rtrsam
06-09-2007, 12:09 PM
This is a copy of a news report. I love how the concept that the soils MIGHT contain some sort of mold spores was used, Next thing, any excavation work will have to be examined shovel by shovel for the presence of some sort of rare soil microorganisms. If you can't prove it ISN'T there, we must assume that is IS there...
Dirt divide
A convergence of glitches sank an off-road recreation park at Wofford Ranch, but OHV proponents aren't giving up
BY JAMES BURGER, Bakersfield Californian staff writer
e-mail: jburger@bakersfield.com | Saturday, Jun 2 2007 9:05 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Jun 2 2007 9:18 PM
An off-road motor sports park near Bakersfield isn't completely dead -- despite a near-fatal blow delivered by state bureaucrats in December.
Locals have spent the past five months mulling over the collapse of a five-year effort to bring a State Vehicular Recreation Area to an 11,000-acre cattle ranch north of Bakersfield.
Now two key figures in that campaign, off-highway activist Dick Taylor and his new boss, Kern County Supervisor Mike Maggard, say they plan to find a new location and start their quest again.
Nobody is rushing this process.
Someone has to figure out what went wrong last time. Perhaps that discovery will help the state agency tasked with managing off-road recreation in California figure out how to build the first new state off-highway park in 18 years.
And perhaps that park could be in Bakersfield.
Death by a thousand cuts
A lot of little things lead Daphne Greene, deputy director of the California Off-Highway Vehicle Division of the State Parks Department, to kill plans for an off-highway park on the Wofford Ranch north of Round Mountain Road in the rolling foothills above Bakersfield.
City of Bakersfield officials, who found the property for the state, hadn't found a way to connect the land to a main road.
Local environmental groups didn't want off-roaders crossing Poso Creek, which runs through the eastern half of the ranch.
Surveyors found rock paintings and evidence of American Indian milling sites strewn across the eastern side of the property.
And there were some large chunks of private land within the site.
The final nail in the coffin was an assessment about the soils on the ranch.
Will Harris of the California Geological Survey reported that it would probably be very dusty and the dirt might have valley fever spores.
He created dramatically colored maps showing high erosion and spore risks spreading like cancer across the land.
Those maps made a big impact on Greene.
Components of failure
Greene said none of these smaller issues, alone, would have killed the park.
But considered together they made Wofford Ranch unsupportable as a state off-highway park.
In December, just before the Kern County Board of Supervisors voted to bless an environmental review of the project -- and shift the responsibility for the project to Greene's team of state bureaucrats -- Greene said the state would not support the site.
If supervisors had OK'd the project, the state would have been obliged to spend between $8 million and $11 million to buy the Wofford Ranch.
Greene said she didn't want to risk throwing that money away on land that might not be able to support a park.
Her decision was a quick kill for the project.
And it was a shock for the team of locals who had been fighting for a park for five years.
"Every light was green," said Maggard.
Then every light died.
Dirt in the wound
One particularly difficult thing for local supporters of the project to swallow was Harris' soils report.
Greene said she commissioned the report in fall of 2006 -- when state worries about the project site started to grow.
"All of us independently and collectively know how important it is to get a park," Greene said.
But she said she'd begun to worry that problems were being glossed over in a rush to get an environmental report approved and the land purchased.
Harris said he visited Wofford Ranch a couple of times, touring the land on a dirt bike.
But he didn't take soil samples. He didn't test for valley fever spores.
What he did do was take a National Resources Conservation Services report on soil characteristics in Kern County and plug its data into Geological Survey formulas.
"Soil sampling was not necessary for that analysis," Harris said. "To do any meaningful soil sampling, I would still be out there sampling."
Harris' computations were used to create the maps which created such an impact on Greene's opinion of the Wofford Ranch site.
Project supporters struggled with the fact that Harris' report showed only probable conditions on the property.
Greene said Harris' survey was much more "thorough" than those done for the environmental impact report which studied the project's feasibility. That EIR actually sampled soils on the site and delivered a much less dire assessment of soil erosion hazards.
Phil Jenkins, the top employee in Greene's division, said the EIR assumed trails would be watered but he couldn't figure out how he was going to get a tanker truck into areas where only single-track motorcycle trails ran.
In the end Greene trusted Harris' assessment.
"It was (Harris) and his whole agency that was behind him," Greene said.
Sudden loss
Maggard and Taylor kicked off the local push for an off-highway park five years ago after housing development began to push off-roaders from the Kern River bluffs above Hart Park.
