Coyote Mountains Wilderness in Imperial County

 

This is Steve's letter to the Desert Survivors urging a letter writing campaign to the BLM. Below is the letter that Steve actually sent to the BLM. We urge you to write your own letter and request that a copy be sent to Steve at  president@desert-survivors.org

 

 

To: Desert Survivors

From: Steve Tabor

Date: June 14, 2003

Subject: Coyote Mountains Wilderness in Imperial County

 

Desert Survivors:

 

On Thanksgiving Weekend 2002, I led a carcamp to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wilderness Areas in Imperial County near the Mexican border.  The Bureau of Land Management has issued a Notice of Proposed Action (NOPA) announcing more intense management of the Wilderness, largely prompted by the efforts of Survivors Craig Deutsche and Kelly Fuller and local resident Edie Harmon.  These three have been performing regular monitoring at this Wilderness and at the nearby Jacumba Wilderness, photographing and mapping where abuse has occurred.  I’ve written the enclosed comment letter to the BLM, praising the BLM for its renewed efforts, and urging more protection for the Coyote Mountains Wilderness, the Jacumba Wilderness, and the Yuha Desert Area of Environmental Concern, plus other Wilderness lands in the area.

 

We need backup on this from Desert Survivors members.  Please read my comment and write a letter of your own.  Your letter will show the BLM that there are interested persons outside the local area and outside the “off-road vehicle community” who care about these places and don’t want to see them trashed.  Your letter need not be as long as mine.  I’ve listed my main points below, but add your own, especially of you’ve visited Imperial County Wildernesses and have some experience there.

 

Together, we can make a difference in how these lands are managed.

 

My main points:

 

1. I’ve observed much of the damage described in the NOPA on my own trip, and I want the BLM to protect the Wilderness and its environs.  It is necessary to be pro-active in protection efforts, not just to perform clean-up.

 

2. I recommend campground hosts on cool season weekends at Fossil Canyon, Painted Gorge, Davies Canyon, and the Yuha ACEC.  The presence of these campground hosts will be a deterrent to criminal activity.

 

3. I recommend that ten new BLM enforcement rangers be hired to protect these areas on cool season weekends.  They should be stationed overnight at the areas mentioned above.  Their salaries and expenses should be paid out of moneys collected to enhance and conserve off-road vehicle areas.

 

4. Protecting Wilderness and other lands from Imperial Dunes “spillover” of off-roaders should be a top priority of the BLM.  It is not enough to simply protect off-roaders at the Dunes and allow the criminal element to go elsewhere.

 

5. Besides the Coyote Mountains and the Jacumba, other Wilderness Areas in the vicinity should also be protected from off-roader “spillover”from the Imperial Dunes.  The Fish Creek Mountains, North Algodones, Indian Pass, and Picacho Peak Wilderness Areas should also be protected.

 

6. BLM rangers should be taken off “drug smuggling” patrols and should be working full time on protecting Wilderness and other BLM land from off-road and other damage and from other criminal elements, including invasion and abuse of the Wilderness..  “Drug smuggling” should be the responsibility of the U.S. The Border Patrol .

 

The address to write is below.  Send your letters by (postmarked by) June 26, 2003.  Reference these Notices of Proposed Actions: “NOPA-CA670-2003-3" and “NOPA-CA670-2003-4".  Include your own experiences on your own visits to Imperial County.

 

El Centro Field Office

Bureau of Land Management

Attn: Greg Thomsen, Field Manager

1661 South 4th Street

El Centro, CA 92243

 

 

Thanks for writing.

 

Steve Tabor, President

Desert Survivors

PO Box 20991

Oakland, CA 94620-0991

 

(510) 769-1706

president@desert-survivors.org

 

 

 

Here is the letter that Steve sent to the BLM. May we suggest your letter be similar but written in your own words.  Also, please remember to send a copy of your letter to Steve Tabor. Thank You.

 

 

El Centro Field Office

Bureau of Land Management

Attn: Greg Thomsen, Field Manager

1661 South 4th Street

El Centro, CA 92243

 

 

Re: NOPA-CA670-2003-4, NOPA-CA670-2003-3  Coyote Mountains Wilderness

 

Mr. Thomsen:

 

            Desert Survivors is a non-profit desert conservation organization based in Oakland, California.  Desert Survivors has an interest in public lands governed by the El Centro Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management.  Desert Survivors leads educational and recreational excursions on the public lands governed by the El Centro Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management, including those incorporated into the Coyote Mountains Wilderness, as part of its responsibility as a California public benefit, non-profit corporation.  Desert Survivors has an interest in seeing our nation’s public lands continue in a natural and pristine condition, and moreover has a special interest in Wilderness lands that have been established within California Desert District of the Bureau of Land Management.  Desert Survivors has 800 members.

