Since the Pinnacle has not yet posted their recent article to the archives yet, here is the text of the piece, written by Kate Woods:
The fight over public land
Off-roaders and plant lovers feud over the
purpose of public lands in Clear Creek, and both sides blame BLM for their
losses
By KATE WOODS
Pinnacle Staff Writer
Dirt biker Ed Tobin says he feels like “an Indian” because he's being pushed off
land he has loved since the early 1970s.
When BLM workers and volunteer plant lovers put a wire fence around five acres
of scrubby, rugged federal wilderness in remote San Benito County last December,
it re-ignited a 20-year feud between off-road vehicle enthusiasts and
environmentalists, two groups with no love lost between them.
“It's a blatant landgrab to appease the environmental community,” said Tobin,
leader of the Salinas Ramblers Motorcycle Club. “But you can't appease them. As
long as man sets foot on the earth, they won't be happy.”
At stake in this fight is a tiny threatened species of wildflower found only in
the serpentine soils of the Clear Creek Management Area in south San Benito
County: the Camissonia benitensis, or San Benito Evening Primrose.
The area happens to be the No. 1 off-road recreation vehicle site west of the
Rockies. A tiny flower standing, at best, about 2 inches tall on a hair-thin
stalk ending in a yellow bloom the size of a small moth doesn't stand a chance.
The Bureau of Land Management in Hollister – the federal stewards of this
50,000-acre mountainous expanse of naturally occurring asbestos and the hardy
vegetation that thrives in it – has been in the middle of the controversy,
feeling the heat from dirt bikers, plant lovers and attorneys. On the one hand,
the BLM's mission is to encourage multiple public uses of the area, but on the
other, the agency must protect the environment as well.
The conflicts between nature lovers and dirt bikers of Clear Creek have
escalated over the years, and the primrose habitat recently fenced in Larious
Canyon seems to be the catalyst prompting a full-blown legal war. As more
primrose habitats have been found and fenced, more fences have been found cut or
pulled apart by dirt bikers, including the fence in Larious Canyon.
“Clear Creek is a unique environment that provides challenges to us,” said
George Hill, Hollister BLM's assistant field manager. “We've had ongoing
problems with user compliance – trespassing, cutting fences. It's a small
percentage of (off-highway vehicle) users, but it's hard to get a handle on
it.” In mid-March, after an annual off-road race attracted hundreds of dirt
bikers clambering through a potential primrose site, the Monterey chapter of the
California Native Plant Society and the national Center for Biological Diversity
filed a formal intention to sue the Hollister BLM field office for allegedly not
protecting the Evening Primrose and seven other threatened plant species from
the wheels of off-roaders.
Two weeks ago the environmentalists, exasperated by BLM's inertia, took their
demands further by calling for an indefinite closure of the entire 50,000-acre
public park, considered by Dirt Biker Magazine to be one of the top 10 places to
ride in the nation because of its immense acreage and challenging mountain
terrain. BLM officials have yet to go that far. However, when the
environmentalists pressured them last November to protect the primrose,
Hollister BLM Field Manager Bob Beehler issued a warning to the OHV community to
stay off closed trails or the entire management area would be closed
indefinitely.
“We don't want to see Clear Creek closed to OHV use forever, just until (new
management decisions) are implemented,” said Brian LeNeve, spokesman for the
Monterey Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. “It's the only way to
make BLM do something.”
In mid-May, the Salinas Ramblers Motorcycle Club, teaming with a pro-recreation
land-use umbrella group called the national Blue Ribbon Coalition, based in
Idaho, filed their intention to sue the Hollister BLM, too. They claim BLM is
not managing the area and barring them from what are essentially citizen-owned
lands as the federal agency closes more and more trails to the off-roaders to
protect sensitive habitats. Of the roughly 900 miles of trails Tobin estimates
exist, 270 miles are marked with signs that say “open for OHV use.”
“We're like the Indians,” said Tobin. “And you know what happened to them. The
government speak with forked tongue.” When a violation of the Endangered
Species Act is cited in a lawsuit, plaintiffs must file a “Notice of Intent to
Sue” 60 days before filing the actual lawsuit. As of June 17, the 60 days for a
response to the plant society are up and BLM's Hill says his agency is still
preparing responses to both the California Native Plant Society and the Salinas
Ramblers. The letter to the plant society should be made available to the public
by next week, he said.
“We're re-editing
it and re-editing it,” said Hill, adding he can't reveal what the responses are
until they are sent to both parties. “They're sitting behind their desks and
screwing us,” said Tobin.
