Open Space Group meeting next Tuesday

The Morongo Basin Open Space Group is meeting next Tuesday, December 16th, from 1 pm to 3pm at the Yucca Valley Community Center, Yucca Room.

The program topic is “The Role of Open Space in Economic Development.”

You can view the Agenda at the MBOSG Website.

How to use this blog

New to blogs? It's easier than you may think. Here's a guide to using the MBCA blog.

This blog follows a standard format. Posts are in descending chronological order, meaning the newest post is at the top, and as you scroll down you will find older and older posts. You can keep up on the news by scanning the first several posts every day or each week.

The posts are also ordered by Category. If you're interested in a specific topic you can find all the posts connected with that topic collected together under a Category label. You'll find the Category labels for each post listed at the bottom of the post.

You'll also find a list of the Categories in the sidebar. If you're interested in, say, Twentynine Palms, look in the sidebar at the Category list and click on "Twentynine Palms." That will bring up all the posts that have been labeled "Twentynine Palms."

Want to get the news without coming to this site? You can subscribe to an Atom feed that allows you to automatically receive our posts in a Reader. Learn more here.

In the sidebar are also lists of Organizations that might interest our viewers. There is a Blogroll, as well, with links to other blogs.

Finally, at the top of the sidebar you'll find links to the MBCA Website, including to our Calendar and our Home, Meeting, Join, and Contact pages. And if you want to cut right to the chase, click on the Alerts! link for the latest important action that needs your attention.

Special note: We have many links on our blog to articles in the Hi-Desert Star. In December 2008 the Star began charging for access to archived articles. We will be adjusting our approach to referencing Star articles in the future and apologize for any inconvenience this causes readers of our past posts.

We hope you enjoy the MBCA blog. Please feel free to send us items you'd like us to consider posting. Thanks!

MBCA meets Thursday, December 11

The next regular board meeting of the Morongo Basin Conservation Association is December 11, 2008, at 9:30 a.m. at PFF Bank & Trust in Yucca Valley.

Please join us and add your voice and experience.

Visualizing the energy impact

Coyote Crossing has a nice post summarizing the size of the impact on the Mojave should the numerous solar and wind proposals now before the BLM come to pass. Most useful is the BLM map showing the location of proposed projects.

Note the overlap of energy projects in some places with the study areas proposed for the Marine Base expansion. At this week's Base expansion scoping meeting, it was clarified that the "segregation" enacted by the Marine Corps has preempted those projects. The Base will get "first dibs", even though those energy proposals had already been submitted.


MORE INFO ON THESE TOPICS: On the Energy page of the MBCA Website. Previous posts: Energy, Johnson Valley, Marine Base, Wonder Valley, Twentynine Palms.

Energy update

The desert as Ground Zero for the alternative energy future of America continues to take shape.

The Joshua Tree-based Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy have issued their latest newsletter.

And centered up in Antelope Valley, a High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative is forming. Their goal, per their Website, is to "bring green industries to the high desert region with the purpose of growing our economy and using green jobs to create positive pathways for youth and unemployed adults. The Initiative will be achieved through public/private partnerships and guided by a collaboration of the private sector, government, community-based organizations, labor, educational institutions, youth, and unemployed adults."


MORE INFO ON THIS TOPIC: On the Energy page of the MBCA Website. Previous posts: Energy.

Watch out for your waste

In an article on catching illegal dumpers with hidden cameras, the Hi-Desert Star outlines some of the realities of dealing with desert waste.

A typical first-offense penalty to a guilty dumper is $330 to cover criminal and civil penalties. Fines can range up to $10,000 and six months in county jail for a third conviction. If perpetrators take code enforcement’s advice and clean up their trash, that fact is noted to the judge, but the criminals aren’t off the hook for their illegal act.

There is a potential financial incentive associated with identifying a dumper. Successful prosecutions can net a tipper up to a $1,000 reward.

[snip]

Disposers of green waste like tree limbs or other organic material are put on notice that code enforcement makes no distinction between yard waste, furniture, appliances, building material,
hazardous waste and whatever else gets tossed. “A dump site is still a dump site,” [code enforcement officer] Romage stated simply.