 

            As President of Desert Survivors, I have read the two Notices of Proposed Action referenced above and have some comments.  Desert Survivors welcomes the El Centro Field Office’s new initiative in this and other Wilderness Areas under its jurisdiction.  Our group visits these Wilderness Areas on a regular basis, both on formal trips and as individuals or groups of friends.  In an increasingly trashed county, the Wilderness Areas and other public lands under the aegis of the BLM are vital, both for the protection of plants and wildlife and as a refuge for those seeking an experience of nature ( as opposed to that of industrialism or “shopping”).  BLM lands are also vital resources of peace and quiet in a state where the constant roar of traffic and the whine of motorbikes and ORVs cause endless frustration for people who just want to relax and think.  Our members are among these.

 

 

Experiences

 

            I led a group of Desert Survivors to the Coyote Mountains over Thanksgiving Weekend, 2002 (November 26-29).  We got a good look at both the Coyote Mountains and the Jacumba Wilderness Areas, and observed the types of degradation you describe in the NOPAs referenced above.  Our experiences are detailed below.

 

1. In the Fossil Canyon area, we found evidence of ORV use in many paces away from the dirt road used for access.  Right up to the boundary, we found several “hill climbs”, fire rings, and “plinking” sites littered with shot-up targets and shells.  Native wood had been used for fires in many places.  We did find, however, that the iron gate in the vertical-walled canyon just inside the Wilderness boundary had successfully kept out recent trespass of vehicles, though attempts had been made to break down rock walls established on each side to enhance protection.  We built these back up.  More iron gates like these are necessary.

 

2. The entrance road at Painted Canyon was badly overrun by off-road vehicles and was being actively used as a “play area” both inside and outside of the Coyote Mountains Wilderness boundary.  This is especially irritating because the huge 40-square-mile “Plaster City Open Area” is immediately adjacent, providing off-road recreationists with a huge playground all to themselves.  Wilderness signs had been broken down and removed.  The sound of motorbikes could be heard on into the night.  On one of the nights, our camp was invaded and “buzzed” by a belligerent motor biker, muttering insults and obscenities about “backpackers”.  One of us could easily have been run over.  This is a popular camping area for nature lovers and those wishing to see bighorn sheep and other wildlife, and visitors should not have to put up with “spillover” from the Open Area.

 

3. At the Davies Canyon trailhead at the northeast corner of the Jacumba Wilderness, we noted motorbike trails entering washes, going right past Wilderness boundary signs.  The interior of the Wilderness in Davies Valley had been badly overrun by large SUVs in many places; plants had been run over and destroyed, and virtually every wash had been churned up by the tracks of huge wheels.  The wash bottom near the locked gate had been used for target practice, on occasion by individuals with automatic weapons, according to campers we interviewed.  The wash up Davies Canyon inside the Wilderness had been driven on by large SUVs, thus losing any semblance of a “roadless area”.

 

4. When we visited the Yuha Basin Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), we were shocked to find that motor bikers and off-roaders had left the designated roads in the washes and were accustomed to driving up side gulches and over the hills.  When we stopped at the historic site of Yuha Well, six motorcyclists refused to obey the road closure signs around the well and drove right in and over the hills and all around us, oblivious to the patent illegality of what they were doing.  They were wearing masks and we could not see their faces.  We took some pictures of them, but that did not deter them.  This historic site has provided water for early explorers and travelers for four hundred years, and for Native-Americans for 10,000 years before that, and yet these motorcycle vandals could not respect this historic site or limit themselves to walking over to look at it, as we did.

 

 

Recommendations

 

Though Desert Survivors applauds the BLM’s efforts, they seem to us mostly reactive, involving clean-up of past damage, but with no clear plan for preventing abuse. Our recommendations follow.

 

1. The BLM should establish a network of campground hosts at popular trailheads and campsites at the boundaries of these Wilderness Areas.  There should be campground hosts at Fossil Canyon, Painted Gorge, Davies Canyon and Yuha Well.  Campground hosts should also be employed at other trailheads in these Wilderness Areas and at the Fish Creek Mountains Wilderness if necessary.  The system of campground hosts used by both the BLM and U.S. Forest Service at campgrounds nationwide has proven to be an effective way to deter rowdies, the criminal element, and unthinking selfish persons from doing harmful and illegal things on public land.  Just the sight of a big welcome sign with the BLM insignia and a large American flag will be enough to induce criminals to go elsewhere, like the classical music used in shopping malls to drive away youthful gang-bangers.  Campground hosts could also provide information to lawful citizens who simply want to enjoy the Wilderness for its own sake, and they could serve as “eyes and ears” to bring BLM rangers or other law enforcement officials to control the criminal element if illegal activities are observed.

