06:33 PM PDT on Friday, August 14, 2009

By JANET ZIMMERMAN
The Press-Enterprise

Federal officials extended public comment on a plan to relocate desert tortoises for an Army expansion after being inundated with 20,000 protest e-mails, a spokesman said Friday.

The comment period on an environmental report supporting the move was set to expire Friday. But the Bureau of Land Management, which is overseeing the relocation, pushed the deadline to Aug. 31 after environmentalists objected, said David Briery, spokesman for the BLM's California Desert District.

"We had gotten a lot of concern that the public didn't have the proper opportunity and length to comment on the environmental assessment," he said.

The BLM opted for a 15-day comment period so the Army could begin relocating 89 tortoises next month. The plan is to move them from Ft. Irwin National Training Center, near Barstow, to public lands south and west of the military property so the Army can use 94,000 acres for training troops. Crews would move another 1,143 tortoises next spring.

Several environmental groups asked the BLM to extend the comment period by 60 days.

Last year, nearly 600 tortoises were moved from Ft. Irwin. More than 90 died, most killed by coyotes, and the Army suspended the relocations to determine whether moving the tortoises made them more vulnerable to predators.

The environmental assessment that supports resuming the relocations is based partly on a survey by a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey that is unfinished and unpublished. It concluded the tortoise deaths were not the result of the relocations. Briery said the assessment relied on about 10 studies, not just the unpublished one.

Biologist Ileene Anderson with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, has requested documentation for the assessment but has yet to receive it. "There's no way I can confirm what they say," she said.

Reach Janet Zimmerman at 951-368-9586 or jzimmerman@PE.com

Written comments may be submitted by letter to U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Barstow Field Office, Attention: Chris Otahal, 2601 Barstow Road, Barstow, Calif. 92311; 760-252-6033; or by e-mail to caftirwin@blm.gov. Comments must be received on or before the close of business Aug. 31.

ARMY SEEKS TO MOVE MORE THAN 1,100 TORTOISES
As it prepares to expand training operations at Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert, the U.S. Army is again proposing to move more than 1,100 threatened California desert tortoises -- an unprecedented number of an endangered species that has not fared well during previous relocations.

 The Army is seeking the approval of the federal Bureau of Land Management to move the tortoises from nearly 100,000 acres in portions of the National Training Center to lands managed by the BLM. The environmental assessment is under BLM review and the proposed action is open for a 15-day public comment period.

Moving desert tortoises is not always successful. The Army relocated more than 600 of the animals last year but suspended the $8.7-million program after the first phase when officials noted high mortality rates among the tortoises, chiefly because of coyotes.

About 90 animals were found dead from suspected coyote predation. But Clarence Everly, natural and cultural resources program manager at Ft. Irwin, said only one animal died during the relocation.

The sheer numbers of tortoises proposed to be moved in this latest operation, beginning next spring through 2012, alarms conservationists.

"Nothing's ever been done on this scale before," said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, who says a total of 252 tortoises have died in the translocation area. "Every time the animals recognize that they don’t know where they are, they have some built-in mechanism that tells them to head for home and they make a break for home."

In the last move, some tortoises traveled up to five or six miles to get back to their home range, Anderson said.

The relocation of desert tortoises from Ft. Irwin, northeast of Barstow, to the drought-ravaged western Mojave puts more pressure on the species, whose population is already crashing, in part because of an upper respiratory disease that afflicts some animals. Everly said the Army is blood testing every tortoise and will quarantine any found to have the disease.
 
-- Julie Cart


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace...army-training-.html

Harvesting the sun, but at what cost?

A map of solar potential issued by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows the best solar can be found in parts of the San Luis Valley, as well as the broad swath of desert from St. George, Utah, to the outskirts of Los Angeles.
Daniel Nocera is an unabashed proponent of ramped-up development of solar energy. A professor of energy and chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he says that solar alone, among the various renewable sources, can do the heavy lifting needed to meet future demand.

And what a demand he foresees: Barely more than half of today’s 6.2 billion people on the planet lead energy-intensive lives. Should they get what you, me, and most everybody in the developed countries take for granted, demand will swell.

Add another 3 million people on the planet, as is projected, and you have a tripling of demand by mid-century, said Nocera during a conference in Telluride last year. (He also spoke in Aspen during March.)

It will take everything we have to meet that demand, he said. But he does not see the knives in the renewable drawer being equally sharp. Wind will be part of the answer. So will biomass, although if every last blade of grass on the planet was processed, it would not be enough, he said.

The most promise, says Nocera, is in solar. The technology still needs improvement; the most efficient photovoltaic panels are little more than 20 percent effective at converting the sun’s rays into electricity.

Better storage is also needed. Currently, energy retention is limited to six hours in even concentrated solar — although Nocera and another MIT researcher in July announced a new chemical process they say allows the solar energy of daylight to be converted into hydrogen fuel for storage, available when demand arrives. If that is so, the sky is the limit for solar energy.

Even without that technological breakthrough, there has been a new gold rush to harvest the sunshine in the American Southwest.

Forget about Colorado’s generic boast of 300 days of sunshine per year, which includes days when the sun appears only briefly. In maps of solar potential issued by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, much of Colorado has a complexion no darker than that of a Spaniard.

Really good solar is represented on the map by deep red tending toward purple. Think of road rash. Parts of the San Luis Valley look like that, and the broad swath of desert from St. George, Utah, to the outskirts of Los Angeles looks like flesh rubbed raw on asphalt.

A trio of scientists, writing in the Dec. 16, 2007, issue of Scientific American, gushed about what they called the “solar grand plan,” which could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century.

Only 2.5 percent of the radiation falling in the Southwest could, if converted into electricity, match the nation’s total energy consumption in 2006, said Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis.

The scientists estimated that 250,000 square miles of land in the Southwest are suitable for solar power plants.

But there are differing opinions about just how much of this land — especially public lands — should be dedicated to solar resources. The sharpness of that disagreement became evident in June, after the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management ordered a moratorium on new applications.

Since late 2006, the BLM has been flooded with 130 proposals to use public land for solar installations, about half of them in California’s San Bernardino County, which has more than 20,000 square miles, including federal lands. Alone it is bigger than nine other states.

But despite the immensity of the desert, there are competing needs and uses, pointed out Brad Mitzelfelt, a county supervisor. “All we are asking is that we slow down to make sure these projects don’t do irreparable harm to our shrinking desert,” he said.

Andrew Silva, an aide to Mitzelfelt, further explained that San Bernardino County already has the Mojave National Preserve and parts of Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks, plus two military bases that hope to expand. Wind farms are also proposed.

“The Southwest is not a big flat empty parking lot,” added Silva. “It is a thriving, sensitive, fragile ecosystem.”

The BLM lifted the moratorium in early July, responding to unhappy solar companies and public officials.

“Time is not on our side,” said Morey Wolfson, of the Governor’s Energy Office in Colorado, at a late-June hearing held in Golden. The impacts of climate change are sufficiently dangerous to justify ramped-up development of renewables, he said. “We can’t push this off for 10, 20 or 30 years.”

U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, who is running for Senate, was among those protesting the moratorium, but far more important was the voice of Nevada’s Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. The moratorium, he said, “is the wrong signal to send to solar power developers, and to Nevadans and Westerners who need and want clean, affordable sun-powered electricity soon.”

Still continuing is work on a programmatic environmental impact statement that is to provide a broad, consistent policy governing installation of solar collectors on the 119 million acres the BLM administers in the six Southwestern states. That overview is expected to be complete in 2010.

California’s mandate for renewable energy is fueling this new solar gold rush. The state requires investor-owned utilities to get 20 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2010. As of last year, they were at 13 percent. Now under discussion is a new goal, 33 percent by 2020.

The rush into the Mojave is creating ironic partnerships among traditional adversaries in public land disputes.

“You have folks who have been at war for decades who are saying: Wait a minute,” reports Silva. “You have the OHVers and Sierra Clubbers on kind of the same page.”

Off-highway vehicle enthusiasts fear loss of access to public lands. Environmental concerns are focused on habitat for the desert tortoise, which is listed as threatened in the Mojave Desert under the nation’s Endangered Species Act.

“Until the technology changes, and they can put the solar collectors into the rocks and cliffs, it will impact desert tortoise,” said Greg Miller, renewable energy program manager in the BLM’s California Desert District. “That will be a huge issue itself, determining how much impact we can tolerate to these desert species.”

The Wilderness Society urges development, but with care. “We need renewable energy, but we also need healthy lands,” says Alex Daue, the Denver-based outreach coordinator for the BLM Action Center of the Wilderness Society.

Daue says solar projects can and should be placed to avoid sensitive lands in the West and prevent what he sees as the mistakes of the drilling frenzy now under way on public lands in the Rocky Mountains.

Craig Cox, executive director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, sees a different scale. “You are talking about hundreds and thousands of drilling pads in Wyoming and Colorado and elsewhere. We are talking about dozens of solar projects at most that I expect to see at the end of this process.”

Solar utilities, he added, need certainty. “Solar utilities need certainty. Wind developers, coal, nuclear — you name it, they all want certainty in their planning and regulatory process, and at the end of the day I think the PEIS process will provide even greater certainty.”

Taking the big picture view of this latest dustup in the desert is Auden Schendler, the vice president for environmental and corporate responsibility for the Aspen Skiing Co. What is happening now is the “growing understanding of the scale of the problem,” he said. That problem is so large, Schendler added that “we will have to make compromises like putting wind turbines in beautiful places.”

Just what compromises will have to be struck with desert tortoises remains to be seen.

August 25, 2008

The Fate of the Mojave Tortoise
 
The Democratic National Convention can wait. The Mojave Tortoise is more important.

Alarm bells are ringing, thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that Mojave Tortoises, one of the most important and beautiful creatures in the southwestern U.S. ecosystem, are experiencing a sharp decline in population throughout the western states.

These enchanting reptiles live to be about 100 years old on average and grow to be over a foot long. They crawl slowly, their hods bob up and down, and their shining eyes are full of wisdom. But their declining numbers are reason for distress. Thankfully, they have been designated an a "threatened species" and are protected under the federal government's Endangered Species Act. Most states, too, have strict laws protecting the Mojave Tortoises.

These laws, however, do not always protect the tortoises from natural and human-made threats. Roy Averill-Murray, who is the desert tortoise recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the Associated Press: "We know for a fact a lot of localized populations have suffered dramatic declines. From that, it's probably not too big a leap to think it's probably at least somewhat true across the board."

In Utah, the Mojave Tortoise population has plunged from 3,200 in 2000 to 1,700 last year, according to a biologist with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources -- the lowest point since 1998, when the state began monitoring the tortoises. The same story seems to be unfolding in other states, especially in California, where similar declines have been noted by state and federal agencies.

 "There are places in the western Mojave Desert where the tortoise is wiped out completely," Mark Massar, a wildlife biologist with the Bureau of Land Management, told The Desert Sun (of Palm Springs, California).

What accounts for this decline in the Mojave Tortoise population? There are several factors, many of them natural. As Massar points out, there is an upper respiratory tract disease akin to the flu that has killed many of them. There are also predators, such as ravens, that pose a threat to the tortoise population (ravens devour the baby tortoises and can spread diseases). Wildfires, too, have proven deadly to the population.

But there are also complications related to growth that are destroying the Mojave Tortoises. They get hit by cars, driven out by condominiums and landfills and highway expansion. Earlier this month, park rangers at Joshua Tree National Park in California found the burned remains of a 45-year-old Mojave Tortoise in a campfire grate and they're currently investigating how it got there.

