Podcast: Will there be a mining operation in the Pinto Mountains outside Twentynine Palms?
The Pinto Mountain Wilderness area just east of Twentynine Palms stretches for miles toward Wonder Valley and skirts the edge of Joshua Tree National Park. The area is also known as the “Music Valley” region, full of desert natives like bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, and other wildlife and plants that you can also see in the neighboring Joshua Tree National park. The region also contains minerals and rare earth elements, at least that’s according to an Australian mining company that has staked claims in nearly 20,000 acres of open desert.
I spoke with the National Parks Conservation Association’s California Desert Associate Director Chance Wilcox and California Desert Program Manager Mason Osgood about the mining claims and what residents might expect if an operation like the Colosseum Mine comes to the gateway community of Twentynine Palms and on our public lands.
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