Hearings to be held on base expansion at Twentynine Palms

By Lauren McSherry on September 23, 2008 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in March, The Sun reported that two military bases in San Bernardino County were planning to expand in order to ramp up war games needed to train Marines and soldiers headed overseas.
Now it's time for the public to weigh in on one of them. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Marine Corps will hold four meetings next month to talk about plans to expand the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base.

The meetings will be Oct. 23 and 24 in Victorville and Twentynine Palms.

The first two meetings will be Oct. 23 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and then 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Hay's Gym in the Twentynine Palms Junior High School at 5798 Utah Trail.

The next day's meetings will be at the same times at Hilton Garden Inn, located at 12603 Mariposa Road, in Victorville.

The land in question cannot be used for two years while the project is discussed. A comment period ends Dec. 15.

The Marines will prepare an environmental document to evaluate the impact of various proposals.

The proposal could include an expansion on 366,000 acres of public land and 72,000 acres of private land.

Off-highway vehicle riders and environmentalists are concerned about the impacts of the expansion.