Similarly, The Boston Globe reported earlier this year that the federal government spent $8.7 million to relocate 760 Mojave Tortoises away from the U.S. Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California (which is located just north of San Bernardino). The move was underway by March of this year. Unfortunately, the wildlife biologists working on the project did anticipate a threat to the tortoises in their new habitat from coyotes. As the report published in the Globe (that originally appeared in the L.A. Times) noted:

So far, at least 14 translocated adult tortoises and 14 resident tortoises in the area have been killed and eaten by coyotes, according to biologists monitoring survival rates of the reptiles, many of which were fitted with radio transmitters. In a related problem, 15 of 70 baby tortoises collected at the training center as part of the relocation have died of various causes, Army officials said.

The report also noted that a team of "military sharpshooters" was brought in to eradicate a "rogue clan of coyotes" that threatened the tortoise population. Michael Connor of the California-based Western Watersheds Project raised a valid concern: "These aren't rogue coyotes. They're just coyotes trying to make a living in the desert. Now they want to shoot them. Fine. But what happens if there are unforeseen implications from wiping out the region's top predator, like an explosion of rabbits and rats?"

The Mojave Tortoises are in an especially precarious position because they're so slow and their living space is very limited, so even picking up one of them and moving her or him a distance -- like the U.S. Army did -- can be destructive. Randy Babb, an Arizona wildlife biologist, put it in especially stark and unforgettable terms: "Relocating an animal is like me breaking into your bedroom at 3 a.m. and dropping you off in a village in New Guinea and saying you'll be OK because this is where people live."

 While stringent state and federal laws prohibit people from removing the tortoises from their natural habitat, people still take them away in violation of the law. Earlier this month, the Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) described an adoption program at the Arizona-Sonora Museum in Tucson that is searching for homes for 30 desert tortoises who have been illegally snatched from their homes by human passersby and then eventually abandoned.

It is a highly worthwhile program, and it highlights the fact that there are a lot of wonderful, hard working individuals all over the West who are trying to save this most precious of creatures. Unfortunately, these caring people often work with small budgets and limited resources.

Which is where the Democratic National Convention comes in: Hopefully the Democrats will use this opportunity in Denver -- a city right smack in the middle of a delicate western ecosystem -- to establish themselves as the party of environment, dedicated to protecting animal and plant life across America. Sadly, most (but certainly not all) of their Republican foes have been dedicated to the policy of growth for the sake of growth. But as the late, great Edward Abbey so eloquently put it, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

What will Barack Obama -- or, for that matter, John McCain -- do for the Mojave Tortoise? As silly as that question may seem on the surface, its answer determines the ultimate fate of America's delicate ecosystem, the future of which hangs in the balance.

Despite protection, tortoise recovery proceeds slowly
By Mike Stark | The Associated Press • Published August 26, 2008


 SALT LAKE CITY — It's been 18 years since the federal government decided to protect the shy, slow-moving Mojave desert tortoise.

 Despite that step, wildlife officials still don't know if it has done any good to stop the tortoise's widespread decline in the scrubby desertlands of California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

In some places, biologists went looking for desert tortoises only to come up with empty shells, said Roy Averill-Murray, desert tortoise recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Reno, Nev.

"We know for a fact a lot of localized populations have suffered dramatic declines," Averill-Murray said. "From that, it's probably not too big a leap to think it's probably at least somewhat true across the board."

The long list of established threats — urbanization, predators, wildfire, disease, human interference and others — isn't letting up. And that says nothing of the predicted shift toward higher temperatures and less precipitation that could threaten the tortoise's food supplies.

"The biggest challenge and unanswered question is the effects of climate change," Averill-Murray said. "That is the wild card for sure."

Plan changees proposed

The agency is now proposing to tweak its plan for recovering tortoises, mainly by focusing on a more coordinated approach between dozens of state, federal and local agencies who control land where the tortoise lives. Wildlife officials are also trying to figure out better ways to monitor recovery progress.

That approach is too weak and too vague in the face of ongoing declines, according to Ileene Anderson in the Los Angeles office of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.

She said the new proposed plan, released as a draft earlier this month, waters down important measures from a 1994 plan meant to reduce the effect of disruptions like grazing or off-road vehicle use.

"To me it's a plan that says they're going to do more planning," Anderson said. "There's no reason to think this is going to make any difference."



More than $100 million has been spent since 1980 when some of the tortoises in Utah were listed as threatened. In 1990, Mojave tortoises in all their ranges received that same designation under the Endangered Species Act.

 Federal officials predict it'll cost $159 million to recover the curious creatures. Desert tortoises spend up to 95 percent of their time in underground burrows, can have shells 15 inches across, bob their heads oddly during courtship and are capable of noises described as hisses, grunts and whoops.

The population ranges over millions of acres, leaving the tortoise vulnerable to wide variety of threats.

No easy solution

There's no one-size-fits-all solution for nursing the tortoise population back to health.

"I'm the recovery coordinator and it seems like a Herculean task," Averill-Murray said. "But I'm optimistic in our ability to make better progress."

Kristin Berry, a U.S. Geological Survey biologist in California, hasn't seen much sign of success so far on the 15 areas she's tracked tortoises for years.

"My study plots in California at least indicate they've continued to plummet and very seriously so," Berry said.

The 1994 plan took some much-needed steps protect tortoise habitat and curb grazing in certain key areas, she said. Other steps, like providing fencing along highways to keep tortoises out of danger and curbing predators such as ravens and coyotes, have been slower.

"There's a lot of factors that have come into play and have yet to be strongly dealt with," Berry said.

Thousands remain

Averill-Murray roughly estimates there are hundreds of thousands of desert tortoises in areas designated for recovery.

He's pinning some of his recovery hopes on teams scattered throughout the tortoise's range that can identify problems and act on them.

That could mean doing a better job of educating people about how to lessen their impact while in tortoise habitat, steps like keeping off-road vehicles on designated trails and not letting dogs run loose in places where they might snatch up a tortoise.

Elsewhere, there's the problem of cheatgrass, a nonnative species that provides fuel for fires to move quickly across the desert. Some tortoises die in the flames or starve after food sources like wildflowers and cactus burn.

Trickier issues, like an upper-respiratory disease, drought and climate change also loom.

The population has also taken a symbolic hit.

Mojave Max, the Nevada tortoise whose emergence from his burrow was seen as a harbinger of spring each year, died from natural causes in late June. His age was estimated at 65.

Desert tortoise numbers still declining
1 commentAug. 29, 2008 12:00 AM

SALT LAKE CITY - It's been 18 years since the federal government decided to protect the shy, slow-moving Mojave desert tortoise, and wildlife officials fear little has been accomplished.

"We know for a fact a lot of localized populations have suffered dramatic declines," said Roy Averill-Murray, desert tortoise recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The long list of threats - urbanization, predators, wildfire, disease - isn't letting up. And that says nothing of the predicted shift toward higher temperatures and less precipitation that could jeopardize the tortoise's food supplies.
The agency is proposing to tweak its tortoise recovery plan, mainly by focusing on a more coordinated approach between dozens of state, federal and local agencies that control tortoise habitat.

But some environmentalists complain that the plan is too weak and too vague.

The federal government wants your help to mull over strategies for recovering the threatened Mojave population of the desert tortoise by commenting on a draft version of the Revised Recovery Plan written by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A draft of the plan will be published Monday in the Federal Register, which opens a 90-day public comment period. A copy of the draft will be posted at fws.gov/nevada.

Habitat for the desert tortoise includes the Mojave and Sonoran deserts in Southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona and the southwestern tip of Utah, along with part of northern Mexico.

The main threat to the tortoise is due to human land uses, which create habitat loss and degradation by way of off-road vehicles and urbanization, livestock grazing, mining and military activities.

VV2 approval yields support from local leaders

July 22, 2008 - 11:18AM

BROOKE EDWARDS Staff Writer

VICTORVILLE — Local leaders are voicing their support for the recent approval of the Victorville 2 Hybrid Power Plant, expected to meet the electricity needs of about half a million people.


“Everyone wins with the addition of this hybrid power plant,” said Sen. George Runner, R-Antelope Valley, in a released statement, “as it will provide jobs in the Victor Valley and deliver essential energy to a growing California — without raising taxes.”


Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, also voiced her support.


“I am pleased that the California Energy Commission unanimously approved the Hybrid Power Project for construction as it will vitalize the local economy by creating more jobs and reducing energy costs to customers,” Assemblywoman Runner said. “Having a renewable energy source that is both reliable and generated locally is a big plus for the Victor Valley.”


VV2 is an $850 million project, planned to provide 550 megawatts of energy directly to Southern California’s grid: 500 megawatts through the natural gas-powered plant and 50 megawatts through 250 acres of solar panels.


Last week’s approval by the California Energy Commission is the culmination of three years of work developing the plant. This included overcoming obstacles such as translocating protected species like the desert tortoise, Mojave ground squirrel and the burrowing owl, and purchasing three times the needed property to replace habitat land for the 388-acre project.


The remaining challenges for VV2 will play out in court.


In order to secure the large land block for the project north of Southern California Logistics Airport, Victorville still needs to settle negotiations with 34 property owners, now in eminent domain proceedings. This land acquisition, including the additional 776 acres of replacement land, have to be secured before construction can begin.


The city also has to settle a pending lawsuit with environmental group CURE, which is challenging a rule the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District adopted last August allowing developers to offset polluting emissions by paving unpaved public roads — a rule VV2 plans to take advantage of.


Officials involved in the project previously said they remain confident that the lawsuit will not affect the development of VV2.


City Manager Jon Roberts did not respond to requests for comment on the approval.


Construction plans have been pushed back slightly, from Roberts’ March projections that the city would start construction this summer and have the plant complete in 2010.


Construction is now expected to begin later this year with the plant expected to go online in early 2011, according to a city press release.

Brooke Edwards may be reached at 955-5358 or at bedwards@vvdailypress.com.

http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/approval_...yields_leaders.html

Tortoises push casino grand opening back


By KURT SCHAUPPNER / The Desert Trail Wednesday, July 16, 2008 2:27 PM PDT



TWENTYNINE PALMS — Discovery of tortoises on the 160-acre site of the NŸwŸ Casino and RV Resort has likely pushed back the opening of that casino 30 to 60 days.

That is the word from Rod Wilson, spokesman for the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians, which has proposed building the casino and RV park on reservation land south and east of the intersection of Adobe Road and Baseline Road.

Discovery of the endangered species, Wilson said, required the tribe to add to its already extensive environmental as-sessment for the project.

He said Tuesday, July 15 that sometime next week the tribe is expected to have a finalized version of a wildlife habitat conservation plan, not only for desert tortoises but for any other endangered animals and plants found at the site.

Protocols for tortoises, he said, will include the placement of fencing to protect the animals and establishment of a location on the 160-acre site for tortoises that have to be relocated because of construction.

The protocol, he said, is based on one created by Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree for its construction plans.

  
“That is really kind of the model for the tribe,” he said. “That will be the final component of the environmental assessment, then the environmental assessment can be approved.”

After that happens, Wilson said, the tribe will send biologists to the site to identify where tortoise fencing will be required.

“We’re getting closer,” he said. “We will be able to break ground. Certainly the tribe is going to be well prepared for whatever happens, make sure it is all handled properly.”

He said the added planning has likely moved the casino’s planned opening date, which had been set for the beginning of April of next year, back 30 to 60 days.

 
 
“As soon as we know when the groundbreaking will be we will have a firm opening date,” he said. “We are getting close.”

Lane Mountain milk-vetch center of controversy between environmentalists and military

03:25 PM PDT on Sunday, July 13, 2008

By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise

It's a wispy plant with cream to purple flowers that grows only in a small pocket of the Mojave Desert.

The Lane Mountain milk-vetch is also in danger of going extinct. And like the threatened desert tortoise, the plant lives on land where the Army wants to expand its tank-training grounds north of Barstow at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. And like the lumbering reptile, the milk-vetch has become a sticking point between environmentalists and the military.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed last month to issue another critical habitat designation for the milk-vetch, a move that can restrict activities and development on land considered essential to the plant's survival.

