Desert District Advisory Council (DAC)

Next Meeting Date: Saturday, December 8, 2001, 8:00 am
Location: Southwest Performing Arts Theater,
Southwest High School, 2001 Ocotillo Drive, El Centro, CA 92243
Right off the 8 at Imperial exit.

Contact: Doran Sanchez, (909) 697-5220
dasanche@ca.blm.gov
Agenda Items: NECO, NEMO

*** Very important meeting for anyone that enjoys off-roading in the Southern California desert.

More info here (http://209.164.8.75/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3754&FORUM_ID=44&CAT_ID=1&Topic_Title=DAC+meeting+a+must+attend%2E%2E%2E+Dec %2E+8th&Forum_Title=Wide+Open+Sand).

Crowdog

Saturday, 12/8, is one of the most important Desert Advisory Council
meetings to date.

The management plan for the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area is on the
fast track and it will be discussed at this DAC meeting. Capacity limits and
curfews are hot topics in the management plan. We must make it clear that
THESE OPTIONS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE since all other remedies have not yet been
exhausted. Only as a last resort would we be willing to accept them, and
then, only on a temporary as needed basis.

We need as many bodies there as possible. If we show apathy by not
attending in record numbers, the BLM will not take us seriously and continue
to operate as in the past. More importantly, if we do not make more of a
statement than the Environmentalists, they will have a greater influence on
the process than we - that is what got us where we are today.

Additionally, the NECO and NEMO Desert management plans will be discussed at
great length. These plans will be used to manage most of the desert in
California.


Meeting Date:
Saturday, December 8, 2001, 8:00 am

Location:
Southwest Performing Arts Theater,
Southwest High School
2001 Ocotillo Drive
El Centro, CA 92243
Right off the 8 at Imperial exit.

Map:http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&addr=2001+Ocotillo+Drive&city=
El+Centro&state=CA&slt=32.777400&sln=-115.578500&mlt=32.774000&mln=-115.5701
00&name=&zip=92243-9451&country=us&BFKey=&BFCat=&BFClient=&mag=10&desc=&cs=9
&newmag=8&poititle=&poi=

As usual, ASA, SDORC, CORVA, and etc. hats and shirts. Even if you don't
get up to speak, you've made an impact by showing our numbers.

From the ASA:

This is the itinerary for the Saturday 12/8/2001 Dac meeting. You will notice that issues pertaining to the ISDRA are addressed late in the afternoon.

Mr. Roy Denner sent the following:

Saturday, December 8

8 a.m. Opening Remarks Chair, Ilene Anderson
Pledge of Allegiance, Review Agenda, Meeting Process and Goals.

8:15 a.m. Review and Goals of Planning Efforts, Tim Read.
Draft Northern & Eastern Colorado Desert Coordination Management Plan
(NECO), Draft Northern & Eastern Mojave Plan (NEMO)

8:30 a.m. Cooperators Assisting in Planning Efforts
Desert Wildlife Unlimited-Norm Wuytens
California Native Plant Society-Steve Hartman

Council Q&As, Discussion

9:00 a.m. Science Review
Director, Center for Conservation Biology, University of California
Riverside-Mike Allen

Council Q&As, Discussion

9:30 a.m. Summary of Public Comments and Plan Amendments
Draft NECO Plan-Dick Crowe
Draft NEMO Plan-Edy Seehafer

Council Q&As, Discussion

10:00 a.m. Break

10:15 a.m. NEMO and NECO Planning Issues

12:00 p.m. Lunch

1:00 p.m. Continue Discussion of NEMO and NECO Planning Issues
Grazing Technical Review Team Report – Ron Kemper

Council Q&As, Discussion
Public Comment

Break

3:30 p.m. Council Action: Recommendations on NEMO and NECO Plans

4:00 p.m. Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area Resource Management Plan
Roxie Trost, Follow-up Greg Thomsen

4:15 p.m. Public Comment period
Chair, Topics Not On The Agenda

4:45 p.m. Closing Council Comments and Recommendations, Chair
Review of Next Meeting Date, Location and Agenda Topics:
March 8-9, 2002, Victorville, CA
Main Agenda Topic: West Mojave Plan

4:55 p.m. Meeting Summary – Tim Salt

5:00 p.m. Adjourn Meeting, Chair

Now as a side bar to this DAC meeting on Saturday. I find it amazing that we have to wait until (4:00 p.m.) the end of the day to hear what the BLM has to say about the ISDRA. Then we only get a total of thirty minutes to express our thoughts.