Undoing 20 years of work
The fight over public lands in San Benito seems to be a reflection of similar
skirmishes taking place across the state and the nation. Environmentalists are
on the defensive over what they see as the Bush administration's undoing of
hard-won green laws put in place over the past 20 years to save America's
dwindling flora and fauna from the hand of man.
According to a running tally kept by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Bush
and industry advisors are trying to roll back more than 150 environmental
policies ranging from over-grazing laws on leased federal lands to coastal
zoning planning laws to the Endangered Species Act itself.
The Bush attorneys argue that federal courts should have less authority over
federal agencies such as BLM. They are pursuing that philosophy in their appeal
to the Supreme Court over a recent ruling in the Gale Norton v. Southern Utah
Wilderness Alliance case, wherein the wilderness group sued Secretary of the
Interior Norton to force BLM to manage off-roaders who allegedly were ravaging
wilderness study areas.
The case has yet to be resolved, but the outcome could have far-reaching
effects. BLM Hollister has established a 2,000-acre natural research area within
the Clear Creek Management Area, of which about 700 acres is declared federal
wilderness -- where no motorized vehicles are allowed to venture. It is in the
research area where the San Benito Evening Primrose was first discovered in
1984. Since then, BLM botanists have mapped some 40 Evening Primrose habitats.
On the local level, battles over the use of public lands -- centering on
recreation versus protection -- have become something of a tradition. The
Hollister Hills State Off-Highway Vehicle Park on Cienega Road has had its share
of critics since its inception, when the late Howard Harris sold 3,200 acres of
his hilly Cienega Valley property to the state for an off-road park. Especially
annoyed are neighbors who bristle at the thunderous dirt bike noise and extra
traffic that clogs their country road.
When the park acquired the Hudner and Renz ranches four years ago to double the
size of the OHV playground, neighbors went into action. Nineteen of those
residents filed a lawsuit against Hollister Hills to make sure state officials
complied with environmental mitigations such as buffer zones and noise
reductions. In the end, Hollister Hills abided most of the demands but sour
feelings lingered.
“I wish all the motorcycles would go away and be replaced by campers and nature
walkers,” said Josh Jensen, who owns the Calera Winery a few miles down the road
from the state park. “And I wish Howard Harris never left it to the state,
because now it's never, ever going to go away.”
Meeting halfway
On Saturday, biker Tobin and his adversary LeNeve met in remote Clear Creek.
Atop a powdery serpentine mountain named Halfway Hill (one of 4,000 acres of
bald asbestos hills nearly devoid of plant life called “barrens”) the two batted
around their familiar arguments regarding riding on closed or unmarked trails
and the bit of common ground they share: their mutual disgust with BLM. Miles
away on an opposing mountain named Indian Hill, half a dozen dirt bikers looked
like ants scrambling up and down the steep white asbestos terrain.
The western side of Halfway Hill drops off into the deep Larious Canyon, home to those five acres of newly fenced Evening Primrose habitat. “We both want to see BLM manage the area,” said Tobin, standing in full dirt-bike leather regalia with a water pack on his back. “But they're using the primrose as an excuse to close down lands. They (environmentalists) act as if this is a pristine area. It used to be bare with mining activity 50 years ago, but it rebounded.”
“And I have the right to come to Clear Creek and not hear motorcycles and
breathe their dust,” said LeNeve, looking somewhat like a gardener and sporting
a straw hat. “Somewhere we have to find the middle, where we can both be happy.
Or unhappy.” Since October, LeNeve has spent weekends hiking through the rough
Clear Creek country to monitor the BLM fences that are supposed to protect the
primrose. He says the riders often cut through or go under the wire barriers --
and tear right through primrose habitat and streambeds. Most of the sites are in
areas already posted closed, but some are not fenced.
When LeNeve brings these breeches to the attention of BLM officials, the agency's maintenance workers reinforce the fences with wire cables, he says. “But why am I the one that's finding them?” said LeNeve. “Why aren't they? They are supposed to check all the fences weekly. They're not doing it.” BLM official Hill says three members of his staff check the fences weekly, but federal law prohibits the workers from lingering in the chrysotile-laden Clear Creek area for more than a few hours at a time because of the potential hazard from inhaling asbestos fibers. Maintenance of the roads and extensive monitoring must be done in the wet season, when the rains keep the asbestos dust to a muddy minimum. “It's a big constraint,” said Hill. “It limits our constructive activities to a five-month window.”