The agreement was reached with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit against the federal wildlife agency after it decided the plant's habitat required no additional protection.

"That is basically biologically indefensible," said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the center.

A member of the pea family, the milk-vetch is a perennial that grows through shrubs and helps nearby plants thrive in desert soils by converting nitrogen in the air into usable fertilizers, Anderson said. Much of the plant's habitat is threatened by off-road vehicles, mining and development.


The Lane Mountain milk-vetch lives on land where the Army wants to expand its tank-training grounds north of Barstow.
In this case, a habitat designation would not affect training or the Army's expansion plans, said John Wagstaffe, an Army spokesman. Troops from across the country go to Fort Irwin for monthlong tank-training stints.

Like many military bases, Fort Irwin has a natural resources management plan that spells out how the Army will prevent harm to any endangered species, he said.

"We believe that we're OK here," Wagstaffe said.

Connie Rutherford, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said no critical habitat was designated for the milk-vetch in 2005, partly because of concerns the accompanying maps would lead to vandals destroying the plants, or collectors picking them. Plus, she said, Fort Irwin's plan now sets aside two conservation areas for the milk-vetch and another area where no digging is allowed during training.

Anderson said those types of plans may conserve the plants that now exist but don't typically help a species to thrive and move off the endangered list like critical habitat is expected to do.

"Critical habitat identifies areas that federal biologists recognize as being essential for a species not to just survive, but to give them room to grow so they can recover," she said.

Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or jbowles@PE.com. Or check out her blog at www.pe.com/blogs/environment

Endangered plant

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will take a new look at designating critical habitat for the Lane Mountain milk-vetch.

2010: Proposed decision due

2011: Final decision due

Army, Bureau of Land Management sued over tortoise relocations

Two environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Army, alleging it moved more than 700 desert tortoises to habitat that is lower quality and with pockets of disease-ridden tortoises that already live there.

The goal of the lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors is to make sure the new habitat for the reptile is managed as a reserve and that subsequent relocations from the National Training Center at Fort Irwin are done with more study, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco.

The desert tortoise is listed as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Endangered Species Act.

Biologist Colin Spake, of San Francisco, checks his notes before releasing tortoises in the Mojave Desert.

John Wagstaffe, an Army spokesman, said he couldn't confirm the Army was sued. But he said the Army's relocation effort of 770 tortoises last spring was the largest in California. It was part of an $8.5 million effort to expand Fort Irwin while dealing with the species protected by both state and federal governments.

Additional tortoises are expected to be moved when the Army expands Fort Irwin.

Of those moved last spring south of Fort Irwin, about a dozen were killed within a couple of weeks, possibly by coyotes, the lawsuit said.

"We are going to learn stuff that we didn't know and we'll learn how to translocate better," Wagstaffe said. He also said that any tortoises found to have diseases were placed in pens on Fort Irwin prior to the relocation.

The lawsuit also named the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees some of the land where the tortoises were moved, alleging it failed to conduct environmental reviews of the relocation. Stephen Razo, a BLM spokesman, said he couldn't comment on the lawsuit because the agency hasn't seen it.

Anderson said the agency should ban off-roading and treat the area as a tortoise reserve.

Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or jbowles@PE.com. Or check out her blog at www.pe.com/blogs/environment

Environmental groups sue to stop Fort Irwin tortoise relocation

July 2, 2008 - 4:26PM
By Abby Sewell, staff writer
A pair of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit in an attempt to stop the relocation of desert tortoises from Fort Irwin.


The Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Department of the Army Wednesday, alleging that the agencies did not conduct an extensive enough environmental review before relocating the tortoises and failed to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when the tortoises did not thrive in their new habitat.


Congress authorized Fort Irwin to expand in 2001, leading to the relocation of about 770 tortoises from the southern expansion area in the spring of 2008. The tortoises were moved from newly acquired Fort Irwin land slated for training use to unoccupied public land.


The desert tortoise is listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Moving the tortoises requires handlers to wear gloves to avoid spreading disease. The animals also tend to urinate while being handled, leading them to potentially become dehydrated, according to Desert Tortoise Council handling guidelines.


The Center for Biological Diversity claims that in the relocation, healthy tortoises were mixed with diseased populations and that the new habitat is inferior because of its proximity to roads and off-road vehicle use. Coyotes killed more than 20 tortoises within a few days, the lawsuit states.


Mickey Quillman, chief of resources at the BLM’s Barstow Field Office, had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on the specific allegations. He said, however, that Fort Irwin had conducted disease evaluation of all tortoises they could locate at Fort Irwin, as well as in the relocation area, and diseased tortoises were quarantined. Biologists have monitored the tortoises throughout the relocation process, he said.


“I think the team the Army assembled did a very good job in evaluating the habitat where they were moving the tortoises,” he said.


A second round of relocations will be conducted once Fort Irwin is able to find suitable habitat near the western expansion area, he said, probably in the spring of 2009.


Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the aim of the lawsuit is to stop a second round of tortoise relocations until Fort Irwin creates better conditions for the transplanted tortoises. Some of the tortoises should remain at Fort Irwin, in the areas not slated for tank training, she said.


“Is it really necessary to even move all these tortoises?” Anderson said. “Are there options for these animals to stay in their home burrows?”


Among other measures, she said the Army should build a temporary fence around the new tortoise habitat to keep predators out and prevent the tortoises from trying to return to their former habitat while they adjust to their new conditions.


“We feel that they did not use all of the best available science with regard to implementing the transfer plan,” she said.



Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or abby_sewell@link.freedom.com

Posted: Wednesday, 02 July 2008 5:13AM

Mojave Max Dies Of Natural Causes

 
The Las Vegas Valley's most famous desert tortoise has died. The Bureau of Land Management says Mojave Max passed away of natural causes Monday, at his habitat in Red Rock Canyon. Max was estimated to be 65-years-old. He was Southern Nevada's answer to Punxsutawney Phil. Every year for the past nine years, local school students would compete to determine when Max would emerge from his shell and mark the start of spring in Las Vegas. This year's winner was Conners Elementary student Tesha Kerr, who came within three minutes of predicting when the tortoise would come out of hibernation. A successor to Mojave Max will be named in the near future.

For Immediate Release, July 2, 2008

Contact: Ileene Anderson, Center for Biological Diversity, (323) 490-0223

Lawsuit Filed to Stop Disastrous Army Relocation Project
From Killing More Desert Tortoises

LOS ANGELES— The Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors today filed suit in federal court against two government agencies over the relocation of hundreds of desert tortoises and transfer of land-management authority from the Army to the Bureau of Land Management without required environmental review.

“It’s time to overhaul Fort Irwin’s disastrous tortoise relocation program,” said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Though we can’t stop the Fort’s expansion, we can ensure that the relocation of these rare animals is done right. With the severity of the impacts to tortoises from the expansion, it‘s imperative that the Army’s mitigation be as successful as possible.”

Despite the potential to drive the tortoise closer to extinction, in 2001 Congress authorized Fort Irwin to expand into some of the best desert tortoise habitat remaining in the western Mojave desert. As partial mitigation, in March the Army moved more than 770 tortoises from one expansion area onto lands acquired by the Army and now managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The new lands, however, provide much lower-quality habitat and contain pockets of diseased tortoises.

Desert tortoise relocation has never been attempted on such a large scale, and this spring’s relocated tortoises suffered devastating initial mortality from predators: within days more than 20 tortoises had been killed by coyotes. Healthy tortoises were also moved into areas where diseased tortoises live, which is in direct conflict with the recommendation of epidemiologists. The lands into which the tortoises were moved are far poorer habitat because of numerous roads, illegal off-road vehicle routes, houses, illegal dumping, and mines. (This is why the area currently supports low numbers of existing desert tortoise, some of which are diseased.) Subsequent phases of the relocation effort will involve over 1,000 tortoises, although the relocation sites have yet to be identified.

“Moving healthy tortoises into low-quality habitat that contains diseased tortoises is a recipe for disaster,” said Anderson. “And protection from predators is essential based on the last relocation’s tragedy.”

Having survived over 1 million years in California’s deserts, desert tortoise numbers are now crashing. The crash is due to numerous factors including disease, habitat degradation, crushing by vehicles, military and suburban development, and predation by animals. Because of its dwindling numbers, the desert tortoise, which is California’s official state reptile, is now protected under both federal and state endangered species acts.

Recently, population genetics studies have identified the desert tortoise in the west Mojave desert, including those at Fort Irwin, as distinctly different from its relatives to the north, east, and south. This finding sheds new light on why increased conservation and relocation success are more important than ever for the Fort Irwin relocation.

“The relocation plan could be much improved by reducing the number of tortoises being moved, making sure only healthy tortoises are moved into healthy populations, and improving the habitat quality in the relocation area by making it a tortoise preserve,” suggested Anderson, “where there are a minimal number of roads, no off-road vehicles, dumping, or mining allowed, coupled with strict enforcement.”


http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/pr...ise-07-02-2008.html

Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects

By DAN FROSCH
Published: June 27, 2008
DENVER — Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”

Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts.

Galvanized by the national demand for clean energy development, solar companies have filed more than 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management since 2005. They center on the companies’ desires to lease public land to build solar plants and then sell the energy to utilities.

According to the bureau, the applications, which cover more than one million acres, are for projects that have the potential to power more than 20 million homes.

All involve two types of solar plants, concentrating and photovoltaic. Concentrating solar plants use mirrors to direct sunlight toward a synthetic fluid, which powers a steam turbine that produces electricity. Photovoltaic plants use solar panels to convert sunlight into electric energy.

Much progress has been made in the development of both types of solar technology in the last few years. Photovoltaic solar projects grew by 48 percent in 2007 compared with 2006. Eleven concentrating solar plants are operational in the United States, and 20 are in various stages of planning or permitting, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The manager of the Bureau of Land Management’s environmental impact study, Linda Resseguie, said that many factors must be considered when deciding whether to allow solar projects on the scale being proposed, among them the impact of construction and transmission lines on native vegetation and wildlife. In California, for example, solar developers often hire environmental experts to assess the effects of construction on the desert tortoise and Mojave ground squirrel.

Water use can be a factor as well, especially in the parched areas where virtually all of the proposed plants would be built. Concentrating solar plants may require water to condense the steam used to power the turbine.

“Reclamation is another big issue,” Ms. Resseguie said. “These plants potentially have a 20- to 30-year life span. How to restore that land is a big question for us.”

Another benefit of the study will be a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process, said the assistant Interior Department secretary for land and minerals management, C. Stephen Allred. The land agency’s manager of energy policy, Ray Brady, said the moratorium on new applications was necessary to “ensure that we are doing an adequate level of analysis of the impacts.”

In the meantime, bureau officials emphasized, they will continue processing the more than 130 applications received before May 29, measuring each one’s environmental impact.

While proponents of solar energy agree on the need for a sweeping environmental study, many believe that the freeze is unwarranted. Some, like Ms. Gordon, whose company has two pending proposals for solar plants on public land, say small solar energy businesses could suffer if they are forced to turn to more expensive private land for development.

The industry is already concerned over the fate of federal solar investment tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress renews them. The moratorium, combined with an end to tax credits, would deal a double blow to an industry that, solar advocates say, has experienced significant growth without major environmental problems.

“The problem is that this is a very young industry, and the majority of us that are involved are young, struggling, hungry companies,” said Lee Wallach of Solel, a solar power company based in California that has filed numerous applications to build on public land and was considering filing more in the next two years. “This is a setback.”

At a public hearing in Golden, Colo., on Monday, one of a series by the Bureau of Land Management across the West, reaction to the moratorium was mixed.

Alex Daue, an outreach coordinator for the Wilderness Society, an environmental conservation group, praised the government for assessing the implications of large-scale solar development.

