Category: WEMO

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released its Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS) and Proposed Land Use Plan Amendment for the West Mojave Route Network Project (WMRNP) – WEMO. The announcement in the Federal Register on the motorized route network designation and implementation strategy opens a 30-day protest period, which will run through May 28, 2019. The entire set of documents that this FSEIS is comprised of can be found here.

During the WEMO process that has been on-going since 1980 many organizations and our community have engaged in legal actions and expressed concerns to the BLM regarding inappropriate routes for OHV riding and other related issues. (Some of the history of this process is documented on this website.) Most recently many people submitted comments on OHV routes of concern to them during the last WEMO comment period that ended in June 2018.

Your participation and submission of comments has, in many cases, had a positive impact in having the BLM reconsider and limit the designation of OHV routes. Community ORV Watch and many other organizations and citizens have advocated that OHV riding on WEMO route segments in mixed private and public (checkerboardED) areas such as the Morongo Basin should not be allowed. In the maps issued during the 2018 comment period many of these routes were (in Alternative 2, Street Legal Only Sub-Designation) assigned such a “street legal only” access and many comments you submitted advocated such designations.

This current FSEIS includes Alternative 5 – the BLM’s Proposed Action Alternative. On the associated map (see below) you can view the specific route designations in this alternative. COW’s initial review of Alternative 5 (particularly in the Wonder Valley area) appears to show that most of the “stop/start” route segments have been designated “street legal only” as we have been advocating for many years. But this may not be the case of routes in areas that you are concerned with. If you have areas with routes that you are concerned with and which you have previously submitted comments on you should examine the current Alternative 5 on the map and in the associated documents and to see what the “final” route designations are and if you want to file a protest comment by the deadline of May 28, 2019. The requirements and instructions for submitting such comments is found at this link.

Viewing the routes in the “final” Alternative 5: You may view the BLM WEMO route designations on the most recent map that has been available via the link at the very bottom of this page under the heading “Web Maps”. (Sorry, direct link to map not available.) Please note that in the past the BLM provided PDF format maps that we have used to review route designations. For this “final” review the BLM is not providing those PDF maps but rather a web based “interactive” map. (This is unfortunate because as difficult as those PDF maps were to use we all expended a lot of effort to cope with them.) As you review your areas of concern on this map you may also want to reference the route by route designation details in this document.

Submit a comment electronically using this form from The Wilderness Society.

It’s serious:  The BLM is proposing to legalize off-road vehicle use in our residential neighborhoods.  The ORV community is actively supporting their plan.  We can fight back and we can win, but only if we flood the BLM with comments by JUNE 14.  GET YOUR COMMENTS IN TODAY, and get the word out to your friends and neighbors!  

All the information you need, including an easy-to-use Sample Comment Letter, is here.  Learn how to best customize your comment or advocate for a specific route you care about here.  

Note:  If you submitted comments in 2015-16 you need to resubmit them; find out how here.

Bottom line:  Any vehicles on our rural residential roads should be “street-legal only” (as defined by the California DMV).  We do not want the BLM to bring the trespass, conflict, noise, and dust that comes with open ORV use into our neighborhoods!

Have questions?  Contact us at orvwatch@gmail.com.  And get your comment in asap! 

Everyone in the Morongo Basin is welcome to attend.

In March 2018 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a NEW draft West Mojave (WEMO) plan for allowing off-road vehicles to operate on the roads in our communities. And the plan has both GOOD news and BAD news for our rural residential neighborhoods:

• The BAD news:  The BLM’s “Preferred Alternative” (#4) designates most of the roads bordering their lands in our neighborhoods as “Motorized”, meaning off-road vehicles could legally use them as well as street vehicles.
• The GOOD news:  In response to the many comments we all sent in in 2016, the BLM is now offering an additional Alternative (#2), which instead designates most of those roads as “Street-Legal Only”.  This means use of the routes would be open to street-legal vehicles only as defined by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (excluding most ORVs!). 

OUR TASK:  Convince the BLM to use Alternative 2 (“Street-Legal Only”) rather than their current preference, Alternative 4 (“Motorized”)!  What will that take?  LOTS of comments, including from YOU!

