HQ Post Congressional Hearing Update with Video Links and Overview

Photos Shown During Amador's Oral Testimony on Big Screen in Hearing Chamber

The Recreation HQ knows that a lot of you have already viewed the video and reviewed testimony from the hearing on Recreational Opportunities held on June 22, 2011 by the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands. A number of noted OHV and recreation panelists gave testimony and/or were questioned by committee members on the following topics; economic impacts of recreation, cost recovery, permitted events, volunteer programs, budget issues, management priorities, travel management, and Clear Creek.

HQ believes that this hearing was extremely important for the recreating public, Congress, and the agencies. It is well worth your time to view the entire video and review the testimony of various witnesses. The CCMA/Amador testimony starts at 1:04:50 and the CCMA (including some TMR questions) Q&A starts at 1:19:58.

Link to June 22, 2011 Subcommittee Hearing and Testimony and Video
http://naturalresources.house.gov/Calendar/EventSingle.aspx?EventID=246553

Many of you know that my testimony was focused on Clear Creek and the efforts by the Hollister Field Office and EPA to continue to use junk science and personal agendas to create a defacto-Wilderness area and erase all evidence of OHV recreation that once existed on the unit.

HQ believes it was important that Congressman John Garamendi attended the hearing to represent the minority. As a former Deputy Secretary at the Department of Interior he is very aware of the Clear Creek issue. As you watch the Q and A you will hear him state that he supported the original emergency closure but was confident that the new science (IERF Report) and pressure from access interests would result in a formal hearing on Clear Creek.

Link to Amador’s Written Testimony

http://naturalresources.house.gov/UploadedFiles/AmadorTestimony06.22.11.pdf

As part of my oral comments, I requested that the following exhibits be placed in the record.

Link to Amador’s Exhibits (21 pages)
http://www.sharetrails.org/uploads/testimony-amador-exhibits-abcde-06-22-11.pdf

For those of you who want to have YouTube links to just the CCMA testimony and Q&A, I have provided the clips below:

Amador Testimony on CCMA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jb1egLBYJk

Q&A on CCMA (and some TMR)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7uZYR1JK_0

HQ believes that OHV recreation is coming of age and making history this year via efforts by pro-access legislators who are addressing trail specific issues such as TMR, permitted events, level 3 roads, and Clear Creek. Chairman Bishop and his committee members should be commended for their hard work on behalf of the recreating public.


HQ also wants to thank all those who have worked hard in the fight to reopen CCMA. Also, the OHV commission should be commended for having the foresight to ask OHMVRD to commission a study regarding potential health risks from NOA. HQ believes that determined riders combined with new science and interest from Congress will greatly increase the chance of CCMA being reopened (or designated open by Congress) for OHV recreation.

PS – I enjoyed the discourse with Chairman Bishop regarding how people from Utah and Humboldt County pronounce “creek.”

Your feedback, comments, AND support are welcome as always.

BRC Letter to OHMVR Commission for April 5 Hearing in Hollister

Because of the recent medical emergency at HQ, we will not be at the OHMVR Commission meeting in Hollister tomorrow. However, Don Amador, on behalf of BRC, did work on a letter last week that contains several unanswered overarching questions for the April 5 hearing.

April 4 BRC News Release (with copy of BRC letter – embargoed until 10 am on April 5)
http://www.sharetrails.org/releases/?story=729&filter=media

HQ believes this meeting is critically important with regards to having that appointed body review potential questions regarding the “science” used by the BLM/EPA to initially close

CCMA in May 2008 and in the subsequent NEPA planning process. HQ hopes the commission will ask the federal agencies and Congress to help resolve the obvious credibility issue that currently exists.

March 23 BRC News Release on the CA OHMVR Asbestos Study
http://www.sharetrails.org/releases/?story=728&filter=media

Be assured, HQ will be there in spirit and will be monitoring Tuesday’s events online from its rehabilitation center.

Land Agencies Should Use "Signs" to Address NOA at CCMA and other Sites

REDWOOD NATIONAL PARK - ORICK BEACH

Since the BLM issued an emergency closure order in May 2008 that closed the Clear Creek Management Area to all users, the Recreation HQ and groups like BRC have urged the agency to adopt the use of “warning signs” used by sister agencies to address valid public safety issues v. the use of closures or expensive capping/ soil treatments.

CA State Parks uses signs to warn against undertow and dangerous ocean waves. Redwood National Park uses signs that count the number of people killed by downing on the beach and tallies those numbers on its warning signs.