Others warned the bureau against becoming mired in its own bureaucratic processes on solar energy, while parts of the West are already humming with new oil and gas development.

Craig Cox, the executive director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, a renewable energy trade group, said he worried that the freeze would “throw a monkey wrench” into the solar energy industry at precisely the wrong time.

“I think it’s good to have a plan,” Mr. Cox said, “but I don’t think we need to stop development in its tracks.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/us/27sol...&ref=us&oref=slogin

A solar-motivated land rush hits the southwestern deserts

Posted on June 24th, 2008

By Debra Kahn and John J. Fialka

Climatewire: SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is trying to figure out how to regulate solar development on public lands, giving industries and other participants the opportunity to debate both the ranking of large-scale solar power in the nation’s energy priorities and the role of the federal government in controlling such development.

Developers have filed 125 applications for permits covering nearly 1 million acres, according to BLM, which manages 120 million acres in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah (Land Letter, June 5).

BLM held its first public forums last week in California as part of its rulemaking process for its programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) — a document intended to smooth the way for future solar power siting and production by outlining environmental impacts and potential mitigation measures. (BLM has already done an environmental impact statement for wind power and is working on one for geothermal.)

The meetings in Riverside and Barstow were filled to capacity with environmentalists and renewable energy developers — a fairly even mix, with a few community members, according to BLM spokesman David Quick. Topics of discussion included water use, the impact of transmission corridors on endangered species like the desert tortoise and the importance of smaller-scale power generators.

“There were a lot of pleas for ‘Hey, listen, even we development folks are on your side in this, too; the alternatives are things like coal or whatever,’” Quick said.

The issues are of primary importance to the U.S. solar industry, according to Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association. The “concentrating solar power” (CSP) plants represent a variety of technologies, some of which use mirrors and other devices to concentrate the heat from sunlight and use it to boil a liquid that creates steam to make electricity. While the United States helped develop the technology in the 1970s, he noted, Spain is currently the leader in developing big solar projects.

Meeting peak power demands with renewable energy

“What’s beautiful about these plants is not only do they produce carbon-free electricity, but they generate firm, dispatchable peak power,” Resch said, explaining that they are capable of meeting power demands at peak times of use, such as early afternoons on hot summer days when air conditioners are fully on. Wind-generated electricity, on the other hand, usually peaks at night, when demands for power are relatively low, and there is often no way to store it for the next day.

What is causing the land rush is that each large CSP plant may require as much as a 2-square-mile area for its solar arrays. “It would occupy the same area as a nuclear power plant, when you take into consideration its buffer zones,” explained Resch. Desert land in the Southwest, he added, is prized by project developers because it amounts to some of the “best solar resources in the entire world.”

“You can take land that has no intrinsic value and put it to use creating carbon free energy,” Resch said, but he added that probably not more than a third of the 125 applications before BLM are serious solar energy proposals. The remaining projects involve “names unfamiliar to us in the solar energy” and may represent “land grabs by smart entrepreneurs.”

Environmental groups are also leery of what appears to be a land grab. Jim Harvey, founding member of the Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy, testified in Riverside on the significance of BLM’s undertaking. “The desert area of California is basically up for grabs right now,” he said in an interview. “There’s a gold rush to exploit it, particularly the Mojave.”

But rather than by opening up hundreds of thousands of acres of potentially environmentally sensitive public land, Harvey said, state and federal renewable energy goals can be met through smaller-scale generation in areas that are already developed. “There’s no need to destroy the desert under a false banner of saving the environment,” he added.

Pushing BLM to protect areas of ‘critical environmental concern’

If BLM opens its lands to solar, the alliance wants the agency to exclude areas of “critical environmental concern.” This is a public lands designation second only to wilderness in terms of protection. The wind PEIS, which came out in 2004, does exclude such areas from development.

BrightSource Energy, a solar company backed by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Chevron Technology Ventures and others, did not testify at either of the public meetings, but has several applications already filed for BLM lands in California, including its Ivanpah solar plant in the Mojave, which is scheduled to begin construction next year. “We have applications already filed for many, many plants, so I would not expect that would have any detrimental effect on us,” said BrightSource spokesman Charles Ricker, citing ongoing discussions with BLM.

As for the issue of water use, BrightSource says its plants use air, not water, to cool and condense the steam from the solar boilers. The main water use comes from washing off the solar panels to maximize sun capture.

Solar companies that testified at Riverside and Barstow include Ausra, OptiSolar, enXco and Solar Millennium.

The significance of large-scale renewables development varies by state, according to Michael Neary, president of the Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association. Arizona’s renewable energy standard of 15 percent by 2025 includes a requirement that 30 percent of the total come from distributed generation or from small-scale sources like rooftop panels. That makes utility-scale solar projects on public lands less important proportionally, he explained.

Extending the federal tax credit is key

The extension of federal renewable energy tax credits is paramount to these developments, Neary said. His trade group counts several member companies that have doubled in size in the past year, but their continued expansion depends on incentives being extended for energy production and investment, he said.

Congress is still stymied over the issue, with a $55 billion tax package most recently failing last week in the Senate (E&ENews PM, June 17).

“It always concerns me when a bureaucratic process begins to take place,” Neary said, but “frankly, there’s just so many other issues from Arizona’s perspective. We have legislation, a RES [renewable energy standard] in the implementation process and an election coming up for the state Corporation Commission, so our plate is full.”

And no matter what BLM decides to do, it will likely leave much of the siting and other environmental decisions to the individual project and existing regulations, said Center for Biological Diversity staff attorney Lisa Belenky. In California, for example, the Desert Conservation Area Plan is tailored to specific desert areas, and projects are also subject to existing federal protections like Desert Wildlife Management Areas and critical habitat designations.

“It’s not something we were particularly asking for,” Belenky said. “We think they do adequately account for these issues.” BLM’s environmental plan for wind installations, which came out several years ago, is “pretty general,” she said. “You still need to go through the EIS for each one, anyway. There’s only so much you can do on the scale that they’re looking at.”

BLM will hold several more meetings this month, in Las Vegas; Denver; Sacramento, Calif.; Phoenix; Salt Lake City; and Albuquerque, N.M., with an additional forum in California to be held sometime next month, Quick said. Comments will be accepted through July 15.

http://www.earthportal.org/news/?p=1314

Love of turtles more than skin deep

http://www.claremont-courier.com/pages/Topstory062108.2.html

Claremont resident Jay Winderman loves turtles. His home is filled with turtle objects, his backyard contains 4 tortoises and 3 box turtles and even the shirts that he sometimes wears contain turtles.

With a strong enthusiasm for the shelled creatures, it comes as no surprise that Mr. Winderman has also written a full trilogy of animal fantasy books that chronicle the events in the life of a tortoise named “Thunder.”

“The project began with a question that was nagging me for a long time—if a tortoise could think like a human, how would it perceive its environment?” Mr. Winderman said. “There are many books that describe the actions of tortoises from a human’s point of view. But I found none where the author tries to get inside the head of a tortoise.”

Told in the first person by the tortoise, the first book of the trilogy, Thunder on the Desert, was released in 2005. Thunder on the Reservation was subsequently released in 2007 with the final book in the trilogy, Thunder in the Backyard, having been recently released this year. Each book is approximately 150 pages in length, contains 10 chapters and features one full-page illustration per chapter.

A good-natured tortoise, Thunder is driven from his desert home due to human development. From there, the story then covers his adventure-filled year in the company of other animals before he feels compelled to move on to a tortoise reservation where he hopes to find safety from humans. Yet toward the end of his second adventure-filled year, Thunder is taken illegally by humans to a suburban home to live in a backyard with two pet tortoises.

“Even though the stories are animal fantasies, what Thunder does, what happens to him, and his environment have been carefully researched and are factual,” Mr. Winderman explained.

While the stories have been known to catch the eyes of middle-grade readers, Mr. Winderman never intended for just one type of audience to enjoy his books. Instead, the author hopes that people of all ages can find enjoyment in reading the trilogy.

By the same token, Mr. Winderman allowed children to read his manuscripts and critique them in order to see how a younger audience perceived his story. According to the turtle enthusiast, while he wants his younger audience to delight in the book, he also believes that there are many components to the story that will also please his adult audience.

“These books were not written as children’s books,” Mr. Winderman said. “They were written for a wide audience. However, for convenience they have been categorized for middle-grade readers—children between the ages of 8 and 13.” (story continues below)

 
COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy
Jay Winderman’s trilogy follows the adventures of Thunder the tortoise.

After writing his first book, the next challenge for Mr. Winderman became to find a way to publish his work. He tried different publishers but was rejected multiple times. As a result, he decided to start his own publishing company, Pill Bug Press, and published his own books with the help of his neighbor Richard Burns.

“We did all the formatting—taking the text and putting it in book form—and my sister [LuAnne Becker] did the drawings for him,” Dr. Burns said. “I did this for Jay because he’s a neighbor of mine. He’s been working on these books for quite some time and they are well written, well edited and they have a narrative and a theme that comes out rather well.”

Yet Dr. Burns isn’t the only one who has given the books favorable reviews. Two reviews of Mr. Winderman’s works can be found on the California Turtle and Tortoise Club (CTTC) website by reviewers Carmen Borden and Margaret Stewart.

“This book should be required reading for all school children,” Ms. Margaret’s review of Thunder in the Desert reads. “It would give them a look at how a desert tortoise lives, how he survives and the dangers he is up against. It is a great story for children and adults alike.”

A veteran of more than 30 years in the defense industry, Mr. Winderman has served as an engineer, a technologist, section head, program manager and proposal leader. His interest in turtles began during his early years in Brooklyn, New York when he and his father would buy a pair of red-eared sliders and every spring, release them into Prospect Park Lake.

Mr. Winderman is a member of the CTTC and has been a guardian of turtles off and on for more than 60 years. He also is a member of the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Currently, Mr. Winderman’s books are on sale locally at the Huntley Bookstore of The Claremont Colleges as well as the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. The author also participates in speaking engagements as well.

“I am going to be doing something in the future,” said Mr. Winderman regarding his next project. “As far as I know, nobody has written a book on the California desert tortoise that is really meant for the general public.”

For more information on Mr. Winderman’s Pill Bug Press publishing company or to contact the author for speaking engagements, contact him at 624-9985

High Country News: Cool - Sun and Geothermal power from the desert? Problem: powerlines.

http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/?p=6654

High Country News this issue has another example of its specialty: the long and deeply reported examination of land use conflicts. This time it has no clear villain to pick on, but a clear dilemma to illuminate. In the Southern California desert, writes Judith Lewis, are teams of surveyors poking around a sere landscape dotted with nature preserves. Many are from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, a publicly owned utility heavily under the gun to get more power from wind, solar, geothermal, or other renewable sources. Getting it out, she writes, may take many miles of 160-foot-high towers, their footprint 330 feet wide “and buzzing with 500 kilovolt wires.” Around their concrete-embedded feet might be desert bighorn, tortoises, and myriad other creatures that have enough problems as it is.

The Tracker wants to know exactly how high tension wires, other than during construction, would significantly alter habitat. Lewis just says they will. So it’s not a perfectly balanced yarn. Fortunately these days, it’s easy enough to go googling for oneself to find more info. Even with its seeming presumption that such transmission lines are not only ugly but dangerous to wildlife, this is a tremendously detailed and important piece for anybody wanting a taste of the eco-dilemmas that come with low-carbon energy ambition. It’s telling that such big reporting isn’t coming so often from the once-big dailies. High Country News, a biweekly published in Colorado, has one thing in common with them - it’s a non-profit but, in its case, by design.

Other News: Some newspapers are paying close attention. The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin’s Lauren McSherry wrote late last week that the utility is moving away from carving any new route for its Green Path North project and may run the lines alongside existing ones.

