The Tale of the Wayward Bulldozer

I took a moment last week to enjoy a vehicle tour of the Ord-Rodman Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) in the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA). These public lands are managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM), who is currently proposing an extensive network of off-road vehicle routes (roads/trails) throughout the western Mojave Desert.

Decades of uncontrolled off-road vehicle use has resulted in far too many vehicle routes etched into these desert soils, crisscrossing our public lands, and replacing wildlife habitat. These routes often place wildlife at risk and most do not serve as primary access to private lands, mines and livestock use areas. They were created quite simply, without rhyme, reason or planning. Nor did our native wildlife have a say in such road and trail creation.

These same lands have also been designated as habitat critical for the recovery of California’s state reptile, the threatened Agassiz’s desert tortoise. BLM spent countless hours inventorying, evaluating and coordinating with regional stakeholders about specific vehicle routes of travel needs in this western Mojave (WEMO) Pilot Route Designation Area in the late 1990s.

The photo below depicts several closed routes which were successfully rehabilitated by BLM in 2000, to form a single camping loop. Unfortunately, BLM failed to enforce the closed route component of this route designation effort. In the absence of closed route rehabilitation, signing and law enforcement, every restored closed route at this location has been re-opened by 2018.

Some closed routes have been reopened with actual bulldozing, which resulted in more unauthorized routes being opened to the south, as depicted below. These closed routes in turn, connect to a cluster of closed routes known to degrade and disrupt desert bighorn sheep foraging habitat, golden eagle nests, as well as rare desert spring wetlands.

In addition, several large, barren camping areas with assembled fire pits have also been created along route OM 7321 in this immediate area of critical desert tortoise habitat, along with an illegal solid projectile shooting range. BLM’s flagship campground in the region, the Sawtooth Canyon Campground is located less than a mile away, in an historic golden eagle nesting area abandoned due to such camping disturbance, and rock climbing in the area, which has colloquially been named “New Jack City.”

Unauthorized routes are not marked by any signs but are regularly used; with no reported unauthorized vehicle use recorded for the area in ranger patrol logs supplied to a federal District Court over the last few years.

The current conditions of this Ord Mountain Route Designation Pilot Area have great ramifications relative to BLM’s proposed 2018 route designation and implementation plans, and the prospects of finally completing effective route designation as called for in the CDCA Plan of 1980, 38 years in the making, and a signature feature addressed in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the BLM’s organic charter. If BLM cannot effectively rehabilitate designated closed routes in a timely fashion, maintain open route signing, and ensure compliance with the smaller route network the agency designated for this pilot area in 2000, how will BLM accomplish this task across the thousands of acres of public land it is proposing in 2018?

Further, BLM is now proposing additional open routes in the Ord Mountain Pilot Area, even though a smaller route network is far easier to maintain and enforce. This is in full recognition of documented unnecessary degradation of public lands and a multitude of public land use non-compliance issues. As Americans who cherish our public lands, we deserve and expect more from our government than a shell game when it comes to protecting our natural heritage.

So, as I was investigating BLM’s proposed 2018 route network, travelling the old pipeline route east from State Route 247 that has been re-signed as OM 6640, I was a bit perturbed to detect cross-country tire tracks spiraling across tortoise critical habitat. Perhaps these folks didn’t see the ginormous kiosk sign on this route entrance from Highway 247, explaining the details of the long-running Ord Mountain Pilot WEMO Route Designation Project, or the importance of tortoise critical habitat?

This area was so important that, in 2009, a federal District Court rejected the BLM’s WEMO 2006 route designation decision and sent the agency back to the drawing board to do it right, so that our state reptile, the threatened desert tortoise, would be protected. The BLM was supposed to have completed their revised route designation effort in 2014, but the agency has had to ask for further extensions in time. Therefore, today, I and others at Defenders of Wildlife, are working to make sure the BLM carefully evaluates its proposed 2018 WEMO Route Network, dutifully considers public comment, and fully implements this route designation in a timely manner.

As I traveled along this pipeline route, I observed a party camping a couple hundred yards out. I found it rather strange to see a flatbed trailer, parked next to a shade tent and camping tables, with an unloaded “bobcat” bulldozer. “Who packs a bulldozer when camping?” I thought to myself.

Not wanting to approach a party who might be digging a hole in which I didn’t care to join, I ambled down the roadway. My mission lay further east, close to towering Ord Mountain, so I continued eastward on BLM Route OM 6640, to the heart of the Ord Mountains region.