Riders had motored across the private land, illegally, for more than four decades.
Land owners never made much of a fuss until it came time to sell.
Taylor, president of the Kern Off-Highway Vehicle Association, called for city and county leaders to help him build a permanent home for riders near Bakersfield.
Maggard, who represented the bluffs area as a Bakersfield councilman, promised to help if riders would agree to go somewhere else.
Both men were stunned in Dec. 2006 when their efforts collapsed under Greene's disapproval.
Looking back, nearly everyone involved acknowledges the process had flaws.
The city was trying to promote a state-funded off-highway park. Taylor filled the role of official cheerleader for the effort. The county, not the state, audited the environmental review.
State officials, including some from Greene's division, worked hand-in-hand with the city and county from the beginning.
But much of what they did was advisory.
Lessons learned
Greene said the state has learned some lessons from the Bakersfield process.
In Bakersfield, she said, everyone believed issues like the lack of road access to the land, American Indian sites and soil erosion dangers had solutions.
No one wanted the project to stall while those solutions were found.
So the project moved forward.
Maggard said the state had been told about all of the possible problems from the outset.
So some supporters lashed out in frustration when Greene ruled that the mass of unsolved issues had become too large to keep the park alive.
"We have very low confidence in their ability to do anything," said Bakersfield planner Mark Gauthier of Off-Highway Division officials at the time. "The city found the site. We got an option on the property. We have literally done all the work that their bosses thought they would be unable to do."
Ed Waldheim, president of the California Off-Road Vehicle Association, said he doesn't fault Greene for killing the Wofford Ranch site.
She was, he said, trying to keep the project from being a financial black hole for the division.
The problem, he said, lies in the months and years of state involvement that led to her decision.
"Why weren't some of those issues worked out beforehand?" he asked. "I fault the whole system, that all these things were brought up before, and nothing was done."
Maggard and Taylor said they felt like the Bakersfield community did all the hard work only to have the rug pulled out from under it as the state took over.
"If I were to do it again," Maggard said, "I would find a way for the state to be the facilitator and not a couple of local guys who were just trying to help."
Greene, who came into her position in the middle of the the park's development process, said the same thing.
"A lot more work needs to be done upfront," she said. "The state has to be in the leadership role. There has to be constant communication."
Round two?
So will there be a next time?
Maggard said plans are already moving.
Millions of dollars that could have gone to the Bakersfield park are still in state coffers.
But Maggard isn't sure he'll be going after that money.
Greene said she supports a state off-highway park in the Central Valley and cheered Maggard's willingness to try again in Bakersfield.
She also suggest that counties across the state look at creating off-highway parks that are owned and controlled by local government.
Maggard is keeping future plans close to his vest -- for now.
"I'm hopeful that we can have more than one OHV opportunity for people in Kern County, and we are working toward that end," he said.
There is already a search going on for a new site for the park -- someplace that doesn't have all the problems that made Wofford Ranch unacceptable to Greene, Maggard said.
But he said it's too soon to talk about specific sites.
And there is a ton of work to do before formal consideration starts.
This time, he said, there has to be a way to avoid nasty surprises.
By the numbers
$25 — “Green sticker” off-highway vehicle recreation fee every two years
$60 million — Approximate annual budget of the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Division
More information
Kern County off-highway motorcyclists have wanted a home of their own for years, as they watched their riding areas be eaten up by urban growth and land preservation efforts.
The issue came to a head in 2000 when trails advocates championed plan on the Kern River bluffs — a plan which pushed motorized vehicles out of the area.
In exchange for off-highway support for the open-space plan, trails advocates and environmentalists told off-road leaders they’d support the concept of a permanent off-highway park near Bakersfield.
The road to an off-highway park has not been smooth, and it got really bumpy in December 2006.
An off-highway time line
2000-2003 — The Northeast Bakersfield Open Space Area, and a trails and parks plan, are developed.
August 2003 — The city of Bakersfield gets $2 million in off-highway trust funds to plan a State Vehicular Recreation Area.
March 2004 — Bakersfield police crack down on off-roaders riding on the Kern River bluffs.
May 2005 — City of Bakersfield officials ink a purchase option deal for 11,000 acres north of the city.
February 2006 — A notice is issued that planners will do an environmental review of the project.
March 2006 — Meetings are held to allow the public to identify possible environmental problems that need to be studied.
June 2006 — A draft copy of the environmental report is issued.
Sept. 28, 2006 — The Kern County Planning Commission voted to approve an environmental report on the Wofford Ranch site and allow the project to go forward.
