Residents plead: "Please fo east"

Marines present expansion proposal: Residents fill the community center at MAC meeting

Lucerne Valley Leader

LUCERNE VALLEY - Nearly a year after the Marine Corps announced its intention to expand the base at Twentynine Palms the Municipal Advisory Council hosted project representatives Colonel Wes Weston and Joe Ross, BLM Project Manager at their most recent meeting.

Lucerne Valley residents, off-roaders, miners and other stakeholders filled the Lucerne Valley Community Center to hear about the proposed Twentynine Palms Marine Base Expansion and to express their concerns.

Back in April 2008 the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Marine Corps officials confirmed that permits had been issued to look into expanding the facility at Twentynine Palms possibly by as much as 100,000 acres into Johnson Valley. Since that time the Marine Base has proposed a total of six expansion alternatives.

The Johnson Valley alternative is the one that has the residents of Johnson Valley, Lucerne Valley and Yucca Valley the most concerned. More than 30 of those in attendance stood to express their views.

“I moved here because I am an off-roader,” said Robert Kleber, who currently lives on the boarder of the existing Marine Base. “I want my children to enjoy the desert as I have. If (the base) moves closer, we won’t be able to live here.”

Many residents who are not off-roaders noted that without the weekly influx of off-road dollars the town would be in serious economic trouble.

“Each weekend our economy gets a little boost,” said Bill Lembright of Lucerne Valley Market. “If that gets shut off, we’re done. Please go east.”

During a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation, Ross explained the government’s Title 10 requirement that Marines be trained to operate a combined arms force in three dimensions: land, air and sea. This training will require an area that would hold an entire Expeditionary Brigade of anywhere from 3,000 to 20,000 personnel and equipment. This training would take place for 48 to 72 hours of sustained offensive operations, twice a year.

“That is less than a week twice a year,” said MAC Chairman Tony Malone. “That doesn’t seem like very good use of our natural resources.”

Of those presenting views, most were very positive toward the Marine Base objective to provide soldiers with the best training possible, but asked that the expansion planners please consider the impacts that coming west into Johnson Valley will have on the Lucerne Valley way of life, as well as many others who use or will that area for recreation, mining, filming and possible future alternative energy sources.

“I respect what you are doing, but I choose to live here instead of Los Angeles so that my children do not have to listen to gun fire,” said a controlled, but emotional Robin Lopez. “If you expand toward Lucerne Valley, we will have to leave.”

Several young men in their late teens and early twenties spoke on the positive impact that Johnson Valley has had on their lives.

“Since I was just a little guy, I was in one of those motor-homes driving through Lucerne Valley every weekend. Spending quality time with my family riding motorcycles out here kept me from getting involved with drugs and gangs,” said Jensen Kime of Pasadena.

“I represent several mining interests,” said Doug Shumway of TerraMins Inc., Apple Valley. “There are many valuable mineral sites in that area that will be completely blocked off if the Johnson Valley area is closed. “This will cause negative economical impacts with San Bernardino County.”

The group “Partnership for Johnson Valley” also had representatives at the meeting from Encino.

Out of the 32 people who made comments only two were disruptive: one who wouldn’t stop when his time was up, and one who wheeled, under wraps, an old rusty World War II practice bomb up to the front of the room and dramatically whipped away the cover in front of the Colonel Weston to demonstrate her fear that her “children” might stumble upon whatever the Marines might leave behind.

She then began to verbally assault the Colonel, calling him a liar for telling the group that there would be no live ammunition used. The MAC board reminded her that in the PowerPoint presentation, Ross had stated specifically that the Marines would use live fire. As she started to get aggressive again, several people in the audience told her to stop and she eventually relented.

“I am very proud of Lucerne Valley!” stated MAC Chairman Tony Malone after the close of public comments. “And I am very proud of all of you for treating these people with respect, and for treating yourselves with respect.”

The meeting was then adjourned and those in attendance had the opportunity to speak with the Marine Base representatives and to view the maps of the six expansion alternatives.

Marine expansion plans don't sit well with off-roaders

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

VICTORVILLE - Off-roading enthusiasts and military officials appeared to be on a collision course Thursday at a meeting hosted by the Marine Corps, which plans a major expansion of its training center at Twentynine Palms.

The Marines shared five expansion scenarios for enlarging the center, but the one that works best for maneuvers and live-fire training takes in all or part of the Johnson Valley, a 189,000-acre mecca for off-roaders in the San Bernardino County desert southeast of Barstow.

The revelation didn't go over well with many of the 167 people, most of them off-roaders, who attended the meeting in a hotel conference room.