While driving, I encountered a couple burly United States Marines in a U.S. Department of Interior vehicle heading west. They explained they were returning from monitoring the 1,000 plus tortoises that were recently removed from their habitat in Johnson Valley to the east, to an unknown fate in these adjacent Ord Mountain lands. These tortoises were moved to secure more bombing and maneuver range at the recently-expanded Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center in Johnson Valley and points east.

I laughingly mentioned a recreational bulldozing party just down the road, and these Marines offered to get global positioning system (GPS) coordinates and call BLM’s Barstow Field Office Resources Branch Chief, who apparently was nearby. After asking these gentlemen to pass on this info to the BLM and thanking these Marines, I traveled onward.

Following my eastward travels, I drove back west on OM 6640, and spied the very same camp off to my north. But wait a second. Where was the bulldozer? I did see a couple vehicles perched upon a slight ridge…and wait, freshly pushed-up earth…and it looked like we had ourselves a situation…

Not seeing any back-up from BLM nearby, I threw caution to the wind, and began to investigate the overall area more closely. Checking the Newberry Mountains Desert Access Guide, I determined that this square mile of land was private property surrounded by a sea of public lands, managed by BLM. I approached the slight hill where fresh, bladed soil and vehicles were noted. With thoughts of past strange affairs and burials encountered in remote desert lands, I thought to myself: don’t become another wildlands statistic . . .

Stumbling over a tortoise-excavated drinking basin in a disturbed area of desert pavement, I raced to the small hill upon which fresh dirt was spotted. It was there and then that I saw them: the pushed up remains of hundred-plus year-old creosote bush, Mojave yucca, cottontop, and golden cholla. All freshly ripped from the ground, which was bladed clean. I also saw a bunch of guys driving cross-country all over the place and bulldozing!

I sprinted over, waving my hands at these folks to stop what they were doing. Well, it was no surprise that these folks were a bit concerned to see me, a frantic, wild-eyed guy, come running out to them across the desert. They promptly stopped what they were doing. I asked: “Where’s your biological monitor or biologist?” To which they replied: “Huh?”

Why were these people bulldozing desert tortoise critical habitat and destroying hundred-year-old plants? Turns out, this one private property in a sea of public land, was a parcel these folks had reportedly just purchased. Apparently, the real estate agent out of Barstow, California, who sold them this land hadn’t mentioned the fact that it was desert tortoise critical habitat and that the County of San Bernardino requires grading/building permits for bulldozing activity. They also seemed to have missed the huge sign at the primary access road entrance when they traveled to this location.

The self-identified landowner stated that he wanted to build a children’s camp out here in the desert. I inquired whether these children were going to be taught about desert life, and the fact that native plants and wildlife were illegally bulldozed to provide their camping experience. I didn’t get an answer.

After calming down a bit, I explained how things worked in San Bernardino County to the new property owner, a middle-aged doctor from Los Angeles, onsite with his friends. I told him that there are documents called county general plans and laws such as the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that governed development on private lands. I advised that it would be wise to halt this activity and talk with San Bernardino County Planning Department prior to continuing surface-disturbing activities. I added that it might also help to know exactly where the property boundaries were on the ground, to avoid damaging adjacent public lands managed by the BLM, for desert tortoise critical habitat protection and species’ recovery purposes.

Ignorance is not an excuse for illegal activity; and most folks want to do the right thing. This landowner explained he had no idea they were not acting legally, had no intention of destroying wildlife habitat unnecessarily, and that they would follow up in contacting San Bernardino County Planning Department prior to engaging in further surface disturbance. The County in turn, may fault this land owner for conducting illegal surface disturbance prior to obtaining a lawful property grading permit, and may require this proposed private land action to be opened up to public comment.

I am hoping that the landowner will follow through with his promise to comply with the law. We have tentatively agreed to meet over lunch, to discuss next steps. Our California Desert heritage is precious and should be protected now and into the future.

You never know what you might find when you wander out into our remote desert lands: iconic desert wildlife or out-of-place bulldozers tearing up desert habitat. For me, I’m glad I ventured out to the desert when I did, because maybe, just maybe, lands and wildlife that could have been destroyed further may have earned a reprieve.



Wild Without End

Defenders is committed to the sustainable conservation of wildlife for future generations.

Defenders of Wildlife

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Defenders works on the ground, in the courts and on Capitol Hill to protect and restore imperiled wildlife across North America.

Wild Without End

Defenders is committed to the sustainable conservation of wildlife for future generations.

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