Enjoying nature while preserving it is an age-old conflict in California, but nowhere is it more fraught than at Oceano Dunes. Can off-roading and endangered species coexist?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n At the end of an arcing sweep of shoreline tracing the pocket coves and steep cliffs of the Central Coast lies Oceano Dunes and its rippling sea of sand.<\/p>\n The park south of San Luis Obispo is the last state beach where visitors can legally race their 4X4s, dirt bikes and monster trucks. At night, thousands of visitors fire up RV generators or pitch tents, creating bustling mini-cities on the sand.<\/p>\n But these same 1,500 acres of dunes and six miles of beachfront are also home to two federally protected birds that build their nests in the sand, making them extraordinarily vulnerable. Every year at Oceano, some of the rare birds are inadvertently squashed under the wheels of off-road vehicles racing across the dunes.<\/p>\n Oceano Dunes is arguably the most contested stretch of sand in California, an unlikely stage for 40 years of broken agreements and laws, governmental infighting, serial lawsuits and charges that the state has prioritized motorized recreation and imperiled endangered species and other beachgoers.<\/p>\n The push and pull of allowing for the enjoyment of nature while ensuring its preservation is an age-old dilemma in California, but nowhere is it more fraught than at Oceano.<\/p>\n Now the decades-long debate over the future of these dunes has reached a climax: The California Coastal Commission<\/a> has issued an unprecedented cease and desist order<\/a> to its sister agency, the state Department of Parks and Recreation<\/a>, signaling that the commission has moved the conflict into uncharted legal territory.<\/p>\n A new state parks director, Armando Quintero, is now trying to untangle what his predecessors could not.<\/p>\n “When I was being talked to about this job, I asked, ‘What are the biggest problems you are dealing with?’ One of them was Oceano Dunes,†Quintero, who was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in August, told CalMatters. “I don’t know of any problem as bad as this. I don’t know where we are going to end up.â€<\/p>\n Mark Gold, executive director of the state’s Ocean Protection Council<\/a>, has been dispatched by Newsom’s top aides to nudge the two bickering agencies closer together.<\/p>\n “This is a unique park,†Gold said. “Oceano has its own difficult management challenges — air quality, species protection, resources, very active recreation that is sometimes in conflict with other uses. It’s been one of the most difficult issues on the coast, and has been for 40 years.â€<\/p>\n Like flocks of migrating birds, generations of families return to Oceano Dunes park every year, a cherished tradition for off-roaders. Some visitors wait six months to secure reservations during the summer high season.<\/p>\n The dunes are beloved because of the unique experience of piloting vehicles directly on the beach, once common but now all-but-forbidden in California. Summers at Oceano can resemble the clogged freeways that vacationers left behind: Thousands of 4X4s, tow trucks and food trucks move in long lines along the “sand highway†leading to the dunes.<\/p>\n Critics characterize the dune-riding free-for-all as a scene from the dystopian movie Mad Max, with trucks and dirt bikes racing up and over towering sand hills, sometimes crashing or running into each other. The noise of revving engines is not contained at the beach, nor is the dust they kick up, which drifts into neighboring streets and towns.<\/p>\n Drawing more than a million annual visitors, the park operates on one of the largest budgets in the state system. Expenditures there totalled $6.3 million in 2017-2018, by far the largest amount spent by any of California’s most popular state parks.<\/p>\n The money comes entirely from registration and user fees and a portion of gasoline taxes paid by off-road vehicle owners. And that dedicated funding source makes off-roaders the park’s chief constituency, creating a relationship, critics say, that drives management decisions that prioritize motorized recreation above all else.<\/p>\n “Their mission, as they see it, is to provide maximum access to off-roaders. They could care less about any other users of the park,†said Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has sued the parks department over endangered species management.<\/p>\n Two special-status birds — the California least tern<\/a> <\/span>and the Western snowy plover<\/a> — are among the ten animals and plants inhabiting the park that are protected by the state and federal Endangered Species Acts.<\/p>\n A fluffy cotton ball with two toothpicks for legs, snowy plovers are cute, charismatic natives of Pacific Coast beaches. They build their nests, lay their camouflaged clutches of one-inch eggs and raise their downy chicks in gouges of sand, some of which is protected by fencing.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for plovers, their nesting season — March through September — coincides with the busiest time for off-roaders.<\/p>\n “Western snowy plovers are demure, quiet, and shy birds,†said Lena Chang, a senior biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As ground-nesting birds they are particularly vulnerable, but the adults fiercely protect their young, feigning injury to draw predators or other threats away from their nests and chicks, she said.<\/p>\n The decline of Oceano’s rare birds is a mirror of human dominance: They require the very shoreline proximity that beachcombers, property developers and residents cherish. Add racing vehicles to the mix, and humans tend to win those territorial tugs-of-war.<\/p>\n There was a time, decades ago, when snowy plovers skittered on beaches up and down the West Coast, preferring dunes that provided them the best of both bird worlds: wet sand to forage for meals and undulating dunes to hide nests from predators.<\/p>\n But those safe havens are long gone.<\/p>\n When plovers were declared federally threatened in 1993, only about 1,300 were counted in California and scientists declared the species in danger of extinction. And they remain in trouble<\/a>. There were only about 200 breeding adults at Oceano Dunes last year, while a federal recovery plan requires 350 or more before they no longer need federal protection. An important indicator of the species’ viability, the number of fledglings, has declined for five years<\/a> and is below the park’s recovery target.<\/p>\n Oceano Dunes also provides an ideal home to small black and white shore birds called least terns, with its nearby lakes and lagoon perfectly suited to their foraging trips. Terns have been a federally endangered species in California since 1970. Oceano’s terns have rebounded somewhat from a disastrous 2017, when, according to a state report<\/a>, “there was a near complete breeding failure with only seven juveniles produced,†largely due to predation from skunks that were inadequately controlled at the park.<\/p>\n Despite millions of dollars spent to help Oceano’s birds, the species are not expected to recover for at least another 10 years, according to federal wildlife managers.<\/p>\n The conflict at Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area illustrates that “habitat†is in the eye of the beholder. To some off-road riders, it’s the terns and plovers that are the interlopers, spreading into a public space set aside for beach driving.<\/p>\n State park officials appear to concur: A recent draft plan calls for opening more areas to vehicles, including in the birds’ sensitive habitat.<\/p>\n In contrast, the Coastal Commission, which has the power to regulate private and public development along the coast, has signaled its intent to protect Oceano’s birds and beaches, wielding the state Coastal Act.<\/p>\n The commission lashed out at the parks agency for turning a deaf ear to its 13 <\/span>recommendations<\/a>, which include prohibiting night riding, enforcing the 15 mph speed limit, adding more fences and reducing numbers of off-road vehicles.<\/p>\nCan birds and machines share a beach?<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n‘Disconnect between Coastal Commission and Parks Department’<\/h3>\n