Within five minutes of looking at the Biological Evaluation reports for the Little Polecat Enduro Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) event, I knew there was a problem. CSERC's botanist and I were sitting in the Forest Service's Mi-wok District ranger station, taking a close look at the reports from the agency's wildlife biologist and botanist. Their detailed evaluations of the event's potential impacts caused us major concern for rare plants and wildlife within the affected portions of the Stanislaus Forest.

  The Little Polecat Enduro is an annual motorcycle race that covers more than 70 miles of motorcycle routes in the Deer Creek-Crandall Peak portion of the Stanislaus Forest. The area consists of middle elevation mixed conifer forest that is home to many sensitive wildlife species and plants. It also happens to be one of the most popular and heavily used OHV areas in the forest. Back in 1994, CSERC successfully appealed the Forest Service's decision to permit the event. At that time we reached a compromise that was supposed to reduce the event's impacts to the area's valuable biological resources, while still permitting the race.

  OHV use on National Forests is rapidly expanding and creating ever-greater threats to resources on public land. According to the Forest Service, there has been a sevenfold increase in the number of OHV owners and users in the last 30 years. OHV use has increased from 5 million in 1972, to 19.4 million in 1983, to 27.9 million in 1995, to almost 36 million in 2000. If left unmanaged, OHVs can damage national forest lands in numerous ways. Dirt bikes and ATVs can cause erosion, contaminate waters, spread noxious weeds, or disturb wildlife. Thus, when we received notice this spring that the Mi-Wok district was once again going to allow the Little Polecat Enduro without doing any additional environmental review, we were concerned.

  To give at quick example of the reasons for concern, consider the effects of hundreds of motorcycle riders racing past at least 13 nests where rare spotted owls or goshawks are attempting to protect hatchlings. If the parent birds are disturbed enough to vacate the nest, the hatchlings are not only vulnerable to other predators, but they are exposed to cold weather or rain that may be fatal.

  Similar risk threatens rare plants that are flowering during the time of the proposed race. Riders can hardly be expected to slow to a crawl along more than 70 miles of race route every time they may possibly be riding close to potential rare plants. The only way to provide at least some level of protection for either the rare birds or the rare plants is to at least delay the race until after the hatchlings are large enough to have a better chance of survival and until the rare plants have at least bloomed and released seeds for the year.

  Back at the office, CSERC's botanist and I talked with our executive director about what to do. We discussed various options and carefully defined our major concerns. Looking back at our files of our Center's 1993 appeal of this same event, it became obvious that this was a decision we needed to challenge once again.

  As a watchdog organization, we realized that an appeal was the only way to improve this project and to pressure the Forest Service to do a better, more responsible job of considering a project's environmental impacts. Subsequently, our Center provided written comments alerting the Forest Service to our intention to appeal if the District isn't willing to move the event into June, when species will be less vulnerable. In our written comments to the Forest Service, we requested that the Miwok District Ranger (1) prohibit the race from taking place before June, and (2) agree to complete the long-delayed wildlife surveys that will help identify exactly where the enduro route needs to be changed to avoid damage or disturbance to at-risk plant and animals species that need protection from the event.

  In verbal communications between the District Ranger and our center's executive director, the District Ranger dismissed any chance that she might postpone the event to reduce risk to wildlife. Her perspective was that the event being held in May was important to the OHV organization, and she wasn't willing to make them postpone their event on the grounds that wildlife and plants might be at risk. Accordingly, it is apparently inevitable that CSERC will be forced to appeal the decision to approve the event, rather than be able to accept the compromise of postponing the race until June in order to reduce the risk to resources.

  It is difficult to reach middle ground with an agency that won't aim for compromise, which is often the challenge that CSERC faces. However, our staff will continue to attempt to work with the agency and even the OHV organization in order to find ways to end up with an event that brings satisfaction to the riders without creating risk for wildlife and plant resources. This is just one quick example of the countless trade-offs, strategies, and conflicts that are a daily mix of challenging demands on CSERC.

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