Same tower, new location: Morongo Valley residents hold meeting on Sunday to plan opposition to BLM’s second site for communications tower
Morongo Valley’s Residents Against The Tower (RATT) continue their opposition to the proposed InterConnect communications tower, now planned for just 500-feet from the previous site the group had fought against. This Sunday in Covington Park’s multipurpose room at 3:00 p.m. they will be hosting a “write-in” meeting for residents to voice their opposition to the newest protest and appeal period.
In 2022, the Bureau of Land Management presented a Scoping report that would allow InterConnect Towers to develop a 200-foot communications tower on public lands bordering Sand to Snow National Monument and Morongo Valley. BLM claim a tower on this site “would improve telecommunication and broadband connections.” Residents Against The Tower cited negative effects on wildlife and neighborhood quality of life. With support from the Morongo Valley Community Services District, Residents Against The Tower pushed back with comments and concerns including projected property value losses, environmental damages, fire hazards, and health concerns. In 2024, because of the opposition, BLM requested that InterConnect revise its Environmental Assessment (EA) to address those concerns. Residents were then given thirty days to submit their substantive comments and delayed the project for another two years. However, Residents Against The Tower spokesperson Sara Fernandez says last month BLM announced the tower site had merely moved 500 feet, and residents weren’t given enough notice to protest the additional and remaining concerns.
“The position on the ridgeline is about 100 feet lower than where it was before but it’s still proposed to be 196 feet tall, it’s still proposing a new access road from Canyon House, and about the same location but it does come with some new environmental impacts that weren’t previously studied. In this final environmental assessment they do discuss what those environmental impacts could be but this is the public’s first time seeing the new site and we’re not getting an opportunity to comment on it publicly despite the fact that, if you recall a year ago, when congressman Obernolte had his Yucca valley town hall meeting, he announced to the public that the BLM was moving the tower to a new site and the public will have an opportunity to comment,” said Fernandez.
Fernadez says that anyone that has participated in the previous comment period has the opportunity to file a new protest to urge the BLM Director to not approve the project. She says while their newest EA might be final, that doesn’t mean the project is approved. Beyond the short distance between the new site and its previous location, the 2025 biological survey also found remains of the endangered desert tortoise as well as eleven species of bats in the area.
“Back in 2024 the biological study said that there are no bats that occupy the area and all of us who live in the vicinity know that that’s not true, so we called him out on that and as a result they prepared a bat survey over a week. They monitored for bat activity using sound monitoring to identify which species of bats, to match their sonar to the actual species, and they detected eleven species of bats, much of those are considered special status species. So that’s another impact the tower will have on biological resources that needs to be disclosed in this final document, and needs to be addressed by the BLM, but the public also needs an opportunity to comment on any new information.”
When asked for comment on Residents Against The Towers accumulated concerns, BLM Public Affairs Specialist Kate Miyamoto told Z107.7, “The BLM conducted additional visual resources analyses, which included adding key observation points and visual simulations of how the proposed project would look on the landscape. The visual analysis helped determine the appropriate design measures to reduce environmental effects from the communication site tower through color selection of the tower and components, location of the tower, and the tower’s effects to residents within the viewshed. The BLM also analyzed the wildfire risks and developed a fire management plan to help prevent fire-related loss, resource damage, and manage fire risk during construction. The project would improve telecommunications and broadband connections for the communities of Morongo and Yucca Valley.”
This Sunday’s Residents Against The Tower meeting will have laptops with templates for residents to craft their letters of protest, along with volunteers to help submit them. For those who can’t attend, you can sign up for an email list at stopmorongovalleytower.com.