The persons that set the itinerary for these DAC meetings is the Chairperson of the DAC and BLMs Tim Salt. For your information the Chairperson is, Ms. Ilene Anderson and is a member of the “CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY” in good standing. This same organization is the same org. that recently filed, along with the CBD a lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service for critical habitat for eight different plants, one of which is our beloved PMV.

It might seem to some that we (sand lovers) are on the back burner, not by accident. Plan for a very long day folks but we all need to hang to show our resolve in all matters including the hard deserts. Besides Roy Denner is always entertaining.

Mark@STU
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just a little warning on the meeting. Even though the ISRDA isn't covered until later in the afternoon, it would probably be a good idea to show up much earlier (sorry, I'm from Alabama and can't make it ;) )

At the Forest Service meetings I've attended here, often times things are brought up at times and discussed out of turn. Plus if the meeting moves faster than anticipated, they will move the schedule up.

Just don't want anyone showing up at the scheduled time and missing out.

Robert

There is also a campaign to try to give ISDRA more time and earlier in the day.

Crowdog

Here is a link to the outcome of the meeting:
http://209.164.8.75/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4062&FORUM_ID=44&CAT_ID=1&Topic_Title=DAC+Meeting+12%2F8+Who+Was+There%3F&Forum_Title=Wide+Open+Sand

THE CALIFORNIA DESERT ADVISORY COUNCIL IS NO LONGER GREEN!

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) California Desert District Advisory Council (DAC) held a general meeting in El Centro on Friday, December 7th and Saturday, December 8th. The DAC advises the BLM on the management of 10 million acres of public lands in the California desert. The DAC has 15 members from various interest groups that are concerned about the California desert. Council members include representatives from local government agencies, cattle ranchers, mining interests, environmentalists, and recreation. I am your Recreation Representative on the DAC. Key items on the agenda were the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area Management Plan (RAMP); the NECO management plan, which covers the Imperial County portion of the desert along the Colorado River; and the NEMO management plan, which is for the northeastern part of the California desert district.

On Friday, the Council members, representatives of the BLM, and environmentalists were treated to a sand rail experience in the Glamis dunes. During the ride, Jerry Seaver, president of the American Sand Association (ASA), gave a presentation on the merits of sand duning as a recreational activity. He also explained why the Peirson Milkvetch plant – the plant that closed 49,300 acres of the dunes to OHV activity – is actually doing very well in the dunes, in spite of the vehicle activity. Many Council members, who had never been in a sand rail before, commented on how much they enjoyed their ride. With the exception of the environmental extremists, they all expressed support for OHV recreation in the dunes. Several members of SDORC and ASA took time out of their busy schedules to provide buggies for the duning neophytes. This contribution of time and effort will have a tremendous long-term political value for OHV recreation. All of the words in the world cannot describe the actual on-the-ground experience.

I could write a book about the DAC meeting on Saturday. This meeting was truly a turning point for OHV recreation. The meeting started at 8:00 a.m. and lasted until almost 8:00 p.m. There were about 3 or 4 hundred people in the audience – mostly OHV enthusiasts from SDORC, ASA, CORVA, and TDS. The following paragraphs describe the major items of interest coming from the meeting:

IMPERIAL SAND DUNES RAMP:
After a brief presentation by the BLM representative responsible for the RAMP preparation, I made a motion that the RAMP should include a provision for mitigating impacts to recreation just like it mitigates impacts to other endangered species. In other words, if the closures remain in effect, additional OHV opportunities should be provided to compensate for the loss of OHV recreation in the dunes. The motion passed 11 to 2. The negative votes were cast by the Sierra Club Council member and the DAC Chairperson, the representative for the Native Plant Society.

