Monterey Braces for Landing of Marines

Monterey welcomes more than 1.5 million tourists each year, but thousands of visitors of a slightly different sort will descend Saturday on the coastal city made famous by John Steinbeck’s novel “Cannery Row.”

A Marine Corps urban warfare exercise will bring 6,000 troops to Monterey Bay to test the tactics and equipment likely to be used if U.S. troops are deployed to coastal cities abroad. About 800 Marines will land on the shores of Monterey as part of the Urban Warrior maneuvers while the remaining troops stay on five naval ships offshore.

The Marines will seek out a simulated chemical-biological weapon hidden on federal land and put disaster relief procedures in place during what will be the first of three Bay Area war fighting maneuvers in a week.

The state Coastal Commission expressed concerns Thursday over the operation’s effect on the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, but Deputy City Manager Fred Cohn welcomed the troops. He said any help the military can give the city to deal with the danger of terrorist attack is appreciated.

“Without being alarmist, any place in the U.S. could be a target,” Cohn said. “Who would’ve expected Oklahoma City to be a target? We have to prepare for the possibility that this might happen.”

The troops won’t be greeted with open arms by all. Monterey police expect that as many as 1,000 people will turn out to protest the military exercise, among them peace activists, environmentalists and those who simply disdain major disruptions in town.

Two months ago, similar concerns about protesters led the National Park Service to deny the Marines access to San Francisco’s Presidio, a former military fort that became a park in 1994. That prompted the Marines to move planned exercises to neighboring Oakland and Alameda, where troops will test disaster relief and peacekeeping techniques next week.

Saturday’s operation in Monterey is for one day only, and activities will be limited to two federally owned sites: the Navy Postgraduate School and the Defense Language Institute on the Presidio of Monterey.

“The people around here value their serenity and peace,” said David Dilworth, co-chairman of Responsible Consumers of the Monterey Peninsula, an environmental and consumer issues watchdog group. “This is not downtown Camp Pendleton.”

Other protesters object to the exercise as a form of military propaganda. “They’re promoting this as if it’s an exciting, Fourth of July type event . . . and that trivializes the real issues that this is about,” said Gordon Smith, founder and co-chairman of John Steinbeck IV Veterans for Peace. “It’s all about warfare and electronics.”

To accommodate the expected crowds, officials will allow visitors to sleep in the parking lots of the community college and Navy golf course, which are one to two miles from the beach landing site.

Marine officials say that reports of a disruptive war game “invasion” have been overblown, but they seem resigned to the presence of protesters.

“This is a free country, and the Marines wear uniforms so people can say what they want to say,” said Tim Jones, spokesman for the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, which planned the Urban Warrior maneuvers.

Smith said one of the biggest concerns is that the maneuvers take place in the federally protected waters of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Federal wildlife agencies have expressed worries that gray whales, sea otters and other marine life will be disturbed by the forces landing on the beach.

California Coastal Commission members expressed similar concerns at a public hearing in Carmel on Thursday. They voted unanimously in opposition to the military’s determination that there would be no negative impact on the sanctuary.

To address those concerns, the Marines have included sanctuary biologists and private consultants to monitor the impact on wildlife. Sam Dennis, an environmental specialist for the Navy, said that the biologists will be given the authority to halt the activities if necessary.

After the Monterey exercise ends Saturday night, the operation will move north to Oakland and Alameda to begin a more extensive four-day maneuver that begins Monday and involves up to 700 troops and 500 support staff on the ground at any given time.

Marine officials estimate that the cost of housing, feeding and technically supporting the military role players will give the economy in Oakland and Alameda a $4.5-million boost.

In Monterey, Cohn said that the economic impact would be minimal because fewer Marines are coming ashore for a shorter time. “There may be a few hundred staying in hotels or eating at the restaurants, but that’s not much more than what we would get when a conference comes to town,” he said.

The maneuvers will be followed by an exposition March 19 to 21 in which the public can tour the Navy ships and see Harrier jump jets in action at Jack London Square in Oakland and Alameda Point in Alameda.

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Marine Maneuvers

The Marine Corps will hold Urban Warrior exercises in Monterey, Oakland and Alameda beginning Saturday.