MARK SMITH / PVT The Amargosa River flows weakly by the time it passes Dumont Dunes and crosses California Highway 127 -- but here it flows aboveground. MARK SMITH / PVT In the Tecopa area, a series of pools marks the Amargosa River's passage south toward its eventual terminus in Death Valley. Advertisement

Susan Sorrells can remember riding a horse along the wetlands of the Amargosa River, a rare, continuous stream in the desert, flowing along her family's property in Shoshone, Calif.

Sorrells discovered from an early age the beauty of the stream.

The possibility of securing wild and scenic river status for the Amargosa River was discussed a few years before the Amargosa Conservancy received its own status as a nonprofit organization in 2005. It's been a top priority of the conservancy, of which Sorrells is a founding member, ever since.

Now the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 has cleared Congress and only needs the signature of President Obama to designate a section of the Amargosa River across the state line in California a wild and scenic river from Shoshone to Dumont Dunes.

The public lands bill encompasses 160 different bills, including the Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Mountains Wild Heritage Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif. The bill passed the House 285-140 Wednesday.

Amargosa Conservancy members lobbied the Santa Clarita, Calif.-based Republican to introduce the bill.

"The Eastern Sierra-Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act is the product of countless hours of community involvement," McKeon said in a prepared statement. "This package works for my district because it isn't Congress telling my district how to manage our land. This is my community, my constituents, asking Congress to approve a land use compromise developed and vetted back home in California."

The wild and scenic river designation drew a response from David Lamfrom, California desert field respresentative for the National Parks Conservation Association.

"Today historic action has been taken to protect the Amargosa River," Lamfrom said. "This ribbon of green amid one of the harshest environments on earth is now being recognized as a lifeline for rare and endangered species and as a critical source of water for Death Valley National Park and its gateway communities."

That national attention is exactly what Sorrells wants to see, providing eco-tourism in an area that formerly relied on the boom and bust of talc mines.

"The fact that now this is a wild and scenic river designation, it will hook us into a national system of all the monuments and the historical trails and wilderness. It also not only protects the beautiful area that has so many endangered species, it will also open new avenues of funding for us. That's really exciting," Sorrells said.

The fact the river was between two parks, the Mohave National Preserve and Death Valley National Park, helped gain approval, she said.

The Amargosa Conservancy has led the public on hikes to various places on the Amargosa River, like Amargosa Canyon just behind Tecopa. While there hasn't been a major threat from a development, Sorrells said steps need to be taken now to protect the river.

"People didn't realize how many resources and how special the Amargosa River is," Sorrells said. "But it's really fragile, and I guess we could say in some ways we're the victims of our own circumstances. The fact there's so many more people coming into the area to enjoy the beauty of it, now we'll have means to preserve it."

The area includes large "land art," similar to Peru's Nazca Lines, visible only from the air, Sorrells said. The conservancy is finding out other benefits to preserving the area, she added.

"These series of oases along the Amargosa, we've done studies for the past three years and we found that they're very important nesting areas for the migratory birds. Water in the desert is so precious," Sorrells said.

There is still talk about a 17-mile hiking trail from Shoshone to Dumont Dunes, using part of the rail bed from the old Tonopah and Tidewater railroad.

In Nevada the bill will provide 24 acres for the Nevada Cancer Institute in Las Vegas and land for a flood control project on Sunrise Mountain. It also authorizes a study of a Cold War memorial, a project of Steve Ririe, who researched a 1955 plane crash on Mount Charleston. The passengers, all of whom died, worked at Area 51.

House Republicans complained in the last go-round the bill would be one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in 25 years, could cost up to $10 billion and block oil and gas development on federal land.

Sorrells said the wild and scenic river designation shouldn't affect economic development in Amargosa Valley, Nevada, across the state line where major solar energy projects are being planned.

The bill allows the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to measure stream flow to prevent large diversions upstream that would impact the wild and scenic section.