Wally Leimgruber, the Chairman of the Imperial County Board of Supervisors, got a unanimous vote to pass a resolution from the DAC to request support from the State of California to provide supplemental law enforcement officers during holiday weekends in the Imperial Sand Dunes.

SDORC’s attorney, David Hubbard, commented on the RAMP and, as usual, got everybody’s attention with his crystal-clear logic showing why the plan, as drafted, falls short of meeting Federal environmental laws as they exist. We managed to get Hubbard enough time to make his comments by having people sign up to speak and then relinquishing their time to him. David Hubbard is making it clear to the world that the OHV community is no longer going to be a pushover population!

OHV CLOSURES IN THE NECO PLANNING AREA:
The draft of the NECO (Northern and Eastern Colorado) desert management plan calls for the closure of 5 OHV areas. The strongest reason for these closures is that these OHV areas are being “under utilized”. Three of these areas are sand dune areas. I made the argument to the DAC that, since large areas of the Imperial Sand Dunes are being closed to OHV recreation, maybe these “under utilized” dunes might be very valuable to OHV use in the future. I made a motion that the DAC recommend that these closures be eliminated from the NECO management plan. The motion passed 11 to 2. Guess who the negative votes were.

MORE MITIGATION FOR OHV RECREATION:
The last, but not the least, action of the DAC had to do with the two major land management plans on the agenda – the NECO & NEMO Plans. I made a motion that each of these plans should include a mitigation provision to compensate for impacts to recreation caused by these plans. The DAC member who represents mining interests stated that mitigation should be provided for all uses of the California desert district. He indicated that road closures and closures of areas to the public are impacting mining interests as well as recreation interests. I modified my motion to recommend that impacts to all desert users should be mitigated. The motion passed with a vote of 11 to 2. No surprises here.

Once again, people relinquished their time to David Hubbard and he made it clear that, if the BLM tries to implement these major land management plans as they are drafted, we will take the battle to the Federal courts.

DELAY OF THE NECO & NEMO PLANS:
Testimony from the BLM’s own biologists made it very clear that the BLM has no idea about the status of the California Desert Tortoise. Unfortunately, major land use decisions are being made under the assumption that the Tortoise survival is threatened. The DAC, after hearing the input from the “experts”, voted to recommend that the desert management plans – driven by the Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan – should not be implemented until the Recovery Plan is updated and backed up by real science. This is a very important move, since many unbiased biologists feel that the Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan is seriously flawed and unsupported by scientific data.


CONCLUSION:
So what does all of this mean? If the Bureau of Land Management follows the DAC’s recommendations, the actions taken by the Desert Advisory Council will finally bring some sense of balance to the new land management plans being developed. Unfortunately, the BLM does not have a very good track record on following DAC recommendations relative to OHV issues. At last year’s October DAC meeting in Barstow, the DAC voted to recommend an expansion of the review period, and a mitigation provision, for the National OHV Management Strategy. The BLM held the review period to 30 days – including the Christmas and New Years holidays – and did not include a mitigation provision for recreation in the final plan.

An important difference today is the fact that it is not just the OHV community that is protesting the unfair land management plans being drafted by the BLM. The Counties of Imperial, San Bernardino, and Kern, as well as the city of Blythe are beginning to understand the economic impact that will result from the exclusion of OHV recreation in their districts. The same law suit that closed OHV areas in the sand dunes calls for cattle ranchers to remove their herds from BLM open grazing lands that their families have been using since this Country was founded. Other desert land users, such as miners, rock hounds, and the filming industry are complaining that the closure of desert roads and trails is cutting them off from access to favorite areas.

The battle lines are finally being drawn between the environmental extremist community and all of the rest of the rational desert public land users who are also practical environmentalists. I can only wonder when the BLM managers will start to respond to the overwhelming majority of public land users that pay their salaries and stop catering to the enviro-extremist minority!

I had the pleasure to meet Roy Last year at the Barstow DAC meeting....All I can say is

Roy is the fawkin' MAN!!


:usa:

Roy is a great advocate for us off-roaders. Here is an article he wrote for the San Diego Tribune last Summer.

http://www.crowley-offroad.com/san_diego_union_tribune.htm

Crowdog