 

2. The BLM should promote increased law enforcement presence at these popular camping areas and trailheads and along Wilderness boundaries on weekends.  Temporary fixes and administrative hand-wringing are no longer enough.  Ten new patrol rangers with enforcement capability and authority should be assigned to these Wilderness Areas and to the Yuha ACEC on weekends.  There is plenty of money in state and federal funds used to promote ORV use (derived from OUR tax money) to do this.  Extra rangers should be hired to patrol boundaries, and they should be stationed at the important trailheads mentioned in the paragraph above, not simply allowed to go home for the evening.  Since much of the damage in these Wilderness Areas is done at night, rangers stationed at night at these popular campgrounds are essential.  That way, the rowdies can’t come out of the wood work when the sun goes down.

 

3. Protecting these Wilderness Areas must be made a priority for the BLM.  As County Sheriffs and Federal marshals, and perhaps other Federal law enforcement (the National Guard?) take charge of the Imperial Dunes Area under the new guidelines proposed in the Imperial Sand Dunes Management Plan (“RAMP”), rowdies and criminals will be forced out of the dunes and into these Wilderness Areas and onto other nearby BLM lands, and will do their illegal deeds there instead.  In fact, this is already happening. 

 

In National Parks, unthinking visitors feed wild bears who then become accustomed to human food.  They become pests and become dangerous in the popular campgrounds in the Parks, and have to be drugged and transported out to backcountry Wilderness Areas, where they then become pests on remote hiking trails.  Thus, the misdeeds of those in the central areas of the Parks are visited upon innocent backpackers in the Wilderness backcountry, who then have to deal with problems created somewhere else by stupid people.  A similar phenomenon is happening with law enforcement in the main dunes.  We who have given up on the Imperial Dunes as trashed and unlivable because they are a “sacrifice area” for the off-road industry, now have to put up with the problem children of the Dunes who have been driven out by law enforcement.  We want the same level of enforcement for the Wilderness Areas and other BLM lands as is given to the Imperial Dunes themselves.  Otherwise, we who use the Wilderness will be increasingly burdened by the effects of the new RAMP in the Dunes.

 

4. Newspaper reports have appeared indicating that “interdicting drug smugglers” has become a priority for the BLM and that “special agents” have been assigned full time to this activity.  Apparently fifteen sweeps by teams of BLM rangers have been done in the El Centro Field Area in the past two years (Imperial Valley Press, June 9, 2003).  Drug smuggling is about the least damaging activity on our Wilderness lands and other BLM lands in the El Centro area.  Off-road vehicles and shooters are far and away the major problem, as I’ve described above.  Instead of looking for “drug smugglers”, like looking for a needle in a haystack, mainly at night, the BLM should be looking for and pursuing illegal off-roaders who can be seen breaking the law in broad daylight!  Let the Border Patrol apprehend drug smugglers — that’s THEIR job.  The BLM’s job is protecting the desert, its wildlife, and its Wilderness Areas.

 

Desert Survivors has participated in service projects for the BLM, including clean-up of messes and rehabilitation, but we are increasingly reluctant to do so.  Without a clear plan to enforce the law, abuses will simply continue and we (and the BLM) will end up with more work to do later on.  Desert Survivors hopes the BLM will continue its efforts at clean-up, but our group also desires that your office implement  pro-active measures to protect the land, such as those described above.  Our deserts, and other desert users besides off-roaders, deserve no less from you.

 

Desert Survivors appreciates the opportunity to comment on your NOPAs concerning this and other Wilderness lands under the jurisdiction of the El Centro Field Office of the BLM.  Please keep us informed of all actions taken to counteract the very real problems you have identified in these NOPAs.  We have much experience in these Wildernesses and in other parts of the county and the surrounding desert.  Feel free to contact me about these comments or about any other topic concerning these Wilderness Areas.  My contact information is below.

 

                                                                                    Respectfully Submitted,

 

 

                                                                                    Steve Tabor, President

(510) 769-1706                                                           Desert Survivors

                                                                                    P.O. Box 20991

<president@desert-survivors.org>                                Oakland, CA 94620-0991