Dunes areas to reopen under plan

By LAURA MITCHELL

Staff Writer

Half of the areas closed for environmental reasons last October at the Imperial Sand Dunes will be reopened for the next off-road season under a draft area management plan, county officials say.

Other changes in the plan include closing at night Competition Hill, an infamous rowdy area of the dunes, and limiting alcohol to camping areas, county Supervisor Wally Leimgruber said.

Leimgruber was briefed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management last week on the contents of the draft plan.

Sand dunes enthusiasts and environmentalists have anxiously awaited the recreation area management plan, released late last week by the BLM, which oversees the dunes.

Copies of the plan will not be available at the BLM's El Centro field office until Friday, said Bruce Shaffer, associate district manager of the bureau's California Desert District.

The BLM closed a total of 49,300 acres last fall to vehicles in five separate areas in the dunes as part of a settlement with environmental groups after they sued the bureau.

The Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility sued BLM to force it to close portions of the sand dunes in order to comply with the Endangered Species Act. Endangered species found in the Imperial Sand Dunes include the desert tortoise and the purple-flowered Peirson's milk vetch.

"I can tell you right off the bat we'll be fighting them," said desert ecologist Daniel Patterson of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity.

Patterson said he hasn't seen the document but he is certainly opposed to the BLM reopening half the area closed last fall. He thinks reopening those areas will put a strain on an already short number of rangers.

"What is their scientific basis for doing this? The best available science shows the Peirson's milk vetch needs protection," he said.

Patterson was angry that governmental officials were given details of the plan before environmentalists.

The BLM is sponsoring six public hearings in April to get comments on the draft plan.

Patterson said environmentalists are concerned the BLM has scheduled meetings where a concentration of off-roaders live.

He said it is too early to determine if there will be another lawsuit as a result of the draft plan.

American Sand Association president Jerry Seaver said he hasn't seen the draft plan but he's not surprised to hear it proposes to close Competition Hill at night or limit alcohol.

"The bureau has been talking about doing these things for several years now," Seaver said.

He said an evaluation by the bureau several years ago made the same suggestions.

Peirson's milk vetch was put on the endangered species list based on a 1990 BLM report that said the main threat to the plant was off-highway vehicles, Seaver said. A report in 1998 reached the conclusion the plant is as plentiful as it was during an earlier study in 1977.

Seaver said he does not expect to get a copy of the draft plan until Friday. He and members of his organization will be attending the draft plan public hearings.

"It's important for us to give input on this. We'll have to live with it for a long time," Seaver said.

It seems this Patterson is extremely pissed at every thing the BLM is doing fairly, or at least the exact opposite of what the greens want. It's about time they get some of their own medicine back.....


:usa:

Originally posted by Yellowsub1962
It seems this Patterson is extremely pissed at every thing the BLM is doing fairly, or at least the exact opposite of what the greens want. It's about time they get some of their own medicine back.....


:usa:

Patterson is EVERYWHERE. Once you start paying attention to names like the Center for Biological Diversity, you will see how much they are involved in everything.

They need to be exposed as much as possible so the general public can understand what they really are after.

Crowdog

U.S. Seeks to Reopen Area to Off-Roaders
Desert: Plan would overturn Clinton decision that curbed use of sand dunes.

Mar 28, 2002


By SCOTT GOLD, TIMES STAFF WRITER


The federal government wants to overturn key parts of a Clinton-era decision that helped preserve a large patch of desert dunes in southeastern California, a move that would reopen thousands of acres to off-road vehicles, officials said Wednesday.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management declined to discuss the new plan in detail. But several officials said it would allow at least limited off-road vehicle access to thousands of acres in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area where off-road vehicles are currently banned.

The proposal will be announced today or Friday, officials said. Roy Denner, a Lakeside resident who sits on two citizen panels that advise the BLM on use of the desert, said the proposal would reopen 15,000 acres to off-road vehicle use with no limitations. Another chunk of land, he said, as many as 35,000 acres, could be opened with strict limits on the number of riders each day--probably about 500. The plan--a draft, subject to a 90-day public comment period once it is released--is expected to become official by the end of the year.

Word of the plan has enraged conservationists, who thought their campaign to control dust pollution and preserve sensitive plants and animals, many of which can survive only in the dunes, had been won.

