With the help of more than 30 volunteers from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Mule Deer Foundation, the Soil and Water Enhancement Action Team Coalition, and the Elko Bighorns, the guzzlers were installed over a two-day period in pristine mountain habitat that was lacking surface water.

Guzzlers are artificial watering devices that collect and then store the water in specially developed tanks after rain and snowfalls. The materials to construct the guzzlers were purchased using $20,000 of NDOW Wildlife Heritage Account money, collected through the auctioning of big game tags at various sporting groups' banquets, as well as Partnership in Wildlife (PIW) money.

BLM provided a backhoe and purchased the protective fencing that surrounds the sites, while Barrick Goldstrike Mining Co. donated the use of a backhoe for site preparation.

According to NDOW biologist Joe Williams, the sites are perfect for guzzlers. "With the lack of surface water in the area, there hasn't been any livestock grazing in the area and the forage base is in excellent condition. The high elevation of the sites (8,000 feet) helps put it in a high precipitation zone, and there is plenty of cover as well as several avenues of escape for big game.

The guzzler sites are in the middle of a major migration route that mule deer use late in the fall, and Williams adds, "As many as 3,000 to 5,000 deer pass through here each year, and by putting water here, we hope that a viable herd will take up residency."

The day before the volunteers showed up, BLM backhoe operator Scott Heseltine prepared the slightly sloping sites by removing vegetation and smoothing the area in preparation for the polyethelene liners that make up the water collection apron.

Then early Saturday morning, volunteers rolled out two 22-by-120 foot liners at each site and marked where the backhoe was to dig. As the trenches were dug, the volunteers, armed with shovels and "McClouds" (firefighting tools), built a berm inside the trench.

The liners were then unrolled, allowing the edges to drape over the berm and into the trenches, forming a basin on the slope with a larger dam-like berm at the bottom to catch the water and direct it through a pipe to the collection tanks below.

Volunteers then filled the trenches back in and placed large rocks randomly over the liner to help anchor it against winds and shrinkage due to the cold of winter. Below the aprons, sites were leveled and prepared for the storage tanks and drinkers. Filters and pipes were then installed to complete the guzzlers.

Joe Cumming of Boss Tanks helped design the tanks with former Elko BLM biologist Roy Price. Cumming explained, "They are 1,800 gallon polyethylene tanks with a three-foot-square opening called a drinker in one corner where the animals drink. There are slits in the sides of the tank allowing water to percolate into the drinker while minimizing the loss of water through evaporation."

According to Cumming, many species of wildlife will benefit from the guzzlers. "While these two guzzlers were installed for big game species such as elk and mule deer, the design of the drinker will allow small game and non-game species to get to the water as well. The drinkers have gently sloping ramps covered with a hard plastic grid allowing birds, lizards and other small animals easy access to the water."

According to BLM biologist Ray Lister, the corps of volunteers was essential to the project. "Without the help of the volunteers, this project would have been much more expensive and taken longer to install."