Pic: Hi res at a LADWP PowerPoint, dotted lines are some proposed power line routes through the wildlands as of a few years ago.

Don’t trash Joshua Tree National Park
Essay - July 16, 2008
by Seth Shteir

http://www.hcn.org/articles/17783


Which word doesn’t belong with “national park?” Wildflowers, wildlife, hiking, night sky, garbage dump? No doubt you answered “garbage dump,” yet the biggest landfill in the United States may be developed right next to California’s Joshua Tree National Park.

Fortunately, a lawsuit filed by the National Parks Conservation Association and others is trying to halt this misguided proposal. The lawsuit, currently under appeal in the federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, argues that the landfill fails to serve the public interest, that a land exchange making the dump possible was improper, and the environmental impact statement flawed.

"Who would have thought that a federal agency that is supposed to be looking out for the best interests of U.S. citizens would have allowed this ridiculous proposal to come this far?” says Ron Sundergill, Pacific Region director of the National Parks Conservation Association.

The dump would receive 20,000 tons of trash each day from all over southern California, and over its 117-year lifetime, 700 billion pounds of trash would accumulate, towering 1,500 feet high over the rock-studded desert. What’s harder to believe is that the landfill would be surrounded on three sides by Joshua Tree National Park.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that a dump this size would destabilize the fragile desert ecosystem. Losers almost certainly would be desert bighorn and the endangered desert tortoise; winners would be predatory ravens benefiting from the new free food. Noise and light pollution from the trucks and machinery would definitely impair the naturalness of the park, and although some will argue that the nation needs more landfills, it’s hard to make the case that this particular project is in the best interest of the public.

The way the deal came about is also questionable. The BLM’s land transfer with Kaiser Ventures was improper because it disregarded the Federal Lands Management Policy Act. The act states that land transfers cannot significantly conflict with management on adjacent federal lands. Yet by trading land to create the nation’s biggest dump, the BLM undermined the Park Service’s management of sensitive lands within Joshua Tree National Park.

It’s not just the ecological ramifications of this battleship-sized landfill that should have people worried. A National Parks Conservation Association report showed that in 2001, the 1.3 million visitors to Joshua tree contributed $46.3 million to the local economy and supported 1,115 jobs. Desert tortoises and bighorn sheep wouldn’t be the only species harmed by the Eagle Mountain Landfill.

The national parks nonprofit and other individuals also say that the land exchange between the BLM and Kaiser Ventures was flawed. When the public land necessary for the exchange was appraised, the BLM identified its value in vague terms -- “holding for speculative investment and future capital appreciation” -- instead of acknowledging that its acquisition by Kaiser Ventures would likely mean it would become a major landfill. This resulted in an undervalued appraisal and taxpayers getting a raw deal. Ultimately, the swap of 3,481 acres of public land brought in a mere $20,100. Kaiser’s non-contiguous parcels that were transferred to the BLM also added little value to public lands. The paracels lie along the Eagle Mountain Rail Line, the very rail line that would haul trash to the landfill.

Although the National Park Service has accepted the environmental impact statement for the Eagle Mountain Landfill, some federal agency representatives say they remain concerned about the impact of the dump. It is the National Parks Conservation Association and other park-lovers who have taken on the job of challenging the EIS because of its narrowly defined statement of purpose. The EIS is, in fact, a facsimile of Kaiser Venture’s business plan, and the effect of its narrow purpose statement led to limited alternatives. For example, there is no mention anywhere in the EIS of investigating other landfill sites on BLM land or increasing the size and use of existing landfills.

Allowing the nation’s largest landfill next to a national park is a little like building a roller coaster next door to an elementary school. It’s simply a poor idea. Let’s hope that the court understands that a national park visited by millions of people each year can’t be neighbors to a noisy, spreading landfill. The tragedy, though, is that a court must make this decision.

Seth Shteir is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is vice president of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society in southern California.

Hearings to debate impact of solar farms on threatened species

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories...olar15.48dbdb9.html

10:00 PM PDT on Saturday, June 14, 2008

By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise

State and federal agencies have their hands full with an onslaught of applications from companies eyeing the Southern California desert for its solar power potential.

The federal government is holding hearings beginning Monday in Riverside to get public input on the environmental impacts of solar farms, while state agencies are seeking to balance Gov. Schwarzenegger's push for solar energy with the need to protect endangered species that live on the sun-drenched landscape.

Habitat for the desert tortoise, Mohave ground squirrel and other imperiled species is scattered across eastern Riverside County and much of San Bernardino County.

"Solar projects in particular have a footprint that reduces the habitat suitability for those species; there's the potential for conflict," said Kevin Hunting, deputy director of the California Department of Fish and Game.

"It's all about planning and siting, and we believe there's room for both out there," he said Friday.

Renewable energy reduces the state's reliance on coal-generated power, a major contributor of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Such projects have been a prime focus for Gov. Schwarzenegger, who criticized the Fish and Game Department during an April speech at Yale University for slowing a solar project in Victorville to protect habitat for the Mohave ground squirrel, a species threatened with extinction.

"So a squirrel that may not exist (at that location) is holding up environmental progress on a larger and more pressing fight against global warming," the governor said.

He also voiced frustration because some environmentalists have criticized certain renewable-energy proposals because they would require new transmission lines across the very lands they fought to protect.

Five proposed solar farms, for instance, would cover some 33,295 acres near Desert Center in eastern Riverside County; two of them would sit within a mile of Joshua Tree National Park's southeastern boundary, said Claude Kirby, a realty specialist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is handling applications on federal land.

The hearings starting next week will be hosted by the BLM and the U.S. Department of Energy to gather public input on environmental, social and economic issues that should be considered when approving solar farms in California and five other Western states.

There are 66 applications for solar farms across more than 518,573 acres in the BLM's desert district, which includes eastern Riverside County and much of San Bernardino County. The agency put a hold on any new applications until an assessment of the impacts is complete.

Donna Charpied, an activist who farms organic jojoba near Desert Center, said the solar farms would be just one more thing to mar the desert landscape near the national park where tortoises roam. She has long battled a proposal to turn a former iron-ore mine near the park into one of the nation's largest landfills. The fate of that proposal is being decided in the courts.

"What really aggravates me is, our desert is not a wasteland for urban area problems," she said. "They are exporting their pollution and importing our electricity. We just have to stop that mentality."

Charpied suggested that more projects emulate one under way by Southern California Edison to install solar panels on several warehouse roofs in Inland Southern California, including Fontana.

Staff writer Michelle DeArmond contributed to this report. Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or jbowles@PE.com. Or check out her blog at www.pe.com/blogs/environment

Solar Plan Meetings

Federal agencies are holding meetings to get public input on plans for solar energy farms in six Western states, including California.

Riverside

When: 6 p.m. Monday

Where: Courtyard by Marriott, 1510 University Ave.

Barstow

When: 6 p.m. Tuesday

Where: City Council Chambers, 220 E. Mountain View St.

To register and more information: http://solareis.anl.gov/index.cfm

Tortoises found on casino land


By KURT SCHAUPPNER / The Desert Trail Wednesday, June 11, 2008 4:00 PM PDT
 
 
TWENTYNINE PALMS — Yes, there are tortoises living on Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indian land here.

The tribe, which operates a casino in Indio, is making plans to open a casino and RV park on 160 acres of land it owns south and east of the corner of Baseline and Adobe roads.

Rod Wilson, a spokesman for the tribe, confirmed on Monday, June 9 that tortoises were found on the 160-acre site about two weeks prior.

Following a study which found no tortoises on the site and comments by neighbors of the site that tortoises can be found on the property, Wilson said tribal officials committed to conducting another study.

“A number of neighbors said they had seen tortoises,” he said, noting that the second survey also was preceded by a number of meetings with National Park Service officials.

“The tribe did find tortoises on the property,” Wilson said, though he added that he did not know how many tortoises were found or where they were located on the property.

  
He added that he did not foresee the discovery causing any delays in the tribe’s plans, which call for a grand opening at the end of March 2009.

“We already had in place a tortoise protocol,” he said.

That protocol, he said, deals with tortoises or any other species that are found on the site.

“The tribe is meeting with the biologists, We haven’t made any formal announcements. We haven’t finished all the comments on the E.A.,” he said, referring to the Environmental Assessment which was previously prepared for the project.

 
 
“We don’t want to make false steps,” he said, adding that tribal officials are thinking through all the issues.

Treatment of the tortoises found on the site, he said, will depend on where the tortoises are found and may include fencing off and protecting the tortoises’ location.

If tortoises are found in the immediate area of a construction site, he said, they will be moved to another portion of the 160-acre property.

“We will take care of them, make sure they are properly handled,” he said. “No one is denying it or trying to suggest we are not prepared.”

Wilson also took time to respond to word that the tribe was planning to clear vegetation from most or all of the 160-acre site.

“I don’t know how that all got started,” he said.

Wilson added that some clearing will be required to prepare the site to handle a 100-year or even a 200-year storm though he did not know how much would be cleared.

“Whatever is touched will be replanted,” he said. “We will, or course, be bringing in additional natural vegetation.”

It would not be in the tribe’s interest, he said, to strip the land bare.

The tribe, he noted, is in the final stages of reviewing comments on the projects environmental assessment

“We expect some time fairly soon for there to be an announcement on all the comments,” he said. “There will be no groundbreaking until the E.A. has been finalized and approved.”

Comments, he said, have been received from community members as well as city, county and state officials.

They deal with everything from desert tortoises to the impact of the project on area traffic patterns.
 
http://www.deserttrail.com/articles/2008/06/11/news/news3.txt

Renewable energy projects meet opposition from environmentalists

(PLEASE USE LINK PROVIDED, MAPS, ETC, AVAILABLE!!)
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories...able03.3cc481c.html

10:08 PM PDT on Monday, June 2, 2008

By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise

A rush to build environmentally friendly renewable energy in the windy, sunny Inland region has stirred up some unlikely foes: environmentalists.

They say the projects mean new transmission lines and towers across some of the very mountains and desert vistas people have fought to protect.

"It seems kind of silly to have a solar project in Blythe (in eastern Riverside County) and send it along transmission lines," said Jeff Morgan, chairman of the Sierra Club group in the Coachella Valley. "They should put them on the roofs of Los Angeles. It's best and most efficient when it's used where it is generated."

It's not just environmentalists who are objecting. A Riverside County supervisor said he opposes plans to erect 400-foot-tall wind turbines for the first time on the 4,000-foot elevation of Mount San Jacinto, near Palm Springs. And a San Bernardino County supervisor has strongly urged Los Angeles to abandon plans to string new transmission lines to carry renewable energy through the Morongo Basin east of Joshua Tree National Park.

Apple Valley leaders passed a resolution in April opposing plans to erect wind turbines along the ridgeline of the Granite Mountain range east of town.

"There's almost a Gold Rush type of thing happening in the Inland Empire and up in the desert to capture what we have here," said Scott Nassif, an Apple Valley town councilman.

"They're great resources," Nassif said of the wind and sun, "but we need to make sure we're approaching it the right way and know the impacts on the communities."

He noted that while the projects might be located in the Inland region, they benefit much of Southern California by feeding into the electricity grid.

Mike Marelli, power contract manager for Southern California Edison, said the state's utility companies may not have much choice about building new transmission lines. Edison and other utilities must meet a legislative mandate to have 20 percent of their energy production from renewable sources by 2010.

"For renewable energy to really move forward," Marelli said, "there has to a significant investment in transmission."

Off-roaders Leaving Environmentalists in the Dust
It's a zero-sum game between conservationists and four-wheelers, according to a University of Idaho academic, and one that those who favor the pristine can never win.

Off-roaders may be winning the battle for access to public lands, and there's not much environmentalists can do about it, according to a new study from the University of Idaho.

