A controversial private military and law enforcement training center planned for rural Ocotillo was approved Tuesday by the Imperial County Board of Supervisors.

The facility, proposed by San Diego-based Wind Zero Inc., was approved on a 4-1 vote. The lone dissenter was Supervisor Jack Terrazas, whose district includes the land the facility will be built on.

The $100-million, 944-acre training center would include shooting ranges, live-fire training houses, a commercial racetrack, a heliport and an airstrip. Some residents of the town and county have lobbied against the project since it was first proposed in 2006, arguing that the facility would disturb the peace and quiet they cherish and deplete the city’s underground aquifer, its sole source of water.

Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL sniper and founder of Wind Zero, told The Times earlier this month that the facility will provide a needed training site for local law enforcement and the military, as well as bring much-needed jobs and revenue to the cash-strapped county;  in October, Imperial County's unemployment rate hit 29.3%.

Howard Kelly, a Vietnam vet who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, lives across the street from the project site and was concerned that the noise from the facility would make living there unbearable. He and his wife plan on moving away from their home of 23 years now that the project will be built.

“I just don’t believe that the supervisors really listened to the concerns of their constituents,” Kelly said.

Webb could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

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Desert town up in arms over proposed military training center

-- Stephen Ceasar

Photo: Vietnam veteran Howard Kelly, here with wife Bev, opposes the training center. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

The All-American Canal has long been known as an engineering, hydrological and agricultural marvel, delivering enormous amounts of Colorado River water to arid Imperial County and turning a desert into one of the world's most productive farming regions.

But in recent years, it has had another reputation: the spot where hundreds of people have drowned, most of them undocumented migrants from Mexico trying desperately to cross the canal on their way north.

By most estimates, more than 500 people have drowned in the canal since it was completed in 1942. The peak year was 1998, when 31 died.

Now, after much controversy and some reluctance, the governmental owners and operators of the canal have begun a safety push along the 82-mile gravity-flow conveyance, long stretches of which parallel the border.

Authorities continued to search Monday for a hit-and-run driver who triggered a motorcycle crash that killed five people in the Imperial Valley.

A 36-year-old man from Mexicali, Mexico, who was initially arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol, has been released. A blood-alcohol test came out negative, officials said.

The crash occurred Saturday when a group of 21 motorcyclists from the San Diego County-based Saddletramps Motorcycle Club were traveling east on Highway 98. A gold Honda Civic with California plates attempted to pass the entire group by pulling into the westbound lane, the CHP said.

Carlos Ramirez Bobadilla, who was driving a Dodge Avenger westbound, tried to swerve to the right shoulder to avoid the oncoming Civic and overcompensated by swerving left. He lost control and slammed head-on into at least six motorcyclists, CHP officials said.

The Salton Sea, the troubled and troublesome body of water that straddles Riverside and Imperial counties, is the focus of a dispute between the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Imperial Irrigation District.

The Imperial district wants to send water from the Colorado River directly to the sea to aid efforts at reducing its salinity and stopping its shrinkage.

But the MWD says that would violate a 2003 agreement that requires water sent to the sea to have been saved through fallowing or water-conservation devices installed on farmland. The mega-agency says the agreement assures that surplus water not needed by Imperial Valley farmers be made available to users in urban and suburban Southern California.

Lawyers are warming up on both sides. At stake, as always in these disputes, is a lot of water and money.

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: Salton Sea. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County has paid $2.2 million to settle a civil action alleging that it defrauded the Medicare program, officials at the hospital and the Department of Justice said Monday.

The allegation was levied by a former employee of the hospital. Under the federal "whistleblower" provision, the former employee, Pietro Ingrande, will receive $375,000 from the settlement amount.

"We are committed to helping preserve the (Medicare) system's integrity by vigorously pursuing those who attempt to steal the funds that help keep our fellow Americans in good health," said Keith Slotter, special agent in charge of the FBI"s San Diego office.

David Green, chief executive of the 156-bed hospital, which is owned by the city of El Centro, attributed the incorrect billing not to attempted fraud but to lack of clarity in Medicare rules involving the distinction between outpatient care and in-patient treatment. Hospitals receive higher reimbursement for the latter.

"It is an unfortunate error in reporting and was unintentional," Green said, adding that changes have been made in the hospital's billing process.

Under the settlement, the hospital remains eligible for Medicare reimbursement but was required to sign a "corporate integrity agreement" involving review of how federal money is spent on healthcare.

The actual amount of the overbilling was not disclosed. Under federal rules for Medicare, hospitals caught overbilling can be charged up to three times the amount of the overcharge.

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

A man trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in a truck packed with cocaine, methamphetamine and ammunition has been arrested, federal authorities said Tuesday.

Customs and Border Protection officers apprehended the 30-year-old Mexican citizen Saturday at the Calexico border crossing in Imperial County, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche allegedly contained 13 packages of cocaine weighing 33 pounds, 20 packages of methamphetamine weighing 30 pounds and 20 rounds of ammunition. The drugs, valued at $579,000, were hidden in compartments built into the rear fender of the vehicle, according to federal authorities.

Officers noticed that the truck had been possibly altered and ordered the driver to a secondary inspection area, where a drug-sniffing dog found the stash, authorities said.

The driver's name was not released. He was turned over to federal immigration authorities.

-- Robert J Lopez

Photo: Drugs pulled from hidden compartments. Credit: Department of Homeland Security

Ocotillo, population 296, was already on edge after a 7.2-magnitude quake struck Easter Sunday just across the Mexican border and caused minor damage in their tiny desert town.

And then the shaking came even closer to home.

The community just off Interstate 8 in Imperial County was five miles from the epicenter of the 5.7-magnitude earthquake that hit at 9:26 p.m. Monday. Since then, it has been rattled by dozens of aftershocks.

Adam Sarver, 25, was on the couch watching TV when the walls started violently shaking, sending glasses and books crashing to the floor.

“It almost looked like the roof was going to come down,” the manager of an off-road vehicle rental store said. “There's been little rumblers here and there all night, and they've still been going on since then.”

It was hard for Linda Ewing, 57, to find something around her house that wasn't damaged by the quake, which started rumbling just as she rested her head on her pillow to go to sleep.

Twenty-seven persons have been indicted in alleged drug smuggling rings in Imperial County tied to Mexican drug cartels, federal prosecutors announced today.

The indictments are the result of two undercover investigations: Operation Burrito Grande and Operation Imperial Strikes Back. Among the charges are money-laundering and conspiracy to smuggle and distribute methamphetamine.

The smugglers allegedly brought drugs through the Mexicali Valley into Imperial County at Calexico for shipment to the illicit drug markets in San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties. Some $1.9 million in cash was seized, officials said.

Of the 27, 17 are in custody, officials said.

-- Tony Perry, in San Diego