By: Will Borem

Will Borem — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:01:10 +0000

As per usual, Joetopia finds the virtual fly in the ointment: Revegetating to assuage the revegetation crowd, only to allow off-roaders to rip it up. Seems like a costly exercise in trying to find a narrow fence to straddle. Here’s the deal: Off-roading is a kick in the pants. It gives families something to do together; it’s an adrenaline rush to race around dune bowls and pop wheelies over sandy crests. A weekend at the dunes offers an outdoors camping experience with the exhilaration of putting the pedal to the metal on a fuel-injected dragster. Bonus points? Out-of-towners bring their bucks to the coast. The downside? Broken bones, necks and death — all conditions that tax local emergency services. Other downsides include trash and emptied RV septage left behind; sound and air pollution and punk attitudes. All that taken into consideration, here’s a modest proposal: Keep the dunes open to off-roaders, but the price of admission should be that those who use the area have to police it for injuries among their own: You break it, you take care of it, even if it means driving back to Bakersfield. Another caveat is that each person in each vehicle is responsible for carrying out two garbage bags full of trash when leaving the area. This to be checked by rangers on exiting the dunes. Bottom line: Want a nanny state to wipe your nose or do you do it yourself? Knowing the can-do, independent spirit that infuses the dunesters, I’m sure they’d opt for the latter.

Comments on: What ‘revegetating’ would really mean for the Oceano Dunes

By: Will Borem