"Any alternative that takes in the Johnson Valley would be catastrophic for our community," said Jim Arbogast, a regional director of the California Off-Road Vehicle Association.

Arbogast, an Anaheim resident who likes to trek through Johnson Valley in his Ford Bronco, would prefer to see the military expand into wilderness areas on the more remote east side of the training center.

Others said they wanted no military expansion at all.

"We don't want to lose a grain of sand, nothing," said Rich Wohlers, a four-wheeling enthusiast from Apple Valley.

Lt. Col. James McArthur said final decisions are at least two years away. The military must still evaluate the expansion options to determine how well communications, logistics, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and other criteria will work in each area, he said.

Officials determined the Johnson Valley is best for live-fire exercises and maneuvering because it provides a natural extension of training corridors on the base, McArthur said.

The military also must review environmental issues in a study expected to be ready for public review in 2010.

Meeting participants were asked to make their comments in writing at several tables or to speak to a court reporter, who would create a transcript.

Marie Brashear, a rock collector from Lucerne Valley, said the comment format was self-serving for the military.

"The only purpose is to defuse and disarm people who may be opposed to the expansion," she said.

Helen Baker, director of the Partnership for Johnson Valley, said she liked the format because it prevents a few vocal people from taking over.

The Marine Corps wants to expand the 932-square-mile Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms to handle new training.

Military officials want enough space for three battalions to maneuver simultaneously using live ammunition accompanied by air support. Each battalion would have about 1,000 Marines supported by other troops.

The expansion area covers almost 76,000 acres of private property and most of the Johnson Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Area, a 189,000-acre public playground for off-roaders. Environmentalists have said the expansion could take territory from wild animals and plants at a time when desert habitat elsewhere is being claimed for solar and wind projects.

A Navy research group looked at 11 other potential training sites in the nation, but only Twentynine Palms has sufficient airspace and land, according to the Navy's application to acquire public lands.

SB County supervisor wants Marines to expand into wilderness areas, not off-roading site

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

The Sheephole Valley has been a wilderness area since the 1990s and is off-limits to roads, vehicles and permanent buildings. Kathy Wing/Special to The Press-Enterprise

A San Bernardino County supervisor is proposing that the Marine Corps leave a popular off-roading mecca intact and instead expand its Twentynine Palms training center into two wilderness areas.

The military is considering enlarging the 932-square-mile base to the west, taking in the Johnson Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Area, and to the east, right up to the edges of the Sheephole Valley and Cadiz Dunes wilderness areas.

But the federally protected wilderness could become new live-ammunition training grounds in an alternative plan suggested by San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt.

The supervisor has asked Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office to consider removal of the wilderness designation from more than 150,000 acres in the two areas to accommodate the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center expansion.

He contends the land has little value as wilderness. And keeping Johnson Valley open for the estimated 800,000 recreational visits a year is essential to the economies of the High Desert towns of Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms, Mitzelfelt said.

"There needs to be some flexibility with some of the wilderness areas that just might not be of the highest quality," Mitzelfelt said in a telephone interview.

Feinstein, D-Calif., indicated in a statement that opening wilderness areas for military maneuvers is not likely.

The senator, who supported the wilderness designations 14 years ago, said she will work with local officials but added: "Any proposal to remove protections for desert wilderness should not be part of that conversation."

Wilderness areas are public land but are off-limits to vehicles, mining, energy development and any permanent building. Hiking, hunting, fishing, camping and grazing is allowed.

People familiar with the wilderness areas say the Sheephole Valley is one of the few places where a desert valley between two mountain ranges remains virtually untouched by roads and where bighorn sheep can move freely between ranges.

The shifting sands of nearby Cadiz Dunes offer visitors what federal officials describe as a pristine display of desert plants, including Borrego milk vetch, a rare, low-growing plant with grayish leaves and purple flowers.

Mitzelfelt's suggestion is to turn over the dunes and as much as two-thirds of the Sheephole Valley wilderness to the Marines.

Environment, Economy

His idea is drawing enthusiastic support from some off-roaders, who fear losing what they describe as the nation's biggest off-roading area.

Harry Baker, chairman of the Partnership for Johnson Valley, a group formed to fend off a military takeover of the off-highway vehicle area, said the Marine Corps proposal would be devastating to those who use the area for recreation, and would also harm the local economy.

The group's Web page thanks Mitzelfelt and urges viewers to forward to elected officials a letter the supervisor wrote to Feinstein's staff.

The concept of giving up wilderness to preserve an off-road area is vehemently opposed by some environmentalists.

"We will certainly fight it, and we expect to win," said Eldon Hughes, a Joshua Tree resident and Sierra Club member who lobbied Congress in the 1980s and early 1990s to establish wilderness areas. Environmentalists also oppose military expansion in other areas that they say is valuable habitat.

