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April Update

Wheels and Water X
Our big show is coming to the Dianne Jacob Lakeside Equestrian Park in Lakeside on May 31 and you are all welcome to join us. Entry is free and the vendors will be related to outdoor recreation, not just OHV. There will be a large car show on the grounds with all types of interesting vehicles, a kid’s zone, food and lots of great vendors. This will be a fun community event so come out and see all that we will have. Click here for details.

Ocotillo Wells Soil Plan
Last month we mentioned that Ocotillo Wells is making a Soil Conservation Plan and has released a draft for public comment. We looked through it and found some points to question in the plan. Below are some of the comments submitted by SDORC.

On page 45, the Catshead Management Unit is discussed. The Catshead Management Unit is within the open area of the park. We ask “why are trails being restored there?” From the Plan:
“The Catshead Rehabilitation project began in 2021 to reduce the overall amount of volunteer trails and improve native vegetation and habitat for wildlife. Volunteer trails are scrubbed up to 50 meters from mapped trails. The disturbed areas have been restored to a natural look through methods such as raking, rock placement, native plantings, and vertical mulching. Signs are used to encourage the public to stay on designated trails. Restoration will be maintained over time.”
Why in the world is the Park spending time and money to restore trails in an open area? OHV money should not be squandered in this fashion. We saw in the draft Park Management Plan a few years ago that they wanted to change the designation of this area to “stay on the trails”. If closing this area is a goal of the park, please wait until this designation is made before spending one penny restoring anything in the Catshead MU. This change of designation will need to be done in the general plan process and that is likely to take many years to complete.

On page 50 the Plan says:
“The five goals listed for Sparsely Vegetated Desert Dune in the 2015-2025 SWAP are:
• Increase acres where native species are dominant by at least 5%,
• Maintain or increase acres of habitat by at least 5%,
• Increase acres of habitat with suitable soil characteristics regimes by at least 5%,
• Increase acres of habitat with desired groundwater levels by at least 5%, and
• Increase acres of habitat with desired connectivity by at least 5%.”
This goal to increase by 5% is ridiculous! Keeping these habitats from shrinking should be the goal, not increasing them. Increasing them is crazy, and a waste of time and money by the park.

It is possible that the park will identify areas that need to be temporarily closed for repair due to excess erosion. The park needs to identify and publish the criteria that may cause roads and/or trails to be closed for maintenance.

We believe the park intends to add soil where it has been lost, due to OHV activity. When we look out at the world, we see areas where vast amounts of soil have been moved. I recently saw a gold mine where a large mountain was systematically removed, processed and replaced in a nearby location. Millions of cubic yards of soil were moved. Heavy rain, in or near the park, can move many tons of soil. I have personally come to the park after such weather events and found the ground has changed significantly. If I read correctly, this plan will have the park replace worn away soil. We prefer the park not spend excess amounts of money “restoring” soil when a little has been eroded. The park must establish and publish what thresholds create the need to restore soil. This threshold is not mentioned in the draft plan and the public should have the ability to comment on that aspect while the plan is in the draft phase. The plan must state what threshold will trigger the need to replace soil.

While all three of these plan aspects are annoying, this not showing what the criteria is for when to restore an area where soil has worn away is disturbing. It is possible that without an established threshold, the park could close any area where any erosion has occurred. The comment period for the soil conservation plan has closed and the park will be looking at making the final plan. There will be at least one more time when the public can weigh in on the plan and we will keep an eye out and make sure our voice is heard.

Grants
Green sticker grants are still out for public comment, and most are business as usual. The Imperial County Sheriff’s office has an unusual request. They are asking for $100,000 to buy a $130,000 high performance dune buggy. On the surface this seems a little crazy, but they actually have good justification. They intend to use this car out in the sand dunes, and they need a high-power car to chase bad guys who have similar high-powered cars. Having the sheriff with a high-power car out there can also be a deterrent to bad behavior. Law enforcement applicants can also ask for money to pay salaries for officers who work in off-road vehicle areas or going after people who are off-roading where they shouldn’t. This is what we want the money to be spent on. We added up all the hours in their applications they plan to work on OHV and got 16,265. Of those hours, they want the state to pay for 10,769 hours of law enforcement to work on off-road vehicle activities. This seems a bit high and we will point that out to the grant administrators in our comments.

I noticed that the Barona MX grant application had been removed from the list. I called the track to find out why and they said there was a problem with the type of entity they are. They applied as an LLC, but that type of entity is not approved by the state for grants. They are in the process of becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and then they will be eligible for grants. I told them about RTP grants (Federal Recreational Trails Program) and will look for them next year.

Bills
Leno’s Law SB712 is a bill we recently heard about that we like and are supporting. This bill would fully exempt classic cars (35 model years or older) from smog check requirements both biennially and at transfer. Currently cars older than 1976 are exempt from smog checks. I was interested in what the market looked like for cars older than 35 years, so I looked in cars and trucks on Craigslist and set the year for 1991 and older. I was surprised that almost every single car for sale was an interesting hobby car, ones that few people would consider driving to work regularly. A good number of them were off-road vehicles also. I thought that this bill would get beat back by the clean air lobby, but I saw a provision in the language that says cars exempt from smog testing would have to be insured as collector motor vehicles and proof would need to be submitted to the state. Given this insurance requirement, the bill might make it through.

SB563 would expand the entities that are eligible for state parks OHV grants. The bill’s language says, “This bill would expand eligible grant and cooperative agreement applicants to include special districts that employ sworn personnel, as provided.” We believe that there are only five special districts, and we don’t believe they have OHV in them. We don’t have a strong opinion about this bill, but will keep an eye on it.

SB586 would add electric bicycles or Emotos to vehicles that can receive green stickers and be legally used on public land.

Oceano Dunes
The court of appeals recently ruled against the California Coastal Commission, allowing OHV use to continue at Oceano Dunes. The court said that only a change to the county Local Coastal Plan could change the status of OHV in Oceano Dunes. This is a big win for all of us and SDORC just presented Friends of Oceano Dunes with a check for $2500.

Little things
Our recent BLM Desert Advisory Council meeting was canceled. This was because of the new administration. I find the DAC and meeting with the BLM to be very productive, and it is sad we are not meeting. All the federal agencies that manage public land have had deep staff cuts and this is tough for us. The Cleveland National Forest lost four of six people working with OHV. We need staff there to manage our land to keep OHV sustainable.

Tierra Del Sol hosted an area cleanup at Valley of the Moon recently and collected a large load of trash with about 40 participants. I used my magnet on a pole and collected nails in the staging/camping area. I got about 1/3 of a five-gallon bucket worth of nails and other steel trash. If you like technical driving or riding, the trails there are fun, challenging and green sticker legal. It is located south of Highway 8 just before you drop into the desert.

We will be in the Lakeside Parade this year and all OHVs are welcome to join us. It will be April 26. Contact us at [email protected] or find us on our social media if you would like to join us.

We still meet in person on the first Tuesday of each month at Ranch House Restaurant on Woodside Dr at 6:30. We would love to see old friends and make new ones, so consider joining us.

Ed Stovin, President
San Diego Off-Road Coalition