Because of their traditions and built-in policies, the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are inherently predisposed to favor motorized recreation, said Patrick Wilson, an associate professor of natural resource policy in the university's department of conservation social sciences.

Historically, Wilson said, the managers of public lands have focused on such uses as timber, mining and grazing. Now, he said, they're trying to accommodate an explosion in recreational use, especially by off-roaders. The agencies seek compromises because that's how American democracy resolves conflicting claims.

And they find it easier, Wilson said, to set aside specific areas for off-roaders than to defend "a diffuse set of indirect ecological values.

"If the foes of motorized recreational interests think they're going to see them off, they're wrong," he said. "The American system of government doesn't produce the outcomes that conservationists are asking for. Motorized recreation is going to ebb and flow, but it's here to stay. If you're interested in scaling back the use, it's going to be a lot harder than you think."

During the 1980s and 1990s, off-road driving of jeeps, cars, motorcycles, pickups and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) became one of the fastest-growing outdoor sports in the United States, a February 2008 Forest Service report shows. Between 1995 and 2003, the sales of off-road vehicles tripled to more than 1 million per year. Today, there are believed to be nearly 10 million such vehicles in the U.S. Nearly one in five Americans over the age of 16 has ridden one in the past year.

While off-road use on national forest lands has increased sevenfold during the past 30 years, Kathleen Mick, the program manager for motorized recreation in California's national forests, disputes Wilson's contention that off-roaders are getting the upper hand. The Forest Service, she said, now regards "unmanaged" recreation — such as off-roaders carving "doughnuts" in fragile meadows — as one of the four greatest threats to the health of the nation's forests and grasslands (along with fire, invasive species and the loss of open space).

Presently, 11 out of 18 forests in California allow off-roaders to travel cross-country, away from designated roads and trails. Under a federal order, though, most California forests have until late this year to draw up maps showing off-roaders where they can and can't go. The rest of the nation's forests have until 2010 to finish the maps.

"There won't be vast open acres of the national forest where people can drive where they want," Mick said. "Motor vehicles will be allowed on designated roads and trails. The federal agencies do a very delicate dance. Our mission has always boiled down to caring for the land and serving people, and we do our best to balance that."

But Wilson regards the forests' mapping effort as another win for off-roaders. He said it puts motorized recreation on a par with conservation, implicitly rejecting the premise that the primary goal should be to preserve the forest for future generations.
The story, Wilson said, is repeated at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, where the Park Service invested heavily during the 1950s in road expansion and winter lodging, paving the way for today's snowmobiles — and today's lawsuits.

After spending 10 years and $10 million on environmental studies, the Park Service recently imposed a cap of 540 snowmobiles per day at Yellowstone, down from 720, effective next November. The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club and other groups promptly filed suit, seeking to ban snowmobiles and allow only snowcoaches, a kind of tour bus on skis.

The International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association is trying to intervene in the case, and the State of Wyoming has sued, too, arguing that the reduce d cap on snowmobiles is illegal.

"The ATV users have a lot of political clout," Wilson said. "They make the argument that the public lands are not exclusively for ecological protection. It's far easier for the ATVers to hold on to what they have than it is for the environmental community to overcome that."

Jay Turner, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Wellesley College, said Wilson's arguments are well-founded.
"He highlights for us the scale and scope and challenge that motorized recreation interests pose," Turner said.

"As larger-scale proposals for protecting the public land were broached by advocacy groups in the '80s and '90s and were actively considered by the Clinton administration, that made the motorized groups nervous. That's in part why they have organized as well and as effectively as they have."

In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act, designating 71 new wilderness areas in the Mojave Desert. Wilderness areas are off-limits to motorized recreation, and some scholars point to the legislation as evidence that off-roaders may not be "winning." Just this month, they noted, President Bush signed into law the Wild Sky Wilderness, protecting 106,000 acres in the Washington Cascades.

Peter Alagona, a Harvard Environmental Fellow and a historian of land management, and Kevin Marsh, an associate professor and a historian of public lands at Idaho State University, also said it's an oversimplification to frame the debate in terms of off-roaders vs. environmentalists. They note that there are fishermen, hunters, mountain bikers, horse packers, hikers and backpackers who support resource protection on public lands.

The crux of the problem with off-roaders, Marsh said, is that the agencies lack the courage and the support to enforce their own regulations.

"It's not that the rules are wrong," Marsh said. "Nobody is willing to put the resources into enforcing those rules."

The Park Service has done the best job in controlling off-roaders because of — and not in spite of — its long tradition of managing recreation, Marsh said. "The Forest Service and the BLM are dealing with it way over their heads. The BLM has the smallest tradition of managing recreation and the biggest problem with off-road vehicles."

A case in point is the Algodones Dunes in Southern California, a spot visited by more than 100,000 off-roaders on holiday weekends. The dunes are home to the desert tortoise and Peirson's milk-vetch, species designated by the federal government as threatened.

By order of former President Richard Nixon, 26,000 acres of the 160,000-acre dunes were closed to off-roaders in 1973. The closed area was designated as a wilderness in 1994 under the Desert Protection Act. The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group, sued for a larger closure, and the BLM recently banned off-roaders from an additional 49,000 acres. The ban is temporary, pending the completion of a new management plan. More than half the dune system remains open to off-roaders.

"We're predisposed to manage for multiple use," said Stephen Razo, a spokesman for the California desert district of the BLM. "We have been known to close routes. We have been known to open routes. Each side says we're always taking away.

"We feel like if everyone is mad at us, we're probably doing our job."

http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/395

Edited by author 05-22-2008 06:13 PM
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Army moves ahead with tortoise transfer


Number 2010 pulled his head and feet into his shell as he was lifted out of the plastic storage container, weighed and placed under a creosote bush.

The six-and-a-half pound desert tortoise hid under the bush, spending his Friday morning evaluating his new habitat, a plot of desert land 10 miles south of his previous home in the middle of Fort Irwin's future training ground. After a few moments in the shade, 2010's head protruded out and he ambled into the sunlight to munch on some nearby wildflowers.

William Boarman, the chief scientist working on the Army's $8.5 million contract to eventually move 764 tortoises from Fort Irwin, said that 2010 and 36 other tortoises moved on Friday will take some time adjusting to their new homes.

"Sometimes they move right away, sometimes they sit for an hour or two," he said.

Contractor ITS, Fort Irwin officials and researchers from the United States Geological Survey are in the second year of the five-year effort to relocate, conserve and study the animals.

As part of the move, tortoises are transported by a helicopter in FAA-approved plastic bins and released one at a time into a series of habitats. Before releasing them into the wild, biologists check the tortoises' radio transmitters, small boxy units affixed with epoxy onto the reptiles' shells. The transmitters will allow the tortoises to be tracked from miles away, enabling biologists to research how tortoises adapt to the relocation and interact with tortoises already living on the land, Boarman said. Some of the tortoises were moved into man-made burrows and others were left to redig their own homes.

Kristen Berry, a wildlife biologist from the USGS, said that although thousands of desert tortoises have been moved through other projects, she believes Fort Irwin's effort is one of the largest tortoise relocation efforts attempted.
"We're moving an entire population," she said.

Berry, who began studying the reptiles in 1971 when the populations were in decline, said that she's happy to have the opportunity to conduct research about how disease spreads among the reptiles. In addition to disease, the tortoises face a human threat.

"There's an Asian turtle trade that's a problem, and there's been cases of poaching the West Mojave," she said.

She said that she's heard cases of humans vandalizing and even sometimes shooting the tortoises but hopes that the radio tracking will allow officials to prevent any problems.

Boarman said that the plots of land the tortoises are being moved to is pretty typical habitat for the animals.

"There are better places where tortoises live; there are worse places where tortoises live," he said. "There's not a lot known that makes really good tortoise habitat."

Although some environmental groups say the move will harm the endangered reptiles, Boarman said he thinks they'll do fine in their new homes.

Ileene Anderson, staff biologist from the Center for Biological Diversity, said that her group is worried the relocated tortoises, while already given blood tests and medical care, may be in danger in their new homes.

"They're moving them into an area with animals that are known to have disease," she said. "There's going to be a lot of movement among tortoise populations that could be sick."

She said her group, which has declared its intent to sue the Army to stop the move, would prefer to see more protections for the tortoises in their new habitat, such as a ban on off-highway vehicle use and fewer roads.

Did you know?


During their helicopter ride, some tortoises urinated in their containers due to fright of flight. Before releasing them into the wild, biologists have to clean off the tortoises so that the reptiles’ distinctive smell is not detected by coyotes and other predators.

http://www.desertdispatch.com/news/tortois.../move_reptiles.html

Paradise Valley, a town of 35,000-plus proposed in desert

10:00 PM PDT on Monday, May 19, 2008

By STEVE MOORE

The Press-Enterprise

It's a whole new town for 35,000 to 40,000 people along Interstate 10 in the
middle of Riverside County.

Paradise Valley is a huge master-planned community -- even for a booming
region such as the Inland area.

Environmentalists watch closely as Riverside County prepares for a vote on
the proposed project -- possibly next year.

The Shavers Valley area is east of Indio near the southern boundary of
Joshua Tree National Park.

Developers plan 12,500 homes over the next 20 to 25 years and 3 million
square feet of commercial space.

The site covers 5,400 acres--about 8 ½ square miles. Company officials say
about 40 percent would remain untouched as open space.

"We don't see it as a suburb of the Coachella Valley," said Harvey R.
Niskala, senior vice president for GLC Enterprises LLC. "And that's why we
don't look at it as sprawl.

"It's a destination, a new town that will take time to grow.

"With what's happening today in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, we
don't see it as that far off."

Doubts

Critics say the sheer scope of Paradise Valley would drain water supplies,
pave over habitat for such important species as the desert tortoise and
peninsular desert bighorn sheep, and urbanize a scenic area at the very
doorstep of a national park.

"Shavers Valley shouldn't be sacrificed for this reckless land speculation,"
said Jonathan Evans, a staff lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity.
"It's more like 'Paradise Lost' -- building a new city in a largely pristine
wilderness.

"There's nothing out there ... building a city far beyond the fringes of the
Coachella Valley is a desert 'mirage' that shouldn't have been considered."
Donna Charpied is a policy advocate for the Center for Community Action and
Environmental Justice, which has offices in Indio, Riverside and San
Bernardino.

"There just isn't enough water," she said. "And with global warming, paving
over more of the desert just makes no sense.

"I still say it's 'sprawl on steroids.'

"Paradise Valley flies in the face of logic with today's economy and what's
happening in the housing market."

But others say it won't always be so.

Fred Bell, executive director for Desert Chapter of the Building Industry
Association, closely tracks development and the Coachella Valley's real
estate market.

He sees a "bottoming out" of foreclosure and subprime lending problems by
year's end, the market stabilizing in 2009 and renewed growth in 2010.
"With a project the size of Paradise Valley, people will just have to be
patient," Bell said.

Tread Lightly

Glorious Land Co. acquired the acreage during the 1990s and now owns it
outright, Niskala said.

GLC Enterprises says the Riverside County general plan -- a guide to future
development -- envisions the Shavers Valley area along I-10, from the
easterly edge of the Coachella Valley to Chiriaco Summit, as a spot for
self-contained new towns.

Niskala also outlined how GLC Enterprises is working on water, habitat and
becoming a good neighbor to the national park.

A water-transfer agreement with the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water District in the
Bakersfield area will provide a permanent supply, Niskala said. The Colorado
River Aqueduct runs through the property. Conservation measures include
using reclaimed water on golf courses and landscaping with large amounts of
native desert plantings.

Paradise Valley would comply with the Multi-Species Habitat Conservation
Plan for the Coachella Valley and would purchase additional land, Niskala
said.

GLC Enterprises plans to set aside a buffer zone for the national park on
about 40 acres in the northwestern portion of the project, an area once
planned for homes, Niskala said. The master-planned community and the
national park are about one-quarter- to one-half--mile apart at various
points, Niskala said.

