For months now, subcontractors for telecommunications giant Frontier Communications have been erecting cell towers and excavating roadsides as part of a Federal Communications Commission-plan to expand internet broadband and wireless access in rural areas. According to folks at The Wildlands Conservancy, Frontier’s contractors ventured outside that plan when their backhoes cut a ten-foot-wide, 650-foot-long swath of disturbance outside of their easement, destroying numerous protected desert plants and animal habitat in the process. Reporter Mike Lipsitz picks up the story from here…
Conservancy deputy director Frazier Haney says the April 30 work crew near the western end of Pipes Canyon Road did quite a bit of damage to protected land belonging to the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve. Now, land managers at the Preserve want Frontier to pay damages and fund restoration of the area to the tune of $40,000. A Frontier spokesman said the company is “investigating to determine the facts and will seek to resolve the matter collaboratively.” If the issue sounds familiar it is because last October-November Frontier became embroiled in a similar issue when property owners in the Copper Mountain Mesa area cried foul when they discovered Frontier excavators had dug miles of trenches on private property including land owned by the Dhamma Dena Mediation Center. That conflict ended with Frontier’s agreement to relocate the infrastructure and to put an emphasis on improving community outreach and communication.
The conservancy says numerous plants, and animal habitats, were damaged and that the area is known habitat for the Federally and State Endangered Desert Tortoise, state protected desert plants like the Joshua Tree, and habitat for other special status species such as Le Conte’s Thrasher.
“They destroyed plants that were probably several hundred years old and there’s really no way to restore desert when it’ been torn apart like that,” said Haney.
Javier Mendoza, vice president of corporate communications for Frontier, confirmed that Arijet is a Frontier contractor working on a broadband expansion in the Pioneertown area. He said when the crews were told that they were on private property or preserve property, they stopped their work.
“The crew checked site plans and observed there were no boundary markers or identifying signage,” Mendoza said. “They stopped work, informed jobsite supervisors, and ceased further activity.”
The Wildlands Conservancy sent a letter to Arijet asking for a $40,000 settlement to remediate the damage. The breakdown of the funds include $10,000 in damages, $2,500 for replacement plants, $500 for materials, $1,000 for labor, $13,000 for maintenance and irrigation, and $13,000 for hand weeding.
Haney said it’s “not unheard of” for companies to dig up land that should be protected, and that the conservancy, which is the largest nonprofit landowner in the state of California, has a strong track record of getting financial compensation when their land is disturbed.
“The resources are very literally threatened and endangered,” Haney said. “For someone to just carelessly and blindly destroy those resources is careless and unacceptable.”