The new plan would trump portions of a November 2000 legal agreement between the BLM and a group of environmentalists who filed a federal lawsuit largely to protect a rare plant they said was being decimated by off-road vehicles.

The settlement banned off-road vehicles on 49,000 acres of the recreation area. Those curbs were seen as temporary until the BLM enacted a permanent plan to manage the site. This new proposal is part of that plan, which conservationists say will render the legal settlement moot.

"They are basically reopening the dunes," said Kristen Brengel, campaign manager for the Washington-based Natural Trails and Waters Coalition, a consortium of about 90 environmental organizations.

"It just amazes me," she said. "This is one of the most precious places in Southern California.... We need to preserve it so it's there for future generations to enjoy."

Michael Harrison, press secretary for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine), a congressman who has been closely involved in the preparation of the proposal, said the federal government is merely taking "a common-sense approach to solving environmental concerns."

Tony Staed, deputy director of communications for the Bureau of Land Management in Sacramento, said the BLM is fighting hard to please all sides in what has become a fierce battle over the public's right to use public land as it sees fit.

"The bureau is trying to work out acceptable use of the desert to all parties concerned," he said.

"I know that's a wide-open statement. We are doing our best.... It's trying to achieve that balance that is so critical. I think we can do that."

Harrison and off-road enthusiasts made it clear Wednesday that they had hoped to eliminate portions of the 18-month-old settlement as soon as President Bush took office.

"The Clinton administration was very, very far to the extreme environmental position," said Denner, who is president and chief executive of a trade association of companies that cater to off-road vehicle enthusiasts.

"I don't think the new administration is swinging the pendulum all the way in the other direction," he said. "The new administration has opened the door to reasonable and balanced land management practices. We do not want the right to run off-highway vehicles helter- skelter all over public lands. But neither do we want to be closed out. And that's where the Clinton administration was heading."

About 25 miles east of Brawley, the Imperial recreation area stretches nearly 40 miles from the Chocolate Mountains to the Mexican border, the largest dune formation in California. Some dunes rise more than 300 feet off the desert floor, making them a suitable home for hundreds of species of rare creatures and plants as well as a desirable site for riders of dune buggies, Baja Bugs, motorcycles, trucks and all-terrain vehicles.

Because the area is so big, so isolated and so arid--average rainfall is about 2 inches a year and summer temperatures routinely soar to 110 degrees--it is considered a unique habitat. Its many plants and animals include the silver-leafed Algodones Dunes sunflower and 12 species of beetle, ecologists say.

Some weekends, as many as 200,000 off-road enthusiasts swarm the dunes. Thanksgiving weekend, law enforcement officials reported a stabbing, a fatal shooting, an attack on a ranger who had pulled someone over for speeding, and dozens of crashes that caused 200 injuries and two deaths.

Much of the environmental concern centers on the Peirson's milk vetch, an endangered plant that grows only in the Imperial Valley desert.

Off-road enthusiasts have hired their own biologists who they say have shown that the plant is surviving quite well.

And Harrison scoffed Wednesday at the environmentalists' efforts--"all in purposes of saving a weed," he said.

Brengel responded: "First of all, it isn't a weed. Second of all, we need to treat our land with respect. To just call it a weed and just throw your hands up and say, 'Who cares?'--that's not the way land should be managed. And that's not why Americans have laws in place to protect land and endangered species."

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article, go to www.lats.com/rights.

:usa:

Danny Patterson fancies himself as a Desert Ecologist, or so it is reported in EVERY article I've seen about him. He is also media hound par excellence. I think his real title should be Media Development/Public Relations Manager.

I have yet to find ANY site on the web that list's Danny's qualifications. Most unversities have some sort of alumni group, publish MS and PhD theses link, etc. I have found nothing

I posted at another bbs about some eco-kook whining about the re-opening. I said, "easy come, easy go." Tell it to Tim Salt


P.S. took my first ride on a quad last weekend. 660 yammie raptor--bitchen

"It just amazes me," she said. "This is one of the most precious places in Southern California.... We need to preserve it so it's there for future generations to enjoy."

What an idiot.... :rolleyes: How do they enjoy it if it's closed?