The project would abide by Riverside County's "dark sky" ordinance aimed at
enhancing stargazing, Niskala said.

Joe Zarki, chief naturalist/public information officer for the park, said,
"We're increasingly seeing 'urban Southern California' coming to the park,
and that will change the character over time."

The Paradise Valley property is about seven miles east of Coachella, Niskala
said.

Initial access to the project would come from I-10, using an existing
frontage road exit.

Pressure and Controversy

The Paradise Valley site lies in Riverside County's 4th District, which is
represented by Supervisor Roy Wilson.
"With the environmental challenges, this isn't an easy project to
accomplish," he said. "I'm concerned about the impact of something this
large.

"But I see it as part of the development pressure facing Riverside County
and the Inland Empire. Everyone is looking for some place to put those
people," he said.

Wilson said he will remain neutral until after public testimony.
But he sees controversy ahead.

"I call it the 'son of Eagle Mountain,' " he said, referring a bitter battle-- still tied up in the courts -- over turning an old iron-ore mine near Joshua Tree National Park into one of the nation's largest landfills.
Some in nearby desert hamlets like Chiriaco Summit and Lake Tamarisk Country Club can't wait for the services and growth a Paradise Valley community would bring.

Margit Chiriaco Rusche carries on a family tradition of running a freeway
travel center.

"We don't see the project as a threat," she said. "We're looking forward to
having them as neighbors."

Dan Rettagliata lives in Lake Tamarisk Country Club, north of Desert Center.

Grocery shopping means making a day of it -- driving 100 miles round trip to Palm Desert.

He attended a recent community meeting on Paradise Valley. "I'm all for it," Rettagliata said.

Reach Steve Moore at 760-322-5738 or stevemoore@PE.com

http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stor...dise20.426ecde.html

Coyotes Killing Endangered Turtles
Victor Valley Daily Press
April 17, 2008

http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/killing_5...urtles_barstow.html

BARSTOW — Coyotes have killed at least 11 desert tortoises recently moved to make way for Army tank training exercises north of Barstow.


The problem coyotes, thought to be attacking tortoises because the drought has left fewer rabbits in its wake, will be tracked and possibly killed by a federal agency to help protect the tortoises -- a species threatened with extinction.


All together, 23 tortoises have been killed since the large-scale relocation of more than 700 reptiles began in March south of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, said John Wagstaffe, an Army spokesman.


The Army started moving the tortoises in late March from the southern boundary of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin as part of an $8.5 million effort to deal with the threatened species while expanding its training grounds into the land considered critical for the tortoises.


The move capped a 20-year battle between the military and environmentalists.


Some of the tortoises were already living in the relocation area.


Roy Averill-Murray, who is the desert tortoises’ recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said three tortoises survived attacks. Two tortoises had one of their legs chewed off, and one required treatment after being found flipped over on its shell for three days in a row, Averill-Murray said.


Dr. Leonard Sigdestad at Loma Linda Animal Hospital in San Bernardino operated on two of the tortoises last week and amputated one maggot-infested leg from each of them. He released them back to the federal biologists who are monitoring the tortoises in the wild.


Kristin Berry, a research wildlife biologist with the U.S Geological Survey, took one of the tortoises to her Riverside home to care for it. She said it can barely walk but she hopes it can one day be returned to the wild.


The U.S. Bureau of Land Management oversees much of the land selected for relocating the displaced tortoises.


Attacks by coyotes on tortoises are rare, said Averill-Murray. He said that with the drought in the Mojave Desert over the past few years, coyotes outnumber rabbits, their typical food source.


“The coyotes are just desperate and the tortoises are a tough food item to eat with that big shell,” he said. “Rabbits would be easier, but when there aren’t many rabbits, then tortoises seem to be their next choice.”


Berry, with the USGS, said short-lived animals like rabbits don’t bounce back quickly from drought.


She said coyotes recently have killed tortoises in other study plots in California and Nevada. This spring, she said, presented a good time to relocate the reptiles from Fort Irwin because of the abundance of wildflowers, their main food source.


“We hoped with the flush of wildflowers we might be seeing some ground squirrels and other rodents the coyotes could eat,” Berry said. “You can take it into account but we can’t control every aspect of nature, if any.”


The wildlife service division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the same agency that plans to shoot ravens found preying on young tortoises in other parts of the Mojave Desert, will help the Army remove the coyotes in three, one-square-mile plots where many of the dead reptiles were found. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has concurred with the Army’s plans to shoot or use traps and decoy dogs to lure the coyotes within shooting range.


“The plan is just to keep this as targeted and as limited as possible to alleviate the pressure. It’s not widespread,” Averill-Murray said. He added that there’s no evidence of major preying throughout the habitat where the tortoises were moved.


Two environmental groups have threatened to sue the Army over the large-scale relocation of the tortoises, and they plan to go ahead with the lawsuit to ensure the new habitat is managed actively, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.


Anderson agreed with Averill-Murray that the drought has caused an imbalance in the ecosystem. But she said that’s no excuse for putting the tortoises in harm’s way.


“While we’re devastated, we’re not shocked this is happening,” she said. “You’re putting these animals out there and if they’re the only thing moving, they’re going to be a target for predators.”

Desert tortoises gets 'head start' to survival

by Senior Airman Stacy Sanchez
95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

5/14/2008 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- As part of Edwards effort to increase the desert tortoise population, people from Environmental Management here established the Head Start Program.

The Head Start Program, started four years ago and located in the southern central portion of Edwards, is designed to bolster the population of younger age class tortoises to adult ages.

"The desert tortoise is officially listed as threatened under the federal endangered species act," said Mark Hagan, Environmental Management natural resource manager. "The decline in the population has been so drastic to the point of becoming endangered."

Urbanization, off-road vehicles and major highways put stress on the desert habitat causing the decline of the tortoise population, Mr. Hagan said.

To help young tortoises survive, the Head Start Program built five tortoise pens to protect them from predators.

"We have put up these pens to help protect (tortoises) during their early life stage," Mr. Hagan said. "When we feel that they are at the stage where they can survive on their own, we can release them back into the desert. Hopefully, this will give them a better chance of survival."

The hatchery process begins with the collection of 20 adult females out in the desert, Mr. Hagan said. To keep track of their location at all times throughout the year, radio transmitters are put on the tortoises. During the spring time, when female tortoises start laying eggs, they are weighed, X-rayed and brought to the pens to lay their eggs. Once the females tortoises have laid their eggs, the adult tortoises are taken back to the location from where they were found.

Of the five pens built, three are for healthy tortoises while the other two pens are for ones that show signs of disease, Mr. Hagan said. Currently, the tortoises in the pens range from 1 to 4 years old. 

Edwards adopted the head start studies from Fort Irwin, Calif. -- the first base to begin the Head Start Program and hatchery, he said. As a federal agency, the Air Force has a requirement to help restore and recover endangered species, such as the desert tortoise.

Since the inception of the Head Start Program, EM workers have been studying the age group that will have the greatest chance of survival.

"There are a few phases to the Head Start Program," said Amber Bruno, an Environmental Management natural resources biologist. "Not only are we looking at what rate a young tortoise should be released out into the wild, (but) we are also looking to see if providing supplemental irrigation to their pens can enhance the growth rate of the tortoises and shorten the time that is needed for the tortoises shell to harden."

Over the last four years, two batches of tortoises were released back into the wild. They were released in the fall to mimic their natural cycle. When the first group of 15 1-year-old tortoises were released, subsequent studies showed the tortoises were susceptible to predators -- primarily ravens.

In 2007, another 32 tortoises were released -- some near the pens, while others at a remote location. 

This is to see if there is a significant difference when they are released on various location, Ms. Bruno said. 

"The data is still preliminary, but we have found that 1-year-old tortoises are still not big enough to resist predators." she said. 

Also discovered, she said, is that tortoise eggs are prone to predators such as the antelope ground squirrel and fire ants.

Since the beginning of the project, tortoises here have laid 395 eggs; 190 of which have hatched.

"However, there is not a lot of data for the hatch rate of tortoises in the wild," Ms. Bruno said. "When we are out in desert environment, it is almost impossible to find tortoise nests with eggs. 

"Now, we have the advantage of knowing where the females made their nest, laid their eggs and the number of eggs that hatch," she said. "On base, we are now experiencing more than a 75-percent hatching rate. This is really good."

Environmental Management is also studying the paternity of the tortoises.

"We look at the genetic and reproductive studies here," Mr. Hagan said. "Genetics is important in species management. We have done a paternity study of the paternal relationship of tortoises, and what we have found is that all female tortoises have multiple mates. Almost 90 percent of the nests here have multiple fathers."

Knowing the different aspect of the reproduction while managing a species is important, he said. This helps give a genetic diversity to protect the species through time.

"This project is showing a lot of promise," Ms. Bruno said. "We are learning a lot here, and if we apply this program, it may serve to help recover a (threatened) species and allow the tortoise to survive and increase in population." 

Team Edwards can do their part to help desert tortoises by being aware of the environment they are in, Ms. Bruno said. 

People should be aware of the impact they may have on the environment, she said. They must stay on the trails when they are off-roading and when found, tortoises must be left alone.

"The Air Force is hoping to test the technology and the techniques here and refine them," Ms. Bruno said. "Once the team learns more and can prove that this program works, it can be relayed to other federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management. On a regional approach throughout the desert, organizations can also start more of these head-start locations to recover the desert tortoise throughout its range."

http://www.edwards.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123098659

Mojave Tortoises Moved for Army Training

FORT IRWIN, Calif. (AP) - Scientists have begun moving the Mojave Desert's flagship species, the desert tortoise, to make room for tank training at the Army's Fort Irwin despite protests by some conservationists.

The controversial project, billed as the largest desert tortoise move in California history, involves transferring 770 endangered reptiles from Army land to a dozen public plots overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Fort Irwin has sought to expand its 643,000-acre training site into tortoise territory for two decades. The Army said it needs an extra 131,000 acres to accommodate faster tanks and longer-range weapons used each month to train some 4,000 troops.

Desert tortoises are the longest-living reptiles in the Southwest with a potential life span of 100 years and can weigh up to 15 pounds. Their population has been threatened in recent years by urbanization, disease and predators including the raven.

Weeks before the relocation, two conservation groups threatened to sue Fort Irwin. The Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors contend that the land set aside for the desert tortoises is too close to an interstate highway and is plagued with off-road vehicles and illegal dumping that would disturb the animals.

The groups served Fort Irwin with a 60-day notice of intent to sue and plan to file the lawsuit after the desert tortoises have been moved.

"There's still a lot of work that needs to be done to make the relocation site more habitable ... so the animals would survive better there," said Ileene Anderson, a staff biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Fort Irwin lawyers and federal wildlife officials determined the claims were unfounded and decided to go ahead with the $8.5 million project. The process began last weekend and will last two weeks. The tortoises, including about 67 babies, are being moved into habitats approved by the U.S. Geological Survey and other experts.

"The translocation of tortoises is a very complex process," Fort Irwin spokesman John Wagstaffe said in a recent interview. "You have to move them gently and make sure they don't get stressed during the move."

About a year before the transfer, biologists tagged desert tortoises living in the proposed training expansion area with radio transmitters and took blood tests to make sure they were healthy.

Scientists have a short window to relocate the animals, which recently awakened from winter hibernation and will return to their burrows in the summer.

Last weekend, a group equipped with receivers scanned the desert for signs of the tagged tortoises, placed them in plastic containers and hauled them to their new home. They were given water and released.

Scientists will continue to monitor the relocated tortoises for signs of stress.

Research studies show relocated tortoises typically spend the first year roaming. Over time, they settle down and survive as well as tortoises that stayed put, said Roy Averill-Murray, desert tortoise recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Reno, Nev.