December 19, 2006 — State Off-Highway Vehicle Division chief Daphne Greene informs the Kern County Board of Supervisors she is killing the Wofford Ranch site.
Dirt divide
A convergence of glitches sank an off-road recreation park at Wofford Ranch, but OHV proponents aren't giving up
BY JAMES BURGER, Bakersfield Californian staff writer
e-mail: jburger@bakersfield.com | Saturday, Jun 2 2007 9:05 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Jun 2 2007 9:18 PM
An off-road motor sports park near Bakersfield isn't completely dead -- despite a near-fatal blow delivered by state bureaucrats in December.
Locals have spent the past five months mulling over the collapse of a five-year effort to bring a State Vehicular Recreation Area to an 11,000-acre cattle ranch north of Bakersfield.
Now two key figures in that campaign, off-highway activist Dick Taylor and his new boss, Kern County Supervisor Mike Maggard, say they plan to find a new location and start their quest again.
Nobody is rushing this process.
Someone has to figure out what went wrong last time. Perhaps that discovery will help the state agency tasked with managing off-road recreation in California figure out how to build the first new state off-highway park in 18 years.
And perhaps that park could be in Bakersfield.
Death by a thousand cuts
A lot of little things lead Daphne Greene, deputy director of the California Off-Highway Vehicle Division of the State Parks Department, to kill plans for an off-highway park on the Wofford Ranch north of Round Mountain Road in the rolling foothills above Bakersfield.
City of Bakersfield officials, who found the property for the state, hadn't found a way to connect the land to a main road.
Local environmental groups didn't want off-roaders crossing Poso Creek, which runs through the eastern half of the ranch.
Surveyors found rock paintings and evidence of American Indian milling sites strewn across the eastern side of the property.
And there were some large chunks of private land within the site.
The final nail in the coffin was an assessment about the soils on the ranch.
Will Harris of the California Geological Survey reported that it would probably be very dusty and the dirt might have valley fever spores.
He created dramatically colored maps showing high erosion and spore risks spreading like cancer across the land.
Those maps made a big impact on Greene.
Components of failure
Greene said none of these smaller issues, alone, would have killed the park.
But considered together they made Wofford Ranch unsupportable as a state off-highway park.
In December, just before the Kern County Board of Supervisors voted to bless an environmental review of the project -- and shift the responsibility for the project to Greene's team of state bureaucrats -- Greene said the state would not support the site.
If supervisors had OK'd the project, the state would have been obliged to spend between $8 million and $11 million to buy the Wofford Ranch.
Greene said she didn't want to risk throwing that money away on land that might not be able to support a park.
Her decision was a quick kill for the project.
And it was a shock for the team of locals who had been fighting for a park for five years.
"Every light was green," said Maggard.
Then every light died.
Dirt in the wound
One particularly difficult thing for local supporters of the project to swallow was Harris' soils report.
Greene said she commissioned the report in fall of 2006 -- when state worries about the project site started to grow.
"All of us independently and collectively know how important it is to get a park," Greene said.
But she said she'd begun to worry that problems were being glossed over in a rush to get an environmental report approved and the land purchased.
Harris said he visited Wofford Ranch a couple of times, touring the land on a dirt bike.
But he didn't take soil samples. He didn't test for valley fever spores.
What he did do was take a National Resources Conservation Services report on soil characteristics in Kern County and plug its data into Geological Survey formulas.
"Soil sampling was not necessary for that analysis," Harris said. "To do any meaningful soil sampling, I would still be out there sampling."
Harris' computations were used to create the maps which created such an impact on Greene's opinion of the Wofford Ranch site.
Project supporters struggled with the fact that Harris' report showed only probable conditions on the property.
Greene said Harris' survey was much more "thorough" than those done for the environmental impact report which studied the project's feasibility. That EIR actually sampled soils on the site and delivered a much less dire assessment of soil erosion hazards.
Phil Jenkins, the top employee in Greene's division, said the EIR assumed trails would be watered but he couldn't figure out how he was going to get a tanker truck into areas where only single-track motorcycle trails ran.
In the end Greene trusted Harris' assessment.
"It was (Harris) and his whole agency that was behind him," Greene said.
Sudden loss
Maggard and Taylor kicked off the local push for an off-highway park five years ago after housing development began to push off-roaders from the Kern River bluffs above Hart Park.
Riders had motored across the private land, illegally, for more than four decades.
Land owners never made much of a fuss until it came time to sell.
Taylor, president of the Kern Off-Highway Vehicle Association, called for city and county leaders to help him build a permanent home for riders near Bakersfield.
