Help us get the dunes reopened
Oceano Dunes SVRA has three important meetings coming up in the next few weeks and here is your chance to get involved and help save the dunes from permanent closure.
The dunes are scheduled to be reopen on October 1, but many of the anti-access groups are mobilizing to do anything it takes to keep the dunes closed forever.
In late 2017, the California Coastal Commission (CCC) approved a large expansion of dust control measures at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicle Recreation Area.
With the SVRA now closed due to the recent Covid-19 restrictions, the surrounding local economy has been devastated. The tourism that brings revenue into the community has come to a halt. Nearly all of the retail stores, restaurants, hotels, rental companies, and other small businesses in the area are just struggling to stay afloat.
Here we go again with more legislation to stop the Alameda/Tesla Expansion at the Carnegie SVRA. Similar legislation was shot down by both Gov. Brown and Gov. Newsom in the past few years. But they are back again, this time even more aggressively trying to keep the expansion and the SVRA tied up in the Legislature and the courts.
Meeting will be via Zoom
The purpose of the public meeting is to receive comment on the Oceano Dunes HCP Draft EIR. This is an opportunity for the pubic to provide verbal comment on the environmental analysis contained in the Draft EIR. Anyone wishing to provide verbal comment will be given an opportunity to speak. Meeting participation is the only way to submit verbal comment. It is not necessary to attend the meeting to submit written comment. The public may also submit written comment on the Draft EIR through emailing comments to the following address: OceanoDunesHCP@parks.ca.gov.
California State Parks held a special Off-highway Motor Vehicle Recreation (OHMVR) Commission meeting in Sacramento to discuss State Parks transformation process. The OHV community has always been very skeptical of the transformation process and many have asked why it was needed. State Parks says they had to fold the OHMVR Division back into State Parks because they felt it was more efficient and it would save money. But the OHV community fears that they just want to tap into our gas tax trust fund (green sticker fund) money. State Parks has always operated in the red and is always looking for more money from the general fund, while the OHMVR Division uses no general fund money and is always in the black.
These are a few highlights from the meeting
This meeting was like most meetings, long and dry, with comments from CORVA, Friends of Oceano, AMA District 36, Cal4 Wheel and more. Topic for the meeting was about the Transformation of the OHV Division into the Parks and Rec. Further topics brought up were Carnegie and Oceano.
On its current trajectory, the BLM headquarters in Washington, D.C. will be liquidated, decentralized, and relocated by the end of March in 2020.
Department honoring all current reservations
Letter asks State Parks to delay closure
The California Coastal Commission has issued an emergency permit requiring California State Parks to immediately close 48 acres of camping area ahead of the Christmas and New Year's holidays, resulting in a 50% loss of camping spaces on the dunes.
In response, the Friends of Oceano Dunes have written a letter addressed to State Parks asking them to delay the closure.
I attended SLO Air Pollution Control District (APCD) Oceano Dunes SVRA hearing in Arroyo Grande yesterday and came away very disappointed in the way California State Parks just rolled over and gave the local APCD everything they wanted.
As I sit here in the dark finishing up my November In-Gear article, with the distant hum of generators buzzing throughout the neighborhood, it’s easy to want to blame PG&E.
“In short, the status quo at ODSVRA is clearly not sustainable and it is time to more fully understand and evaluate other public access and recreation options that are consistent with coastal resource protections given the current realities that affect and are affected by OHV activities at this shoreline location. Put simply, in staff’s view a Park that is fully consistent with on-the-ground realities, and with coastal resource protection requirements, does not include OHV use. Rather, it is clear to staff that the significant coastal resource issues and constraints attributable to OHV use render long-term OHV use at this location untenable.” Those were the comments made by the California Coastal Commission (CCC) staff recommending the closure of the Oceano Dunes SVRA and the main subject at the July CCC meeting in San Luis Obispo.
I arrived at the meeting hall at 7AM, a good two hours before the hearing was scheduled to start and there were already hundreds of Dune supporter inside the hotel. By 9AM they estimated nearly 1,000 supporters were lined up to sign in to the hearing and give public comment on the CCC’s staff proposed closure of the Oceano Dunes SVRA.
