Re: Off Road Issue in the NY Times

This pretty much tells it like it is.

Some good news is the Barstow BLM, the San Bernardino National Forest and the San Bernardibo County Sheriff's Dept will be recieving some grant money from the State OHV commission to help combat the rampant OHV abuse in this area.

Members of the State OHV commission, along with representitves from the Barstow BLM, the SB County Sheriff's dept and the Friends of Juniper Flats recently toured the Arrastra Canyon area to view first hand the problems. Here is a recent article.

"Local group hopes to protect AV creek"


"November 28, 2007 - 6:46PM
APPLE VALLEY — As Jenny Wilder and Estelle Delgado walked through the hills southeast of Apple Valley on Wednesday morning, they noted with frustration the shards of wood scattered across motorcycle tracks.

The women are members of the local conservation group Friends Juniper Flats that restores illegal off-highway vehicle trails by using dead brush and trees to camouflage them, but off-roaders had already torn through their work at the trail they passed Wednesday.

Friends of Juniper Flats keeps a close watch on off-road vehicle trails in the mountains near Apple Valley, so close that their observations brought members of California’s Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission, or OHMVRC, and other state and federal agencies to Arrastre Creek on Wednesday.

The commission is still trying to work out which desert riparian areas, meaning rivers or streams, will be protected under a 2005 policy that prevents the commission from awarding grants that would establish or expand off-roading in these areas.

More than 90 percent of California’s desert riparian areas have been lost already, according to the text of the policy on the California State Park’s Web site.

Arrastre Creek, east of Bowen Ranch Road outside Apple Valley, is one of the riparian areas being considered for protection under the policy.

Tucked into the arid hills outside Apple Valley, the creek and its water falls — showering down among angular rocks — are a surprise in the desert landscape.

“The commission has to take comments from the public on how they disburse their funds,” said Tom Egan, a member of the California Native Plant Society and Friends of Juniper Flats. “Federal land agencies use this money to fund rangers.”

Friends of Juniper Flats have submitted comments saying that the Bureau of Land Management is not adequately managing the area, Egan said, and “BLM’s not exactly happy about that.”

“We’re just out showing them what we’re doing,” said Roxie C. Trost, a field manager with the Bureau of Land Management’s Barstow field office.

Mark McMillin, a commissioner with OHMVRC who represents off-highway vehicle interests, said environmental interests and off-roader interests did not seem to be clashing at Arrastre Creek.

“From what I’ve seen here today, it looks like the two are getting along well,” he said.
Another commissioner who visited the creek, Judith Anderson, said she has worked with the Sierra Club.

Wilder and Delgado with Friends of Juniper Flats were hopeful that the visit from the commissioners and state and federal agencies could help protect Arrastre Creek, but the discussion of which areas to protect could drag on.

Rick LeFlore, a superintendent with California State Parks, said his agency will report back to the commission next week — then continue the dialogue.

“Ideally, both the OHV commission and BLM should be working to protect California’s riparian areas,” Egan said. “Our unique riparian plant assemblages are so few and are under constant threat of vehicle damage.”

http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/creek_3883___article.html/california_commission.html