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DESERT TRAIL (Yucca Valley, California) 11 June 08 Tortoises found on casino land (Kurt Schauppner)
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/2008/06/17/news/news3.txt