A NEW HOME FOR A TORTOISE DISTRICT LOOKING TO RELOCATE REPTILE TO CLEAR OUT SITE FOR NEW HIGH SCHOOL.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

Mojave Unified School District officials expect to be required to buy land to relocate a desert tortoise found living where the district wants to build California City High School.

State Department of Fish and Game officials are talking with district officials about what to do about the tortoise, found several weeks ago by a biologist conducting an environmental study.

``Right now, it hasn't slowed us up at all. We have to mitigate with the Department of Fish and Game, where to relocate it, how much land the tortoise will need,'' Superintendent Larry Phelps said.

The desert tortoise, found in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts of California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, was listed as threatened in 1989 and under federal law may not be harmed.

Tortoise populations have plummeted in widespread areas from uncertain causes that experts say could include a contagious respiratory disease, cattle grazing and pollution.

Fish and Game officials last week declined to comment on the California City case.

Government agencies in the past have required developers building in habitat for rare species to buy land or pay fees toward expanding preserves elsewhere.

To compensate for building two campuses in habitat for the rare Mohave ground squirrel, the Palmdale School District was obliged last year to pay more than $28,000 to buy 13 acres at the Desert Tortoise Natural Area, just outside California City.

No Mohave ground squirrels had been found at the Palmdale school sites, but officials said buying the replacement land was cheaper than hiring a consultant, waiting until spring - when the cinnamon-colored rodents are active above ground - and setting out noninjuring traps to see if any live there.

Phelps said he did not know if the Mojave school district will be asked to buy land at the tortoise preserve or somewhere else for its tortoise.

The school district's reptile was found on the east side of the 65-acre high school site at Mendiburu Road and Hacienda Boulevard. That particular spot is an area where no school buildings are planned but will be available to accommodate future enrollment growth, Phelps said.

``We knew it was a possibility,'' Phelps said of the tortoise's discovery.

Phelps said he doubted that the desert tortoise would delay construction. Before the tortoise was spotted, construction on the high school was scheduled to begin next spring.

``It depends on the Fish and Game Department. They could delay if they wanted to. I don't see that happening,'' Phelps said. ``I'm confident we will reach an agreement on the amount of land and where it will be. I just don't know how fast that will happen.''

The district decided to build the high school at the Hacienda site, despite the need for flood-control protection there.

The property was the largest of three locales examined.

The district was prompted to look at more than one site after it found the cost of providing flood-control protection at the Hacienda site could top $1 million.

That parcel is located in a 100-year flood plain, an area that the government says is likely to be inundated by a flood once every century.

California City officials have told the school district that a $70 million fund set up in the 1960s to pay for roads, water and sewer lines for future development could be tapped to help improve the Hacienda site.

That site is adjacent to a once-proposed 500-home tract that was never built but is part of the city's subdivision improvement fund.

The high school and an elementary school are being paid for by a $16 million bond measure approved by California City voters.

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(ran in AV edition only) Desert Tortoise Natural Area