These 4 audio clips feature Central Coast Ranger Pam Gardner and Sharon Stewart, both with the U.S. Forest Service, talking about the Oregon Dunes Recreation Area. The agency recently completed the public portion of a rulemaking process called the "designated routes" project. The ODNRA has been operating for years under the principal that all areas are open for off-highway riding unless specifically closed to vehicles. A rules change on a national level means they must now identify specific areas that are both open and closed to riding. Most of the historical areas will remain open for riding, but portions going through vegetated areas will have specific routes posted. Gardner and Stewart talked about the dunes and the rules process.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Interview Request
Daniel G Marting
Subject: dunes
I would just be interested in a verbal interview within the next two
weeks. If the weather permits on Presidents day I would love to shoot
some video of riding, family time at the dunes, and possibly some of
your thoughts about the proposed restriction. Just to let you know my
work will be published. As long as you are fine with that it could be a
nice opportunity to represent OHV users and voice some of your concerns
about more restrictions.
Dan,
You can call me anytime at the number below. I do believe it would be well worth your time to come out and feel it. The USFS has not managed the ODNRA well and have missed very important time lines and the basic charter of the ODNRA. We would not be where we are if they have had. They are underfunded and scared to death of a law suit so they manage by who is the loudest. The environmentalist has the loudest voice and by far the most money. This is our recreation, we have real jobs and not enough time or individual money to fight. We are hoping to change that and the STRD is a starting point.
It is a shame but no matter what else is said, in 50 to 75 years the only open sand will be where OHV rides. I will repeat this and it is backed up by so much research that it isn't funny anymore, THERE WILL BE NO MORE OPEN SAND IN THE ODNRA EXCEPT ON THE 25% THAT OHV RIDES ON. This is only one generation of people. I am 59 and I walked the dunes in 1957 and we drove a 2 wheel drive pickup right on the beach with no foredune. Please review this late 1960 Lassie movie and look at the open sand and when you come out I will show you what it looks like now. Scary is not the word for it and the USFS continues to let it happen. Their answer is there is no money to bring bull dozers in to rip out the grass and that has to be done over and over again. Giving the current national financial situation there will never be money available for this type of losing project. Even if they do, the grass will grow back unless something else keeps it out. OHV does this but they refuse to "officially" recognize it. The USFS agrees with me verbally that we do help. They did an experiment at Ten Mile where they bull dozed about 40 acres. The beach grass grew back almost immediately. They put sighs up and ask us to ride in it and guess what, we helped keep the grass off. What a concept....This was NEVER published. They manage forest, not open sand and they simply cannot or are unwilling to make the tough decisions and fight the environmentalist. If they look at the original 1972 charter there was supposed to be a group to oversee the ODNRA and that has never happen. If it had, the highly destructive European Beach grass, that the USFS planted to begin with, would not be what it is today. All we have seen is more and more closures and that has allowed more and more open sand to be overgrown and destroyed. We need to start today, not continue to chew our nails and hope this will go away. Closing more dunes with the 10C process is simply not the direction we need to go for a health dune system.
Everything is upside down and I can show you over and over areas that were clearly open sand; now is forest and wetlands. Huge swaths of ONDRA is now under seasonal water in the deflation plane. This type of environment promotes growth and mutations. OH, golly we now have a "new species" we must protect. Lets close down more sand! Oh, by the way, this area is now WETLANDS and comes under another government agency... You can see where I am going with this. It never ends. The longer this goes on the quicker the true dunes i.e. open sand dies. This is happening exponentially now. The attached and the movie clearly show old vs. new.
Now they have allowed commercial farming to be more important than recreation which is the mushroom industry on tree plantations the USFS planted in 1960's over open sand. I cannot imagine this. Isn’t this the Oregon Dunes RECREATION Area? In the 1994 plan they even say that mushrooms should not be the priority. During this 10C process which the USFS started to begin with, mushrooms ruled over and over again. For the life of me, I cannot understand that. Recreational picking, yes, commercial farming I cannot. From my understanding, there is over a million dollars in mushrooms sold to Japan per year out of the ODNRA alone. That is great and I wish them well and tell them to go for it. But the USFS is locking out over HALF of the northern dunes for the endeavor. I only asked for a few trails through this area and that, I am sure, will be pooh-poohed.