At issue with the CCMA closure is that there is not one documented case in CA of a human contracting asbestosis/cancer and dying from recreational activity on public lands that contain naturally occurring asbestos. Yet, the BLM refused to even review or consider a signing prescription for CCMA because the line officer said he had made up his mind that the area should be closed to OHV and other motorized uses.

March 31 Blog on Faux Liability Issue at CCMA (a good read with background info)
http://thegeneralsrecreationden.blogspot.com/2010/03/faux-liability-issue-at-ccma.html

HQ believes it is just this type of arbitrary federal action that the new Congress will investigate and have oversight hearings on.

HQ urges all federal land management agencies to strongly consider a “signing” prescription for routes/areas that contain NOA

A spokesman for a major environmental group told me recently that the whole NOA issue is “much to do about nothing.” HQ agrees and hopes that the agencies can put this to rest once and for all and get back to the job of providing quality motorized and non-motorized recreation at CCMA and in the other 42 CA counties where NOA occurs.

Thanks for your service!

Riders Want Back In at Clear Creek

The Recreation HQ wanted to share this article that appeared on a NPR website regarding
BLM’s San Jose DEIS public hearing.

PHOTO: The General at a "Warning Sign" at the BLM's Samoa Dunes Recreation Area (OHV, fishing, surfing, equestrian) near Eureka, CA

NPR Story
http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/03/26/atv-sidebar/

The reporter did a pretty good job of capturing the OHV community’s frustration with the continued closure of CCMA. However by focusing on the personal attacks on Rick Cooper (the reporter does capture that BRC did not support hostility or threats) did not detail the fact that the closure is based on Cooper’s fear of a disease that is non-existent in the OHV community..

Rather the reporter could have shown, as BRC and others have requested, that the BLM failed to analyze how the agency or sister land agencies deal with public access and health/safety issues including naturally occurring asbestos. Cooper told me at the San Jose meeting that he did not do that analysis as requested by BRC et al..

If he had done some research he would have found that the Department of Interior does use signing and education as a tool to address NOA and other dangers such as fishermen being washed out to sea, children being drowned at the beach or river, etc.

For example, the US Forest Service addresses NOA through the use of signs, education/outreach, soil treatments, and speed limits vs. an unwarranted and massive land closure.

Forest Service NOA Program/Educational Outreach
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/noa/pdfs/NOAVisitorInformationPaper.pdf

The article also misses the point about riders being “worried” about NOA. It’s not that riders are not worried about health issues (heck, we wear riding gear, keep our bikes in good condition, and avoid driving off cliffs, etc.) but rather we don’t worry about politically-driven faux issues that are used arbitrarily to make the Hollister Field Office an “OHV Free Zone.”

Thanks for your continued vigilance in the fight for CCMA.

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Clear Creek Closure - Need for Peer Review

A packed house of between 500-600 recreationists, gem collectors, and other access interests attended the final BLM CCMA public DEIS meeting held in Santa Clara on January 20.

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Photo: Health Risk (you could die) Sign at CA State Park Beach
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The central theme running through public comments was that this is a politically motivated closure, does not pass the smell test, and is based on a flawed EPA risk assessment that does not even meet the basic methodology requirements of an 8th grade science project. The following was learned and/or restated for the record during the 1 hour open house where users could ask agency representatives questions and during the comment period.

1 – One of the testing roads had just been ripped by a bulldozer before the testing occurred

2 – The EPA OHV testers were not adequately monitored regarding if they stayed on the test route network

3 – The riding times were grossly overstated in the analysis and did not reflect real world riding times or conditions

4 – The EPA did not know that Jade Mill and other sites where they staged from and/or rode through were former commercial mill sites.

5 – The BLM has asked the EPA to revise their draft risk assessment to pull out the statement that the risk to public health could be zero.

One question The General asked the BLM is even if there is some health risk why they did not research how their own agency or sister agencies address public health and safety (i.e. falling in a mine shaft, fishing/eating mercury laden fish, snake bites, falling to your death while rock climbing, drowning while swimming in a river or lake, etc.) risks? Their only answer was that they selected not to do ANY research to see how they could keep the area open.

RECREATION CASE STUDY

See how Illinois State Parks addressed a similar recreation-oriented asbestos issue next to an EPA Superfund Site (there are a number of studies linked in the article)
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/illinois_beach_state_park/

Would a different BLM area manager have kept CCMA open? The General believes that the former area manager. Bob Beehler, would have not told the EPA to amend the draft risk analysis and would have keep CCMA open until better science was produced.

During the public comment period, the chairman of the OHMVR commission said he felt there is a need for a peer review of the EPA risk assessment. The General agrees.

The ugly CCMA saga continues…