Los Angeles utility officials will consider burying some of the transmission lines for their ambitious renewable energy proposal that could run through desert preserves and the San Bernardino National Forest, the city's top energy officials told a boisterous and sometimes angry crowd Saturday.

David Nahai, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said he hoped that placing transmission lines underground would allay concerns that the towering structures would mar scenic vistas and private property.

"I pledge to you we will minimize, to the extent we can, our impacts on the environment and our impacts on private property," he told the crowd packed into a gym at Yucca Valley High School during the agency's first public meeting in the Inland region.

While some in the crowd appeared to support the underground possibility, Robin Kobaly, a wildlife biologist from Morongo Valley, and others pointed out that digging up the land could mar the sensitive desert landscape for years and harm plants that have lived there for perhaps 1,000 years.

The Green Path North proposal would draw geothermal energy from the heat generated below the earth's surface at the Salton Sea. The energy would be transmitted to a proposed substation in Victorville, where it would join up with existing transmission lines heading to Los Angeles.

Banning would draw a small portion of energy from the project; Riverside and Colton have the option of doing the same. There are six proposed transmission routes, one which would run between Interstate 10 and Highway 60 between interstates 215 and 15, possibly condemning up to 3,500 homes and other property.

Riverside and San Bernardino County supervisors have passed resolutions saying they are against transmission routes that would go through environmentally sensitive lands.

During the two-hour meeting, some 500 residents who came from Desert Hot Springs, Twentynine Palms and other towns that line Highway 62 sat in fold-out chairs; others stood. At times, boos and heckles from the crowd interrupted Nahai.

The California Desert Coalition, which formed to oppose the proposal, took out a newspaper ad that urged residents to wear red to display their anger. Many did so, wearing red shirts, hats, scarves, and even tiny rubber bands to hold back their hair. They said they weren't against a quest for renewable energy but wanted it done without harm to their homes and the environment they hold dear.

"We have a lot to protect here; we have a lot to fight for," said April Sall, a coalition leader.

Russell Betts, a Desert Hot Springs city councilman, said one transmission route would economically harm the town by slicing through a proposed commercial zone. He suggested that Los Angeles officials are expecting desert residents to "absorb the cost of their operation."

Nahai apologized to the crowd that the agency under a previous chief stuck survey markers on private property and reserves to mark where transmission towers might go. He said he ordered them removed in April.

Nahai said the Los Angeles utility, like all others in the state, have to wean themselves from coal-generated power, a large contributor to greenhouse gases that lead to climate change, scientists say. He asked the crowd to recognize that his city's goals to develop renewable energy from the Salton Sea are just. Those geothermal resources, he said, can generate 2,000 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power about 1.5 million homes.

"It would be a dereliction of duty to not explore nature's gift," Nahai said.

One transmission route under consideration would slice through Oak Glen's famous apple orchards, nestled in the foothills of the San Bernardino National Forest. Apple growers there have passed their own resolution opposing the proposal, said David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, one of the Inland region's most successful land conservancy groups, which has an organic apple orchard.

"If they think they have a fight on this side of the mountain," he said, "wait until they get to Oak Glen."