The 1994 plan was made in a vacuum and we are now living with the consequences. They have this deal about trails. It is a joke. All this area before 1960 was open sand. There are NO trails in open sand. They are so focused on forest and plants that they cannot see the forest for the trees. I will say that this last 10C work group was NOT made in a vacuum and they did a tremendous effort to get everything on the table. Hurrah and I thank them for their efforts. Maybe that huge ship is trying to slow down and make a turn. I can only hope.
I say all of this, but the OHV community is also conservationalist as well. We are family and we want the land to be kept pristine so we can use it, not lock it up. We want this for our kids and our kid's kids. We love the forest and open sand as much as anybody. We just choose to ride through it rather than hike which only the young can do especially in sand. If there was no other forest in the world then I can see stronger rules but this is a tip of the iceberg on how much forest there is. That is why this was set aside for Recreation, not farming or other uses. I truly do feel that OHV, horse riders, hikers and anybody else should be able to enjoy this wonderful treasure with minimum conflicts. There needs to be separation. We do need to protect certain areas like the dunes close to rivers, sand islands, snowy plovers and native animals. We also have to do our part with the noise we make. Shame on us. We need Law enforcement to help. I volunteer with the Dunes Patrol and have asked Sheriff Rodney Roberts if I can help and he agrees. I hope to ride with them this summer to do sound checks and enforce the 93 db.
Environmentalist do not like to hear this naked truth. It is time they did. It is time to truly understand that the ODNRA is a very special place and big enough for everybody. The trails we ride on ARE keeping the non-native plants at bay. We cannot kill big swaths of unwanted non-native plants but again we can help manage the mess.
I also do not like to beat up on the USFS. They are good hardworking folks that are just as passionate. They just need to step up to the plate and finally come to grips with the mess they, through all the greatest intentions, created. This is truly the law of unintended consequences. It is now time to change the direction, bring balance back and all of us need to work together to try and save the true dunes.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2329504977213415012#
Jody Phillips
Subject: dunes
I would just be interested in a verbal interview within the next two
weeks. If the weather permits on Presidents day I would love to shoot
some video of riding, family time at the dunes, and possibly some of
your thoughts about the proposed restriction. Just to let you know my
work will be published. As long as you are fine with that it could be a
nice opportunity to represent OHV users and voice some of your concerns
about more restrictions.
Dan,
You can call me anytime at the number below. I do believe it would be well worth your time to come out and feel it. The USFS has not managed the ODNRA well and have missed very important time lines and the basic charter of the ODNRA. We would not be where we are if they have had. They are underfunded and scared to death of a law suit so they manage by who is the loudest. The environmentalist has the loudest voice and by far the most money. This is our recreation, we have real jobs and not enough time or individual money to fight. We are hoping to change that and the STRD is a starting point.
It is a shame but no matter what else is said, in 50 to 75 years the only open sand will be where OHV rides. I will repeat this and it is backed up by so much research that it isn't funny anymore, THERE WILL BE NO MORE OPEN SAND IN THE ODNRA EXCEPT ON THE 25% THAT OHV RIDES ON. This is only one generation of people. I am 59 and I walked the dunes in 1957 and we drove a 2 wheel drive pickup right on the beach with no foredune. Please review this late 1960 Lassie movie and look at the open sand and when you come out I will show you what it looks like now. Scary is not the word for it and the USFS continues to let it happen. Their answer is there is no money to bring bull dozers in to rip out the grass and that has to be done over and over again. Giving the current national financial situation there will never be money available for this type of losing project. Even if they do, the grass will grow back unless something else keeps it out. OHV does this but they refuse to "officially" recognize it. The USFS agrees with me verbally that we do help. They did an experiment at Ten Mile where they bull dozed about 40 acres. The beach grass grew back almost immediately. They put sighs up and ask us to ride in it and guess what, we helped keep the grass off. What a concept....This was NEVER published. They manage forest, not open sand and they simply cannot or are unwilling to make the tough decisions and fight the environmentalist. If they look at the original 1972 charter there was supposed to be a group to oversee the ODNRA and that has never happen. If it had, the highly destructive European Beach grass, that the USFS planted to begin with, would not be what it is today. All we have seen is more and more closures and that has allowed more and more open sand to be overgrown and destroyed. We need to start today, not continue to chew our nails and hope this will go away. Closing more dunes with the 10C process is simply not the direction we need to go for a health dune system.