HOW TO COMMENT: 

• Use our Sample Comment letter:  Word Document Format – PDF Format. Feel free to customize it, and be sure to include the date and your name and address!  Deadline is June 14, 2018.  You can copy-and-paste the letter into an email addressed to  blm_ca_wemo_project@blm.gov, or print it out and mail to Bureau of Land Management, California Desert District, Attn: WMRNP Plan Amendment, 22835 Calle San Juan de Los Lagos, Moreno Valley, CA 92553.
• You can make your comment stronger by personalizing it and adding specific, substantive information on items of particular interest to you.  See what works best here.
• IF YOU KNOW OF A ROUTE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE DESIGNATED AS SOMETHING OTHER THAN “STREET-LEGAL ONLY” — e.g., “Motorized” (open to all vehicles), “Non-Motorized” (such as bicycles), “Non-Mechanized” (such as hiking or equestrian trails) or Closed —you should submit a route-specific comment specifically to that effect.  Learn how here.
• IF YOU SUBMITTED COMMENTS IN 2015-16 you need to resubmit them to make sure they count in the final plan. Learn the best way to resubmit here.
• NOTE:  We do not advise you to use or comment via the BLM’s ARCGIS (“Interactive On-Line”) map as it is not accurate and does not display the “Street-Legal-Only” designation.  Instead, use the Georeferenced PDF maps we link to and the comment methods we’ve recommended to be sure your comments are accurate and counted.
• Use this electronic comment form from The Wilderness Society.

You can access links to all WEMO maps and all of documents associated with the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) in the sidebar of our WEMO page.

NOTICE:  The BLM includes the following notice on their comment site:   “Before  including your address,  telephone number, e-mail  address, or other personal identifying information in  your  comment, you should be aware that your entire comment, including your personal identifying information,  may be made publicly available at any time.   While you may ask us in your comment to withhold your  personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.  All submissions from individuals identifying themselves as  representatives or officials  of organizations or  businesses will be made available for public inspection in their entirety.”

On March 16, 2018 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its third attempt to develop a plan for managing off-road vehicle use in the West Mojave portion of the California Desert.

Unfortunately, BLM’s latest draft closely mirrors prior attempts that a federal court found illegal. The draft plan once again inadequately protects areas with high conservation and cultural values and prioritizes off-road vehicles over other uses. It appears the agency has struck out when it comes to honoring its legal obligation to protect irreplaceable resources in the desert.

The new draft plan would designate a spaghetti network of 6,300 miles of OHV routes crisscrossing the West Mojave (WEMO) portion of the BLM’s California Desert Conservation Area. That is over eight times the length of Interstate 5 from San Diego to the Oregon border. Though an improvement over the 2015 draft plan that proposed over 10,000 miles of routes, this plan does nothing to end decades of poorly managed off-road vehicle use by designating thousands of miles of routes that were created by illegal, haphazard off-roading. In 2009, a federal court found that BLM’s 2006 plan, which designated a 5,000-mile route network, harmed fragile desert resources, improperly elevated off-road vehicle use over other forms of recreation, and violated numerous environmental laws. The latest draft plan explicitly states it was designed to include the “least amount of changes” from the illegal 2006 plan. (The above courtesy of The Wilderness Society.)

Members of our community submitted comments to the BLM on thousands of route segments of concern in 2015-2016 but many problematic route segments remain in place in the new proposal. Links to the new maps and an archive of the 2015 maps can be found here.

The comment period for the current routes ends June 14, 2018.

The BLM is conducting a series of Public meetings – all at 5PM – 7PM at the following locations:

• April 17 – Victorville – Hilton Garden Inn, 12603 Mariposa Rd, Victorville, CA 92395
• April 18 – Ridgecrest – Kerr McGee Center, 100 W. California Ave. Ridgecrest, CA 93555
• April 24 – Lone Pine – Statham Hall (Lone Pine Senior Center), 138 N. Jackson St., Lone Pine, CA 93545
• April 25 – Joshua Tree – Joshua Tree Community Center, 6171 Sunburst St, Joshua Tree, CA 92252

We urge you to attend one of these meetings and express your concerns to the BLM.

We are analyzing the new BLM WEMO proposal and will publish advice on effective ways to submit your comments in the near future.

Please attend one of these meetings if you can. This will be an opportunity to hear from the BLM on the status of the WEMO process and to give your feedback.

