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the relocations is based partly on a survey by a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey that is unfinished and unpublished.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 Briery said the assessment relied on about 10 studies, not just the unpublished one.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