Land closed to protect tortoise to be reopened for off-roading

By Dwight Daniels
STAFF WRITER
April 10, 2003

Even as off-road vehicle enthusiasts filed a lawsuit in Salt Lake City yesterday to force the federal government to protect an endangered desert tortoise, they received news that land previously closed to protect the species will be reopened for off-roading.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued an opinion in El Centro that called for reopening the popular Imperial Sand Dunes for recreational use despite concerns over the tortoise and the purple-flowered Peirson's milk-vetch.
The announcement came as part of a long-awaited recreation management plan for eastern Imperial County, one of the nation's most popular off-road areas.
The opinion did not sit well with environmentalists who said they may challenge it in court.
"It's really a sad day for anyone that believes in balanced land management or using good science," said desert ecologist Daniel Patterson of the Center for Biological Diversity.
In February, off-road vehicle enthusiasts had sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to force it to decide whether to remove the "threatened" designation from the milk-vetch that has kept them out of nearly 50,000 acres of desert sand dunes overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Now off-roaders are hoping their newest lawsuit in Salt Lake City will ultimately pressure the Interior Department to reopen more than 6 million acres of land where the endangered tortoise exists.
The reptile, living in the Mojave and Colorado/Sonoran deserts of California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, was first listed as endangered in 1989 after upper-respiratory-tract infections began harming tortoise populations.
"The agency has spent millions and denied access to large areas of land, but the tortoise is closer to extinction than it ever was," said David Hubbard, an attorney representing the off-roaders, among them the San Diego Off-Road Coalition.
If the tortoise population continues to stagger, the off-roaders may never be able to return to the land they wish to use, he said. Off-roaders want the bureau and other federal agencies to act to save the tortoise so they can return to the desert.
"We simply are demanding that these government agencies comply with their own regulations and take a close examination of the millions of acres that have been needlessly closed," said Michelle Cassella of the American Motorcycle Association.
In the El Centro opinion issued yesterday, Fish and Wildlife Service officials called for monitoring the milk-vetch population over the next four years to determine if it drops below a certain threshold.
The opinion said the tortoise population isn't likely to be harmed by the decision to allow recreational use since it is most prevalent on the periphery of the species' range.
Still, officials will be required to increase public awareness about the tortoise and develop a means for individual sightings to be recorded and tortoise deaths to be reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Dwight Daniels: (619) 542-4599; dwight.daniels@uniontrib.com

The fight's still on, but yes indeedy, it seems the tides are a-changing.

The No Jeopardy opinion on the tortoise means we'll have those 25,000 acres east of the railroad tracks back for camping. It will be part of the Demo Fee area, but at least it will be available again for camping.

Or will it? Last year the green tide on the OHMVR Commission slipped some language into the grant request at the last minute claiming those 25,000 acres should remain closed. It became moot when the Commission denied the entire grant. But we have to be watching for it to be "slipped in" again this year. OUR ATTENTION IS NEEDED IN ORDER TO STOP IT.

The No Jeopardy opinion on the PMV means the 2000 acre puddle will be reopened but the large temporary closure will become a permit-only area. 525 riders allowed per day and last I heard permits were to be issued on a weekly basis. That means Joe SandRacer gets his permit on Tuesday, goes home on Thursday and that spot is on hold until next Tuesday which means Bob SandRider can't pick up a permit on Friday. OUR ATTENTION IS NEEDED IN ORDER TO FIX THIS.

We have to keep fighting, that's all there is to it. If we don't know, if we don't pay attention to what they are doing to manage our sandbox, we will lose, no matter how many lawsuits we file or how many no jeopardy opinions we get.

Please everyone, please pay attention.

Vicki

Well considering that the decision also calls for keeping some of the closures as full closures, keeping others as closed to all but 500 people, and calling for a new "large closure" as well as adding capacity limits and closing Osborn just to name a few things......

I have a hard time considering this "Good news". What you're seeing in the press is the green spin to make it seem reasonable when they sue to get their little gift overturned so they can make it even worse than the already lopsided plan we've been given.

Sounds good on the surface, but you know the greens have an evil twist in there some where. So for now, I'm with you Jason, I'll refrain from celebrating until I see just how open the "re-openings" really are. :|


LIVE FREE OR DIE!

One big thing to remember is that all of this is from inference at this point. The RAMP which is what will ultimately decide what opens and what dosen't has yet to been released.

What has been released is the FWS's opinion of the modified RAMP that the public has yet to see.

But what we can draw from this is that few if any of the publics inputs were even considered in revising the ramp and the FWS is still taking a stand that the PMV is in iminent danger and must be protected at all costs.

I encourage everyone to check the facts for themselves and read what the FWS has to say:

http://www.americansandassociation.org/doc...icalOpinion.pdf

It almost cost me a monitor reading through it the BS was so deep.....but there's no excuse for people to act surprised when the dung does hit the fan.