Hughes said the Cadiz Dunes were worthy of wilderness protection because the area has an array of plant life and the dunes regularly shift positions with the winds, he said.

The Sheephole Valley serves as a passage for bighorn sheep that live in the Sheephole and Calumet mountains on opposite sides of the valley, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. Military maneuvers in the valley would separate sheep populations in the mountain ranges, and that could lead to inbreeding and reduced genetic diversity, she said.

Marine Corps officials have said they need additional territory in order to simultaneously train three battalions, each with 1,000 troops, using live ammunition and bombing.

In a Sept. 24 letter to Feinstein's office in San Diego, Mitzelfelt said the 21,298-acre Cadiz Dunes Wilderness and the eastern two-thirds of the 194,861-acre Sheephole Valley Wilderness have little wilderness value because both areas were damaged by tank training during World War II and again in the early 1960s.

Mitzelfelt's staff provided a 1990 U.S. Bureau of Land Management wilderness study that described the Sheephole Valley and Cadiz Dunes as unsuitable for wilderness designation. The area "does not include any noteworthy special features and would not contribute to the diversity of the National Wilderness Preservation System," the report said.

Old Arguments

Hughes said Mitzelfelt is unearthing old arguments that were settled years ago when Congress approved the California Desert Protection Act of 1994.

"It was a law that was carefully considered and long negotiated" to preserve 7 million acres of California's pristine desert lands, Feinstein said in her statement.

Hughes recalled that the bureau began surveying public land in the California desert in the 1970s for possible wilderness protection. In the years that followed, everyone aired their views in several public hearings, he said.

Hughes acknowledged that tanks tracks from World War II still can be found in the wilderness areas, but said the wildlife doesn't seem to mind. This desert habitat is slowly recovering after more than 60 years and now supports bighorns and other wildlife, he said

Baker, of the off-roaders' group, also followed the wilderness designation process in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Baker said Sen. Alan Cranston, his successor, Sen. Barbara Boxer, and Feinstein -- all Democrats -- worked to forward the cause of the Sierra Club, resulting in too much wilderness.

Hughes' solution would be to save both the wilderness areas and the Johnson Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Area.

"I don't think Twentynine Palms needs to be expanded at all," he said. "They got a big chunk of land."

The Sheephole Valley Wilderness Area of San Bernardino County includes two mountain ranges separated by a roadless valley. Kathy Wing/Special to The Press-Enterprise

New group tries to head off base expansion

High Desert Star

JOHNSON VALLEY — A new group called the Partnership for Johnson Valley reports giving a presentation about the Johnson Valley off-roading area to staff at the Twentynine Palms Marine base recently.

The group’s presentation was prompted to news the military is considering a portion of the Johnson Valley Open Access as one option for a base expansion.

The area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

The Partnership for Johnson Valley’s presentation was part of an ongoing effort to exchange information with the Marines and show the impact an expansion would have on a diverse group of people.

The partnership identifies affected stakeholders as including land owners, off-highway vehicle enthusiasts, geocachers, historical organizations, mineralogists, equestrian groups, remote-control plane organizations, the film industry, other business groups and youth groups.

“The partnership is reaching out to all of the stakeholders who could be impacted by the expansion of the Twentynine Palms Marine base,” said chairman Harry Baker.

In a news release, partnership Executive Director Mark Howlett quotes one of the stakeholders as warning filmmakers would leave the state if Johnson Valley is closed to public use.

“Johnson Valley is critical to the film industry because it represents the largest open, unrestricted area in California where filmmakers can shoot 360-degree desert scenes,” Howlett quotes Sheri Davis, director of the Inland Empire Film Commission, as saying.

“Without Johnson Valley’s diversity and ease of use, the industry will simply leave California to film elsewhere.”

According to Davis, “Annually, Johnson Valley open-access represents 10,000 California-based film industry jobs.”

The original meeting with the military was orchestrated by Ed Waldheim, a past commissioner of the California OHV Commission who represented OHV interests in Sacramento for 10 years.

At the original meeting, a coalition of groups was asked to participate to represent local stakeholders. They were invited back by the military to give a formal presentation.

After their second meeting with the military, the coalition participants agreed to form a partnership and establish themselves as a non-profit under the California Trail Users Coalition.

Partnership leaders have been cooperatively working with the military and the stakeholders in an effort to explore alternatives to the proposed land expansion, Howlett states.

The partnership is led by chairman Harry Baker with Howlett as executive director and Wayne Nosala as secretary.

They are asking for the support of other interested people in the area and seeking new members.