So what should desert dwellers do with their waste?

A tip for people who hire contractors for yard clean-up or renovation work that requires refuse removal: Agree to make payment after the contractor produces a receipt verifying the load was delivered to the dump that day.

Regarding used tires, the ideal situation is for responsible residents to accept the responsibility for the $5 per tire disposal fee (no rims.) Failing the ability (or desire) to pony up the fee, the county operates a drop-off location for used tires at the Copper Mountain Community Center from 8 a.m. to noon the first and second Saturday of each month or by appointment. The service is for residential, not business disposal. The site has taken in 20,000 tires so far this year.

Report illegal dumping to Code Enforcement.


FOR MORE INFO ON THIS ISSUE: See the Waste page on the MBCA Website.

Marine Base expansion: New discussion group

Dear desert neighbors,

As you may know, the Twentynine Palms Marine Base (MCAGCC) is planning to expand. The expansion could involve as many as 400,000 acres, including private as well as federal lands. Areas under consideration include lands to the west, east, and south of present MCAGCC boundaries. There could be many potential effects on Morongo Basin residents.

As part of the environmental review process (NEPA), there will be public Scoping meetings this coming week, including December 3 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Twentynine Junior High School, Hay's Gym, 5798 Utah Trail.

Because this is such a large and complex issue, involving many stakeholders and agendas, a new Google Group has been formed for local residents to inform one another on the issues. You are invited to join the Group and add to the discussion (see instructions below). There is no cost, and members can easily set when or if they want to receive email updates or just visit the site at their leisure. Also, anyone may simply view the Group posts and pages without joining.

Group Home page: http://groups.google.com/group/desertneighbors.

To join: From home page click on "Join this group" in the Sidebar. If you do not yet have a Google account you will be directed how to join.

To view more information on the expansion plans, including links and maps, as well as how to participate in the Scoping process, go to the Group Home page and click on "Pages" in the Sidebar.

I sincerely hope you will consider joining the Google Group, so that we may all learn from one another in the face of this major impact on the Morongo Basin.

Best wishes,

Chris Carraher
Communications Director
Morongo Basin Conservation Association


MORE INFO ON THESE ISSUES: On the Land Use/Development and Communities pages of the MBCA Website. Previous blog posts: Johnson Valley, Marine Base, Wonder Valley, Twentynine Palms.

Mojave Max down for the count

It ain't easy being slow.

The threatened desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizzi), which had thrived for more than three million years and is the California State Reptile, is on the ropes, battered by incursions into its ancient habitat and a respiratory disease connected to human contact. Now, a translocation program at Fort Irwin, moving long-established tortoise populations out of newly designated combat training grounds and onto other public lands, has encountered grave morbidity as at least 15% of the tortoises have already died after just a few months. The military has suspended the relocation program for now.

Coyote predation at an unusually high rate has been blamed.

Biologists theorize the problem may be connected to severe drought conditions, which have 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 tortoises for sustenance.They also point out that translocated tortoises tend to wander, sometimes for miles, making them lumbering targets for hungry predators.

Gashes and tooth marks in the shell of one translocated tortoise discovered in April by federal biologists indicated that it had been ripped out of the front of its carapace.

Other threats include vehicle traffic and an infectious respiratory disease. The disease was prevalent in the relocation area, and now the newcomers are catching it. - Los Angeles Times

Translocation is a highly controversial mitigation practice that has been rejected on previous occasions. Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a prepared statement quoted in the Times: "We predicted that the translocation of tortoises from Ft. Irwin's expansion would be disastrous and, unfortunately, we were proven right....This whole debacle needs to be significantly rethought. The loss of so many tortoises is certainly not helping this threatened population."

Two environmental groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors, sued the Army and the Bureau of Land Management in July, contending that the move exposed healthy tortoises to diseased animals and placed them in a poorer-quality habitat.