"We're plopping them down in a new area that they're not familiar with so they spend the first year or so learning their surroundings and where the good burrow sites are," Averill-Murray said Thursday.

Averill-Murray helped plan the Fort Irwin project, but is not involved in the actual move.

Edited by author 05-12-2008 03:48 PM
VIDEO-SLOW, STEADY AND UNDER SIEGE

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-to...y11,0,5101478.story

Slow, steady -- and under siege

Endangered tortoises airlifted from an Army base face other threats.
By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 11, 2008

BARSTOW -- As the sun rose over the Mojave Desert, researcher Kristina Drake approached with caution as a creature with weary eyes, a scuffed carapace and skin as rough as rhino hide peered at her from the edge of a dirt road just east of here.

Wearing rubber gloves, Drake picked up the old female California desert tortoise and, in one fluid motion, moved her to safer ground beneath a nearby creosote bush. "It's one of ours," she said. "No. 4118."

The tortoise, nicknamed "Road Warrior," was among the 760 captured and airlifted by helicopter a month ago out of the southern portion of the Army's nearby National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, which is slated for expanded combat exercises. Her well-being in new terrain is essential to the $8.7-million relocation effort, which has been hit hard by a problem unforeseen by federal biologists: rampant coyote attacks.

"Coyotes didn't seem to be a problem when we started," said U.S. Geological Survey biologist Kristin Berry, a lead scientist in the project. "The question in the back of all of our minds now is this: How could we have determined that this was going to happen?"

The California tortoise, whose population has fallen to an estimated 45,000 on the public lands in the western Mojave, is protected under state and federal endangered species acts.

In 2001, Congress authorized Ft. Irwin to expand into prime tortoise habitat. As mitigation, the Army agreed to move the tortoises from the expansion area onto unoccupied public lands, an effort that began in late March.

So far, at least 14 translocated adult tortoises and 14 resident tortoises in the area have been killed and eaten by coyotes, according to biologists monitoring survival rates of the reptiles, most of which were fitted with radio transmitters. In a related problem, 15 of 70 baby tortoises collected at the training center as part of the relocation have died of various causes, Army officials said.

The problem, they say, may be linked to severe drought, which killed off plants and triggered a crash in rodent populations. As a result, coyotes, which normally thrive on kangaroo rats and rabbits, are turning to the lumbering Gopherus agassizii for sustenance.

In an effort to prevent further losses, the Army has requested that the predators, described by one military spokesman as a "rogue clan of coyotes," be eradicated by animal control sharpshooters. The gunners, however, have been delayed for weeks by bureaucratic red tape, military officials said.

In the meantime, many translocated tortoises have shown a tendency to wander, sometimes for miles, often in a northward direction back toward the Army base. Gashes and tooth marks on the shell of a translocated tortoise found April 15 indicated that it had been ripped out of the front of its carapace.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental group, said it plans to file suit later this month against the Army, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management for allegedly violating the federal Endangered Species Act in their management of desert tortoises.

Desert tortoises spend most of their lives underground. Recent studies indicate that the creatures, which can live for a century, are extremely sensitive and have complex social lives.

Of particular concern, lawyers for the center say, was the Army's decision a month ago to move tortoises to areas where they would be vulnerable to potentially lethal threats. The Army had been warned that numerous environmental studies expressed concern about vehicle traffic, drought-stricken foraging grounds, and resident tortoises suffering from infectious respiratory disease and predation by ravens, dogs and coyotes.

"The deed is done, and now we are watching the aftermath," said Ilene Anderson, a biologist and spokeswoman for the Center for Biological Diversity. "It's a disaster. We've lost so many tortoises -- the California state reptile and a species that has taken a nose dive over the past 20 years -- so early on in the project."

Michael Connor, a longtime advocate of the tortoise and California science director of the Western Watersheds Project, a nonprofit conservation group, was critical of the Army's plan to wipe out suspect coyotes.

"These aren't rogue coyotes. They're just coyotes trying to make a living in the desert," Connor said. "Now they want to shoot them. Fine. But what happens if there are unforeseen implications from wiping out the region's top predator, like an explosion of rabbits and rats?"

Beyond that, he added, "the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had identified canine attacks as possible threats even before the project got underway. So I'm surprised the scientists are surprised that tortoises are becoming targets."

In any case, William Boarman, an adjunct professor of biology at San Diego State who's helping direct the translocation project, said that after the Army decided to expand operations at Ft. Irwin, "we were stuck with bad options: move the tortoises or leave them in place, which would have been much worse."

"Translocation was always risky," he added. "We're trying to make it work the best we can, and conduct research that can help us make future translocations more effective."

In years to come, the Army plans to relocate an additional 1,200 tortoises from the western edge of the base to prevent them from being squashed by military equipment.

Field researchers said most of the predation has occurred in areas between the rugged Calico Mountains and desolate Coyote Dry Lake.

On a recent weekday morning, USGS field researcher Kevin Lucas strode across loose rock and cholla cactus in a sandy wash just north of the lake near where a hefty radio-collared male tortoise, variously known as "No. 4164" and "Thor," relaxed in a patch of shade.

That tortoise was among the lucky ones.

"There was another translocated tortoise I'd really gotten to like, even admire," Lucas said. "He was a tremendous mountain climber with a can-do personality.

"The last time I saw him, he was on a steep slope in howling winds and something didn't look right," he recalled. "Through binoculars, I saw that his head and legs were missing. A deep sadness came over me."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

Marines looking to expand base by 100,000 acres

TWENTYNINE PALMS - Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Marine Corps officials confirmed that permits have been issued to look into expanding the facility at Twentynine Palms - possibly by as much as 100,000 acres into Johnson Valley.

The land acquisition is part of an effort to become the nation's premiere
combat training facility, said Gunnery Sgt. Chris W. Cox, the public affairs chief at the Marine Corps Air/Ground Combat Center.

"The Marine Corps is looking at areas contiguous to the base, including the
Johnson Valley, but no final decisions have been made regarding what
alternatives will be pursued and analyzed," Cox said in a prepared
statement. "When the alternatives are finalized, we will inform the public."

Permits were issued to conduct surveys of cultural and environmental impact, said BLM Chief of Resources Mickey Quillman, who is based out of the Barstow office.

While both Quillman and Cox warned that the proposed project would be still
be many years off, Quillman conceded there could be an impact on Lucerne
Valley, in at least as much as noise levels are concerned.

"It would be used for military training - a combination of live-fire and
force-on-force training," Quillman said.

Cox said that there is currently no training facility in the nation that can support the training requirements proposed by the Marine Corps, and that Twentynine Palms has been tasked with rectifying that.

"It is imperative that Marines receive the most realistic training before
deploying into a combat environment that demands split-second life or death
decisions. The potential land parcel additions would allow Marines to 'train as they fight' as a large-scale Marine Air Ground Task Force, in particular
a Marine Expeditionary Brigade," Cox said.

Quillman said that while the surveys are taking place, the process will
require Notice of Intent - which will open the discussion to the public,
through scoping meetings - and the proposal of alternative locations.
"This process of simply figuring out what land the base might actually need
to meet the Marine Corps training requirements and how it affects other
interests could take anywhere from three to five years" said Jim Ricker,
assistant chief of staff for the G-5 training center.

That process, Cox said, "will involve a great deal of input from the local
community and the wide range of stakeholders."

Quillman added that of particular concern are the off-road vehicle community and proposed solar projects.

10:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, April 16, 2008

By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise

Coyotes have killed at least 11 desert tortoises recently moved to make way for Army tank training exercises north of Barstow.

The problem coyotes, thought to be attacking tortoises because the drought has left fewer rabbits in its wake, will be tracked and possibly killed by a federal agency to help protect the tortoises -- a species threatened with extinction

All together, 23 tortoises have been killed since the large-scale relocation of more than 700 reptiles began in March south of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, said John Wagstaffe, an Army spokesman.
 
Of 700 desert tortoises included in an Army relocation project north of Barstow, at least 23 have been killed by what authorities believe were coyotes desperate for food. The coyotes will be tracked and possibly killed to protect the tortoises, authorities say.
Some of the tortoises were already living in the relocation area.

Roy Averill-Murray, who is the desert tortoises recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said three tortoises survived attacks. Two tortoises had one of their legs chewed off, and one of the reptiles required treatment after being found flipped over on its shell for three days in a row, Averill-Murray said.

Dr. Leonard Sigdestad at Loma Linda Animal Hospital in San Bernardino operated on two of the tortoises last week and amputated one maggot-infested leg from each of them. He released them back to the federal biologists who are monitoring the tortoises in the wild.

Kristin Berry, a research wildlife biologist with the U.S Geological Survey, took one of the tortoises to her Riverside home to care for it. She said it can barely walk but she hopes it can one day be returned to the wild.

Out by Fort Irwin, biologists have been tracking the relocated tortoises with transmitters glued to their shells on a daily basis and found the ones that died, Wagstaffe said.

The Army started moving the tortoises in late March from the southern boundary of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin as part of an $8.5 million effort to deal with the threatened species while expanding its training grounds into the land considered critical for the tortoises.

The move capped a 20-year battle between the military and environmentalists.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management oversees much of the land selected for relocating the displaces tortoises. BLM officials a few days ago discussed strategies with other federal and state agencies on how to solve the coyote problem, said Doran Sanchez, acting associate manager of the agency's California desert district.

Attacks by coyotes on tortoises are rare, said Averill-Murray. He said that with the drought in the Mojave Desert over the past few years, coyotes outnumber rabbits, their typical food source,

"The coyotes are just desperate and the tortoises are a tough food item to eat with that big shell," he said. "Rabbits would be easier, but when there aren't many rabbits, then tortoises seem to be their next choice."

Berry, with the USGS, said short-lived animals like rabbits don't bounce back quickly from drought.

She said coyotes recently have killed tortoises in other study plots in California and Nevada but it is infrequent. This spring, she said, presented a good time to relocate the reptiles from Fort Irwin because of the abundance of wildflowers, their main food source.

"We hoped with the flush of wildflowers we might be seeing some ground squirrels and other rodents the coyotes could eat," she said. "You can take it into account but we can't control every aspect of nature, if any."

The wildlife service division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the same agency that plans to shoot ravens found preying on young tortoises in other parts of the Mojave Desert, will help the Army remove the coyotes in three, one-square-mile plots where many of the dead reptiles were found. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concurred with the Army's plans to shoot or use traps and decoy dogs to capture the coyotes.

The job of decoy dogs "is to respond to coyotes calls and lure the coyote within shooting range," according to an April 15 letter to the Army by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Averill-Murray said it will be up to the crews in the field to determine whether to shoot the coyotes. He said he was unsure if they could be relocated.

"The plan is just to keep this as targeted and as limited as possible to alleviate the pressure. It's not widespread," he said. He added that there's no evidence of major preying throughout the habitat where the tortoises were moved.

Two environmental groups have threatened to sue the Army over the large-scale relocation of the tortoises, and they plan to go ahead with the lawsuit to ensure the new habitat is managed actively, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Anderson agreed with Averill-Murray that the drought has caused an imbalance in the ecosystem. But she said that's no excuse for putting the tortoises in harm's way.

"While we're devastated, we're not shocked this is happening," she said. "You're putting these animals out there and if they're the only thing moving, they're going to be a target for predators."

Wagstaffe said the move was done to the best of the Army's ability with the help of federal and state biologists, and the tortoises will continue to be closely monitored.

"Part of the beauty of doing a detailed study is we're going to learn a lot of stuff," he said. "And we'll find some things that we did very well and some that didn't go well."

Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or jbowles@PE.com. Or check out her blog at www.pe.com/blogs/environment

Fort Irwin Displaces Desert Tortoises (VIDEO)
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/media?id=6063083

Edited by author 05-12-2008 02:38 PM
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