Everything is upside down and I can show you over and over areas that were clearly open sand; now is forest and wetlands. Huge swaths of ONDRA is now under seasonal water in the deflation plane. This type of environment promotes growth and mutations. OH, golly we now have a "new species" we must protect. Lets close down more sand! Oh, by the way, this area is now WETLANDS and comes under another government agency... You can see where I am going with this. It never ends. The longer this goes on the quicker the true dunes i.e. open sand dies. This is happening exponentially now. The attached and the movie clearly show old vs. new.
Now they have allowed commercial farming to be more important than recreation which is the mushroom industry on tree plantations the USFS planted in 1960's over open sand. I cannot imagine this. Isn’t this the Oregon Dunes RECREATION Area? In the 1994 plan they even say that mushrooms should not be the priority. During this 10C process which the USFS started to begin with, mushrooms ruled over and over again. For the life of me, I cannot understand that. Recreational picking, yes, commercial farming I cannot. From my understanding, there is over a million dollars in mushrooms sold to Japan per year out of the ODNRA alone. That is great and I wish them well and tell them to go for it. But the USFS is locking out over HALF of the northern dunes for the endeavor. I only asked for a few trails through this area and that, I am sure, will be pooh-poohed.
The 1994 plan was made in a vacuum and we are now living with the consequences. They have this deal about trails. It is a joke. All this area before 1960 was open sand. There are NO trails in open sand. They are so focused on forest and plants that they cannot see the forest for the trees. I will say that this last 10C work group was NOT made in a vacuum and they did a tremendous effort to get everything on the table. Hurrah and I thank them for their efforts. Maybe that huge ship is trying to slow down and make a turn. I can only hope.
I say all of this, but the OHV community is also conservationalist as well. We are family and we want the land to be kept pristine so we can use it, not lock it up. We want this for our kids and our kid's kids. We love the forest and open sand as much as anybody. We just choose to ride through it rather than hike which only the young can do especially in sand. If there was no other forest in the world then I can see stronger rules but this is a tip of the iceberg on how much forest there is. That is why this was set aside for Recreation, not farming or other uses. I truly do feel that OHV, horse riders, hikers and anybody else should be able to enjoy this wonderful treasure with minimum conflicts. There needs to be separation. We do need to protect certain areas like the dunes close to rivers, sand islands, snowy plovers and native animals. We also have to do our part with the noise we make. Shame on us. We need Law enforcement to help. I volunteer with the Dunes Patrol and have asked Sheriff Rodney Roberts if I can help and he agrees. I hope to ride with them this summer to do sound checks and enforce the 93 db.
Environmentalist do not like to hear this naked truth. It is time they did. It is time to truly understand that the ODNRA is a very special place and big enough for everybody. The trails we ride on ARE keeping the non-native plants at bay. We cannot kill big swaths of unwanted non-native plants but again we can help manage the mess.
I also do not like to beat up on the USFS. They are good hardworking folks that are just as passionate. They just need to step up to the plate and finally come to grips with the mess they, through all the greatest intentions, created. This is truly the law of unintended consequences. It is now time to change the direction, bring balance back and all of us need to work together to try and save the true dunes.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2329504977213415012#
Jody Phillips
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