mike Reynolds told the board. He asked the county, which works those cases through the sheriff and coroner, to put out releases the park can then share.
Reynolds said a hiring freeze has cost the park about 40 permanent positions, roughly 40% of its staff. Visitation hit a March record during a brief superbloom, then fell 25% in every month from April through September, which he attributed to fewer international and Canadian visitors. Susan Sorrells, who said her Shoshone businesses employ 25 people, told the board her summer receipts were also down 25%.
Deputy Superintendent Abby Wines said Scotty’s Castle is at least two years from fully reopening, and possibly longer, because the reduced staff who award large contracts may not get to its last project this year. Construction has begun on a $69.5 million water and wastewater overhaul at Furnace Creek and Cow Creek, expected to bring three years of disruption. Titus Canyon Road is closed until late spring.
Neighbors organize
Sorrells introduced Community Advocates for South East Inyo, or CASEI, now incorporated as a nonprofit. It formed when commodity food deliveries stopped coming out to the area, she said. Monthly potlucks have drawn people even in summer, and residents have donated turkeys for a Thanksgiving dinner for people with nowhere to go.
“We’re not a really affluent community, but we’re rich in spirit and rich in ingenuity,” Sorrells said. She said the group sees Pahrump and Las Vegas, not the county seat, as its nearest sources of supplies and partners.
CASEI is a co-applicant on the county’s bid for a state Extreme Heat and Community Resilience grant for Tecopa. Pam Bold of the High Sierra Energy Foundation, another co-applicant, said her group audited county buildings in Tecopa and Shoshone last November and drafted solar and battery specifications for a community resilience center.
Also at the meeting
- Monument campaign. Tribes of the Eagle Mountain (TOTEM), a coalition now leading the national monument proposal with Friends of the Amargosa Basin, said it expects to approach Congress in about a year. Friends of the Amargosa Basin will hold a public talk at the Shoshone Museum on Nov. 21 at 1 p.m.
- Groundwater. Patrick Donnelly, speaking for the Amargosa Conservancy, said an updated State of the Basin hydrology report shows continued groundwater declines along the flow path from the Ash Meadows area. He flagged data center proposals in Amargosa Valley and Pahrump as a new demand on the same water.
- Connecting Tecopa. County staff said engineering and environmental review continue on a 2.9-mile walking and biking safety corridor between Tecopa and Tecopa Hot Springs. A community meeting on design options is expected this winter or early spring.
- Elections. Clerk-Recorder Danielle Sexton said none of Inyo’s active registered voters appeared on a federal list of potentially ineligible voters sent to California counties. The hand-tally audit is Nov. 12 at 9 a.m. in her office.
- Tax auction. The Treasurer-Tax Collector’s office is inspecting parcels for an online tax-defaulted property auction on Feb. 10.
- Code change. Supervisors amended county code to clarify their authority to set development standards, including interior setbacks, for renewable energy projects, removing a list of specific standards staff called vague. The Planning Commission recommended it 4–0 on Sept. 23.
- Recognitions. Shelley Scott of Health and Human Services was honored for 10 years of county service; she began as a temporary worker in 2009. Assistant Treasurer-Tax Collector Meghan O’Keefe was introduced.
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