CALIFORNIA
Deal for Marines, off-roaders
The Marine Corps and off-road vehicle enthusiasts will share a rugged patch of desert near the military base at Twentynine Palms under a compromise brokered by Congress.
Neither side got all it wanted in the nearly decade-long dispute over 200,000 acres of Johnson Valley next to the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in the Mojave Desert, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
As included in the 2014 defense bill signed by President Obama, about 43,000 acres of Johnson Valley will be for recreational use only, while an additional 79,000 acres will be for the Marine Corps. And 53,000 acres will be shared between the off-roaders and the Marines.
- AP