Maggard, who represented the bluffs area as a Bakersfield councilman, promised to help if riders would agree to go somewhere else.
Both men were stunned in Dec. 2006 when their efforts collapsed under Greene's disapproval.
Looking back, nearly everyone involved acknowledges the process had flaws.
The city was trying to promote a state-funded off-highway park. Taylor filled the role of official cheerleader for the effort. The county, not the state, audited the environmental review.
State officials, including some from Greene's division, worked hand-in-hand with the city and county from the beginning.
But much of what they did was advisory.
Lessons learned
Greene said the state has learned some lessons from the Bakersfield process.
In Bakersfield, she said, everyone believed issues like the lack of road access to the land, American Indian sites and soil erosion dangers had solutions.
No one wanted the project to stall while those solutions were found.
So the project moved forward.
Maggard said the state had been told about all of the possible problems from the outset.
So some supporters lashed out in frustration when Greene ruled that the mass of unsolved issues had become too large to keep the park alive.
"We have very low confidence in their ability to do anything," said Bakersfield planner Mark Gauthier of Off-Highway Division officials at the time. "The city found the site. We got an option on the property. We have literally done all the work that their bosses thought they would be unable to do."
Ed Waldheim, president of the California Off-Road Vehicle Association, said he doesn't fault Greene for killing the Wofford Ranch site.
She was, he said, trying to keep the project from being a financial black hole for the division.
The problem, he said, lies in the months and years of state involvement that led to her decision.
"Why weren't some of those issues worked out beforehand?" he asked. "I fault the whole system, that all these things were brought up before, and nothing was done."
Maggard and Taylor said they felt like the Bakersfield community did all the hard work only to have the rug pulled out from under it as the state took over.
"If I were to do it again," Maggard said, "I would find a way for the state to be the facilitator and not a couple of local guys who were just trying to help."
Greene, who came into her position in the middle of the the park's development process, said the same thing.
"A lot more work needs to be done upfront," she said. "The state has to be in the leadership role. There has to be constant communication."
Round two?
So will there be a next time?
Maggard said plans are already moving.
Millions of dollars that could have gone to the Bakersfield park are still in state coffers.
But Maggard isn't sure he'll be going after that money.
Greene said she supports a state off-highway park in the Central Valley and cheered Maggard's willingness to try again in Bakersfield.
She also suggest that counties across the state look at creating off-highway parks that are owned and controlled by local government.
Maggard is keeping future plans close to his vest -- for now.
"I'm hopeful that we can have more than one OHV opportunity for people in Kern County, and we are working toward that end," he said.
There is already a search going on for a new site for the park -- someplace that doesn't have all the problems that made Wofford Ranch unacceptable to Greene, Maggard said.
But he said it's too soon to talk about specific sites.
And there is a ton of work to do before formal consideration starts.
This time, he said, there has to be a way to avoid nasty surprises.
By the numbers
$25 — “Green sticker” off-highway vehicle recreation fee every two years
$60 million — Approximate annual budget of the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Division
More information
Kern County off-highway motorcyclists have wanted a home of their own for years, as they watched their riding areas be eaten up by urban growth and land preservation efforts.
The issue came to a head in 2000 when trails advocates championed plan on the Kern River bluffs — a plan which pushed motorized vehicles out of the area.
In exchange for off-highway support for the open-space plan, trails advocates and environmentalists told off-road leaders they’d support the concept of a permanent off-highway park near Bakersfield.
The road to an off-highway park has not been smooth, and it got really bumpy in December 2006.
An off-highway time line
2000-2003 — The Northeast Bakersfield Open Space Area, and a trails and parks plan, are developed.
August 2003 — The city of Bakersfield gets $2 million in off-highway trust funds to plan a State Vehicular Recreation Area.
March 2004 — Bakersfield police crack down on off-roaders riding on the Kern River bluffs.
May 2005 — City of Bakersfield officials ink a purchase option deal for 11,000 acres north of the city.
February 2006 — A notice is issued that planners will do an environmental review of the project.
March 2006 — Meetings are held to allow the public to identify possible environmental problems that need to be studied.
June 2006 — A draft copy of the environmental report is issued.
Sept. 28, 2006 — The Kern County Planning Commission voted to approve an environmental report on the Wofford Ranch site and allow the project to go forward.
December 19, 2006 — State Off-Highway Vehicle Division chief Daphne Greene informs the Kern County Board of Supervisors she is killing the Wofford Ranch site.