Buggies bogged by dune plant
Off-roaders who want to preserve a great place to ride clash with groups seeking to preserve species
By Valerie Alvord - Special for USA TODAY
EL CENTRO,
Calif: -In a wilderness of blowing sand, dirt bikers pause at the tops of endless ridges,
revving their engines. Thousands of dune buggies and three-wheelers stand by, ready to ride.
The only thing in their way is a humble plant.
| Peirson's milk vetch -a silvery, short-lived perennial that grows only in the Algodones Sand Dunes near this town about
115 miles east of San Diego -is listed as a threatened species by the federal government The plant has pitted
off-roaders against environmental ists in a lawsuit over public access. Both sides say they are battling to save this biker's paradise: miles and mountains of sand, perfect for cresting at breakneck speeds. The lawsuit by three environ- mental groups in San Francisco fed eral court comes at a time when noisy machinery is under increas ing attack at national parks across the country. The National Park Ser- vice already has limited snow mobiles at nearly all of its parks and monuments and plans to ban them entirely at Yellowstone and Grand Teton over the next three years. Jet Ski-style watercraft are limited in national parks from Mas sachusetts to San Francisco and could be further regulated over the next two years. The Algodones Dunes lawsuit al leges that the Bureau of Land Man agement (BLM), which oversees much of the public land in the West, has failed to provide ade quate protection for dozens of threatened species across a wide swath of California desert The law suit calls on the BLM to come up with plans for these lands to pro tect the milk vetch and other frag ile species. |
|
A large chunk of the dunes al- ready is permanently closed to
vehicles. Three months ago, environ- mentalists negotiated a court I settlement that temporarily closed another one-third of the
approximately 234-square-mile Algodones Dunes to off-roaders. The settlement will remain in place
until the BLM completes the plan called for by the lawsuit
Off-roaders remain confident, however, that they can get some of the dunes reopened.
"They thought they could roll right over us," says Vince
Brunasso, president of the American Sand Association, an off-roaders' advocacy group founded last year.
At the dunes, where as many as 100,000 off-roaders often come to barrel up and down hills and stage drag races on the desert floor,
environmentalists say it's not the noise that bothers them.
 Peirson's milk vetch |
"We are not out to spoil anyone's
fun," says Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist at the Center for
Biological Diversity, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit. "We
are out to preserve species. The Algodones Dunes is an amazing, rare
ecosystem' and it's unacceptable to us to see them sacrificed as a huge
sandbox." The problem, Patterson says, extends beyond the milk vetch. Desert critters, including burrowing owls, kangaroo rats, scorpions and sidewinder rattlesnakes, depend on moisture trapped under the sand to stay alive. Off-roaders, he says, churn up the sand, drying it out and killing the wildlife. |
"I like taking back roads in a
four- wheel-drive," adds Elden Hughes, an activist for the Sierra Club,
which is collaborating on the law- suit. "Do I enjoy tearing up the
country, going where there is no road? No, I don't "
That description of off-roading annoys people such as Grant George,
39. The custom dune buggy builder from Rialto, Calif:, has been coming to
AIgodones since he was 2.
Like thousands of others, he arrives in this southeastern corner of
the state with his family, usually on holidays. They park their motor homes, sip
soft drinks and beer, barbecue hot dogs and socialize around campfires.
Sometimes, the line of motor homes stretches as far as the eye can see.
Another, rowdier element has given off-roaders a bad name, George
concedes. But the bad apples -who drink alcohol, crash cars and throw beer cans
at rangers -are just a small percentage of the millions of people who enjoy the
dunes each year, he says.
George rides the dunes in a high- performance, hand-built, purple
four-seater. Price tag: about $64,000.
Chomping an unlit cigar, he navigates his buggy along narrow sand
ridges, like a powerboat captain skimming the tops of ocean waves. "As more
(acreage) gets closed, you're confining more people in a smaller area," he
complains. "That's not safe."
Under the best of conditions, this type of off-roading is dangerous.
Three people have been killed and hundreds injured at Algodones in the past
year. At a place dubbed "Oldsmobile Hill," where duners race one
another up a mountain of sand, there are often two injuries a day, says Robert
Bower, park specialist for the BLM.
Like others here, George says environmentalists plan to chip away at
off-roaders' access to these dunes until they are all shut down.
Patterson, however, says there is no such hidden agenda. He's happy
with the court settlement and expects it to become permanent when the BLM plan
is completed.
The settlement, he adds, was reached with approval of five off- road
associations. "They still have almost half of the dunes to play in,"
Patterson says.
But to off-roaders, who tick off half a dozen places in as many
states where their activity has been banned, "this has been a wake-up
call," George says. "We aren't going to lose these dunes."
He has found a couple dune-buggying biologists who hope to prove
that the Peirson's milk vetch isn't threatened after all. There's been talk of a
counter suit, and a series of cleanups is planned to show that off-roaders are
responsible people.
Source: USA Today, Feb. 9-11, 2001,
p. 4A
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2000. Northern Arizona University, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