Tobin admits there are rogue bikers going where they shouldn't, but he adds that
trails get closed without input from or warning to the OHV community. As a
result, riders can get trapped riding through an area that a week before was
unfenced. That's what happened, he said, after BLM workers and members of the
plant society fenced off the five acres of Evening Primrose habitat in Larious
Canyon.
For decades, dirt bikers delighted in rip snorting down a near 90-degree
serpentine slope lined with manzanita they dubbed “The Tunnel of Trees,” which
ends in the canyon and the five acres of primrose habitat. Since going back up
the mountain was too steep (even for a dirt biker), the only way out of the
canyon was through the habitat. Boxed in, the riders cut the fence or went under
it. “They posted it in December as an 'emergency closure,'” said Tobin. “They
are constantly building these three sided fences, and all of a sudden riders get
trapped because they didn't expect a fence there.”
Who's managing the Management Area?
Since November, Tobin, too, has spent weekends in Clear Creek. In the mornings
he greets off-road enthusiasts at the southwestern entrance to Clear Creek to
advise them of the dos and don'ts of riding in the asbestos wonderland – and to
ask for donations to support the Salinas Ramblers' upcoming lawsuit against BLM.
Tobin says the OHV community wants to see the primrose saved, too, but not for
any environmental bent. If the flower isn't protected by BLM, Tobin fears the
plant society may get their way in convincing BLM to close the 50,000 acres of
Clear Creek to off-road riders.
If that were to happen, adds LeNeve, it could stay closed until the BLM finishes
another environmental impact study. The study should be done in September, says
Hill, but since it's been delayed year after year, neither LeNeve nor Tobin has
much faith in the BLM timetable.
“They discovered that population on the terrace in Larious Canyon in 1998,” he said. “They did nothing to protect it for years. When I confronted them and asked, 'Why didn't you protect this?' they said, 'Hey, we let you ride on it.' They are creating the controversy.”
Tobin and LeNeve both say BLM is dragging its feet on implementing the agency's
1998 decision to designate trails and closed areas and protect watersheds and
sensitive species, including the rare primrose. Six years after completing an
environmental assessment of the management area, the plant lover and the dirt
biker say they are still waiting for the agency to act. They believe BLM is
tossing out the 1998 decision in favor of this year's new environmental impact
study, before anything was accomplished.
Hill, however, counters that since 1995, his office has put up 20 miles of fencing, including one mile of steel pipe barriers and one mile of fencing reinforced with cable. “It's been a lengthy process,” said Hill. “It took a couple of years just to do the soil loss assessment,” a study of erosion on the biker trails. But perhaps a bigger issue in that 1998 plan is the wilderness and research area, which the agency promised would be expanded to 4,500 acres. So far, only 1,880 acres of it are off limits, and according to LeNeve, rarely patrolled. The Hollister office has only one ranger dedicated to patrolling the area full-time. “It all takes time,” said Hill. “We've been working on it since 1999.”
The Hollister BLM Field Office is responsible for 300,000 acres of federal lands
ranging from the Bay Area to San Luis Obispo, from Interstate 5 to the Coast
Range.
The prim primrose
As Tobin and LeNeve inspected a fenced Camissonia benitensis site near Indian
Hill, they bickered about which trails are open and which closed. “To me, if
there's a sign on it, it's not open,” said Tobin. “They can't put up enough
signs,” retorted LeNeve, as he inspected a recently repaired fence and some
“knobby” tracks – the impression left by a dirt bike tire – within the
enclosure.
“What's a trail?” LeNeve added rhetorically. “They ride wherever they damn well
please.” “Did you just pick a Camissonia benitensis?!” Tobin chided. But on
that bright June day in Clear Creek, the two never did find a San Benito Evening
Primrose, even though this is the month they are supposed to bloom. The lack of
rainfall this year kept most of the seeds – wherever they are – dormant.
Meanwhile, Tobin says his group will wait to see what the new environmental
impact statement says before moving ahead with a formal lawsuit.
“We will have to make a decision based on the EIS (environmental impact
statement),” said Tobin. “But if they start closing trails to our events (like
the Enduro race), I have no doubt we will go after them.
The one thing that both men – and BLM officials – agree on is that ultimately,
the best solution to the conflict is educational outreach. Hill said he plans to
station staff at the Clear Creek entrances, much like Tobin does now, to
instruct visitors on the rules of badlands dirt biking, and also to register the
off-roaders as they come in.
Sometime next year, that is.