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the relocations is based partly on a survey by a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey that is unfinished and unpublished.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 Briery said the assessment relied on about 10 studies, not just the unpublished one.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