BLM will be hosting two public open-house format meetings to gather public input on a proposal to temporarily restrict use to street legal vehicles on 148 miles of routes located on public lands within San Bernardino County that are maintained by the County of San Bernardino Public Works Department.  Segments of these routes under County maintenance are managed as limited to street legal only vehicles.  This proposal to temporarily limit the use of the route segments on public lands will allow BLM to analyze and determine if consistent management of these routes across the two jurisdictions is in the public interest.  These public meetings are scheduled for:

Wednesday, April 19, 2017 (5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.)   Yucca Valley Community Center (Yucca Conference Room)  57090 Twentynine Palms Highway  Yucca Valley, CA 92284

Thursday, April 20, 2017 (5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.)  Barstow Field Office (Main Conference Room)  2601 Barstow Rd, Barstow, CA 92311

UPDATE:
A third meeting has been scheduled as follows:
Wednesday, May 3, 2017 (5:30 to 6:30 p.m.)
Barstow Field Office
(Main Conference Room)
2601 Barstow Rd, Barstow, CA 92311

Following from our community’s work to submit comments on the BLM’s flawed 2015 WEMO plan we have been waiting for the BLM to respond to our significant input and criticism regarding their proposals. The BLM’s response has been to try and kick the can down the road and not substantively improve the shortcomings of the plan. We are actively working with the Alliance for Responsible Recreation and other concerned entities to respond to this delay and most importantly to limit further damage to the desert.

Please read this article, “Anatomy Of A Successful Grass Roots Campaign”, published in the June 2016 issue of Desert Report, for a history of the process and details of where things stand.

From the article:

The deadline for the BLM to release the WEMO Final Environmental Impact Statement and proposed Travel Management Plans was April 29th, 2016 and November 30th, 2016 was the deadline for the BLM to finalize the WEMO decisions and publish the official Record of Decision (ROD) on the TMPs. In fact, the agency has asked the courts for an extension. We were disturbed to learn that the BLM proposes to delay the process until 2020! First, they want the public to do their work for them by commenting on specific routes in a flawed document, and now they want to delay the process another four years. Every day that the agency’s ORV policy remains unclear or confusing, illegal routes will proliferate and, given the BLM’s inability to enforce the law, there will be no consequences for riders who are in violation. The desert cannot survive four more years of uncontrolled and unmanaged ORV abuse. In the meantime, constant threats to the desert continue to be challenged by a growing network of skilled and activated people who love our precious lands and are prepared
to defend them.

Photo credit: Steve Bardwell

The January 25th deadline for submitting comments to the BLM about the WEMO plan has passed. We are beyond grateful for the large number of you who have done such impressive, detailed, and high quality work in documenting and submitting your concerns about the BLM’s proposed plan.

According to the BLM they will release, in late spring 2016, their proposed WEMO Plan Amendment/FSEIS and Proposed Travel Management Plans for each Travel Management Area. Our hope is that the BLM will take the community’s comments and concerns into account with their revised plan. We understand that when those plans are released there will be an additional 45 day comment period when the community can provide feedback to them.

In the meantime if you have not yet sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior to convey your concerns about WEMO you may do so here.

Keep up to date by checking back to this website for updates, following and liking us on Facebook at facebook.com/orvwatch, and following on Twitter at @orvwatchmorongo.

Why comment? Submitting a comment to the BLM before January 25, 2016, is the most effective action citizens can take on WEMO at this time. The BLM is obligated by law to address properly submitted comments. Although it’s true there’s no guarantee they’ll follow your recommendations, they’ll have to say on record why if they choose not to and may be held accountable in court for that choice.

How do I comment? Submitting a comment can be very simple and take only a moment of your time, or you may choose to craft a more detailed response – it’s up to you. We’ve provided resources to support you, including a sample letter in email format you can just click and send, all the way to forms that help you document issues with a particular route that concerns you. You might want to read the WEMO Overview first to better understand how WEMO might affect you, your neighborhood, and the desert.

Ways to comment, from easy to more effortful, general to detailed:

• Sample letter, available as email format or Word format
• Route Designation Maps
• Sample comments – for you to draw from as you craft your own letter
• WEMO Route Form – how to identify and specify concerns for a particular road
• The BLM also provides a Comment Form, if you prefer to use that

SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS TO:

Bureau of Land Management
California Desert District
WMRNP Plan Amendment

22835 Calle San Juan de Los Lagos

Moreno Valley, California 92553


OR

email at cawemopa@blm.gov

If possible, please also send a copy to Community ORV Watch at:

COW c/o MBCA
PO Box 24
Joshua Tree, CA 92252

OR

email at orvwatch@orvwatch.com

Thanks! You just took action to preserve your roads and the quality of life in your neighborhood and the desert. Congratulations! If you want to stay informed on this issue, send your contact information including you e-mail to orvwatch@orvwatch.com to join our mailing list.