Ileene Anderson...said...that the relocated tortoises are more vulnerable to coyotes and other predators because, once they are dropped off, they try to return to their homes. Under normal circumstances, they would seek refuge in their burrows, she said.

"It makes them more visible on the landscape, and it makes it easier for coyotes and other predators to spot them and kill them," Anderson said. - Press-Enterprise

Read more in the Press-Enterprise and the Los Angeles Times.

PE.com columnist Cassie McDuff reviews these issues and questions the potential of more "unintended consequences" in a military expansion closer to home:

Now the tortoises face another threat. The Marine Corps wants to expand the Twentynine Palms Air Ground Combat Center onto an off-road recreation area. If displaced off-roaders push the government to open desert land now closed to off-roading, more tortoise habitat could be lost.

If that happens, creatures that coexist with them including burrowing owls could be lost, too. That must not happen.

Efforts to educate a new generation about the tortoise and its desert world continue, however, in the selection of a new "Mojave Max." Per the Las Vegas Sun:

A 10-pound successor to the Mojave Max legacy at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area has been selected to carry on educating people about their role and responsibility in the health of the Mojave Desert.

[snip]

On June 30, the first Mojave Max died of natural causes at an estimated age of 65 years old at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

The Mojave Max Emergence Contest encourages students to study the conditions of the Mojave Desert and the behaviors of desert species and then predict when the live Mojave Max will emerge from his burrow each spring. The original Mojave Max emerged as early as Feb. 14 and as late as April 14 during his nine-year tenure.

FOR MORE INFO ON THIS TOPIC: See the Desert Tortoise and Education pages on the MBCA Website. Previous blog posts: Wildlife, Marine Base.

Commercial zoning for Pioneertown

According to the Hi-Desert Star, the County of San Bernardino is moving to change Pioneertown's downtown zoning "from residential to commercial to allow more businesses to locate in this former Western-movie backdrop."

Dave Dawson, a senior planner with San Bernardino County’s Land Use Services Department, said county staff is working on the process to change the land designation from special development residential to special development commercial.

It will affect 30 acres bounded by Rawhide Road on the north, Curtis Road on the east, Tom Mix Road on the west and Pioneertown Road on the south.

The zoning change would have to be approved by the planning commission in a meeting that probably won’t happen until February 2009 or later, Dawson said.

The zoning change was requested last year while the county was updating its General Plan, he said.

Some residents are apprehensive about the move and are drafting a petition of opposition. Read more here.


MORE INFO ON THESE ISSUES: On the Land Use/Development and Communities pages of the MBCA Website.

Renewable energy subject of Executive Order, will impact local area

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed an Executive Order to streamline California's renewable energy project approval process and increase the state's Renewable Energy Standard to 33 percent renewable power by 2020, according to a State press release.

"I am proposing we set the most aggressive target in the nation for renewable energy-33 percent by the year 2020-that's a third of our energy from sources like solar, wind and geothermal," Governor Schwarzenegger said. "But we won't meet that goal doing business as usual, where environmental regulations are holding up environmental progress in some cases. This executive order will clear the red tape for renewable projects and streamline the permitting and siting of new plants and transmission lines. With this investment in renewable energy projects, California has a bright energy future ahead that will help us fight climate change while driving our state's green economy."

[snip]

In addition to the EO announced today, the [California Energy Commission], [Department of Fish and Game], U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a coordinated approach with our federal partners in the expedited permitting process. This coordinated approach will significantly reduce the time and expense for developing renewable energy on federally-owned California land, including the priority Mojave and Colorado Desert regions.

According to a related article in The Desert Sun, Twentynine Palms has been identified as a key area for California's wind and solar development in the newly released draft plan of the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative.

Imagine a sea of glass lining the 60-mile stretch of Interstate 10 from the edge of Joshua Tree National Park to Blythe.

That's what's being envisioned in a statewide renewable energy plan that identifies sections of Palm Springs, Twentynine Palms and eastern Riverside County as key for California's solar and wind development.

MORE INFO ON THIS TOPIC: On the Energy page of the MBCA Website. Previous posts: Energy.