Earlier this week, officials from the Bureau of Land Management
held an open house in Yucca Valley. The aim was to provide information on a proposal that would bar ORV, or off-road vehicle, traffic from various types of local roads, and to gather public comment on the proposal. Reporter Mike Lipsitz has more…
The issue is related to a larger project called the West Mojave (WEMO) Route Access Plan which proposes to regulate ORV traffic across more than three million acres in the western Mojave Desert. By all accounts, the larger plan is exceedingly complex, poorly understood and inadequately documented. Those characteristics came into play at Wednesday night’s meeting with BLM focus on just 148 miles of county maintained roads where they cross Federal land. But of concern to many are the hundreds of miles of non-county maintained roads in the unincorporated areas here. Those roads are maintained by assessments added to the property tax bills of those who live along them. Public comment on permitting only street-legal traffic on the 148-miles of roads in question ends May 12. For more information, follow the link at http://www.orvwatch.com/
Public comment on route designations in the larger WEMO plan will be accepted until September 2017. A draft report is expected January 2018 with finalization of the route access plan forecast for October 2019.
BLM PONDERING LOCAL OFF-ROAD VEHICLE ROUTES
