By Kathryn Phillips
It isn't often that state bureaucracies get a chance to correct a bad decision before it's too late. One of those rare opportunities will come up this Friday, October 21, before the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission when it meets in Sacramento.
The decision the commissioners make will either protect an increasingly rare habitat for various endangered plant and animal species, or throw it open for dirt bikes and other off-highway vehicles that are sure to destroy it and the wildlife that depend upon it.
The area is referred to as Tesla Park by people who live near it. In the environmental impact report the commission will consider on Friday, it's coolly referred to as "the expansion area."
Tesla Park is about 12 miles south of Tracy, and about 60 miles east of San Francisco. It's in rolling hills that exist where the Central Valley merges into the Bay Area. It's the kind of place where you can still walk through a grove of oak trees and feel like you're a million miles away from cities and freeways. It's the kind of place that is becoming rare in California, too, because it sits in the heart of an area that is home to the California red-legged frog and other threatened and endangered critters that need very specific habitat.
In other words, Tesla Park isn't your average park.
The Division of Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation (OHMVR) happened to have a hunk of spare cash when the Tesla land, amounting to 3,100 acres, came up for sale in 1998. Since then, the division staff has been trying it's hardest to turn the land into another off-highway vehicle park.
The thing is, there's a 1,500-acre off-highway vehicle park within spitting distance of Tesla already. That park, the Carnegie State Vehicle Recreation Area, has been owned and operated by the OHMVR division for over 35 years.
Carnegie is California's poster child for what not to do if you own and operate a park for off-highway vehicles. It's a mess. There's no better way to describe it. The off-highway-vehicle (OHV) enthusiasts have torn up hillsides and rutted pathways. The damage is so bad that much of the park boasts permanent scars that are probably impossible to restore.
Moreover, there still are no capacity limits on park visitors and riders. On busy weekends, the parking lot and nearby roadway overflows, while the hills are alive with the sounds of hundreds of revving engines. Dust and engine exhaust are the byproducts, not to mention greenhouse gas pollution. Given the Brown administration's dedication to reducing climate pollution, Carnegie seems like an odd thing for the State to own, much less plan to expand. Yet that's what the OHMVR division staff wants to do. Right into Tesla.
On Friday, October 21st, the OHMVR commission will consider whether to certify the environmental impact report and adopt the staff's proposed plan to expand Carnegie park into Tesla.
Opponents of expansion include Sierra Club and a range of other national and local public interest groups, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the Livermore City Council, and many, many individuals. We've all been calling for Tesla to be used as a mitigation for the extraordinary damage done at Carnegie. That is, turn it into a natural park. Let people use Tesla for hiking and picnicking, but let them do it without incompatible off-road vehicles.
On Friday, we'll find out if the OHMVR Commission members — all OHV enthusiasts — and State Parks, the Natural Resources Agency and the Governor that, together, oversee the commission, value the need to protect the habitat and species of Tesla.
If they do, they'll reject the plan and start negotiating to find a better use for Tesla.
WhatYouCanDo:
If you can attend the hearing in at Sacramento City Hall (915 I Street, Sacramento CA 95814) at 10 am on October 21st, please email friendsofteslapark@gmail.com. We need your help.
Watch for emails and updates at www.teslpark.org and on www.facebook.com/SaveTeslaPark.
Photos courtesy www.teslapark.org: Top – View of Tesla Park's Mitchell Ravine; Bottom – the destruction caused by off-highway vehicles at the Carnegie State Vehicle Recreation Area.