Embezzlement scandal, lawsuits and years of criticism preface
BLM’s Hollister Field Office new era
With a staff of only 40 people, ever-diminishing funds and
275,000 acres of federal land to manage, it is little wonder the
BLM Hollister Field Office has its share of critics.
Now that officials of the agency have drawn a map of where
off-road highway vehicles can and can not tread in San Benito’s
Clear Creek area (one of the 10 most popular dirt biker playgrounds
in the nation), the office still hasn’t boosted its popularity
– with environmentalists or off-roaders.
Embezzlement scandal, lawsuits and years of criticism preface BLM’s Hollister Field Office new era
With a staff of only 40 people, ever-diminishing funds and 275,000 acres of federal land to manage, it is little wonder the BLM Hollister Field Office has its share of critics.
Now that officials of the agency have drawn a map of where off-road highway vehicles can and can not tread in San Benito’s Clear Creek area (one of the 10 most popular dirt biker playgrounds in the nation), the office still hasn’t boosted its popularity – with environmentalists or off-roaders.
After years of apparent inertia, the Hollister office is finally making headway on land-use decisions and officials say they’re attempting to stick to its mission, a delicate balancing act between protecting public land and allowing the public to use its resources. The office’s latest milestone is the creation of a Draft Resource Management Plan for its entire 10-county jurisdiction, a work as thick as the L.A. basin phone book.
Hollister BLM is forging ahead in the wake of a string of troubles that beset the agency in recent years, including dueling lawsuits from opposing factions of their public and years of an apparent dormancy during which nothing seemed to be accomplished. It was all topped off in August last year when Hollister BLM Field Office Director Bob Beelher, was convicted for embezzling from the local agency.
“It’s been a transition period,” said George Hill, who stepped in as interim director after Beelher’s exit last summer. “I think we’re getting through it, keeping focused on our mission and the jobs at hand.”
That mission, as stated in the BLM credo, is: “to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of these public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.”
That’s no easy feat for an agency facing cutbacks that’s in charge of managing public lands spanning from the Southern Diablo Mountain Range to the Central Coast area of California. Imagine trying to appease the wishes of hunters, ranchers, miners, off-road warriors, campers and environmentalists on the scattered parcels within the massive area – all at the same time – from a field office in Hollister.
“A big part of our job is managing resources in the field,” Hill said, “and because of the long distances and small staff, it’s a full-time job for everyone – and more. We have to be efficient.”
Perhaps they’re too efficient. Even with the new draft management plan prepared, the Clear Creek trails defined, a new leader at the helm, it seems BLM Hollister – or perhaps the entire federal agency as a whole – is little appreciated by people who deal with the agency at the local level.
“George seems like a straight shooter,” said Mary Ann Matthews, who for 25 years has served as the Conservation Chair for the Monterey Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. “The new [Clear Creek decision] is a big start, but has the BLM culture changed? The final decision [on the dirt bike trails] is more protective and better – but it always is on paper.”
The war of the primroses
In 1984 botanists perusing the BLM’s 50,000-acre Clear Creek Management Area discovered a tiny endangered plant species that kicked off a classic land-use controversy. The San Benito Evening Primrose, Camissonia benitensis, stands about two inches tall on a hair-skinny stalk ending in a yellow bloom the size of a miniature moth. It grows almost exclusively on BLM land in the sparse serpentine-pine habitat of San Benito Mountain and nearby Clear Creek.
Dirt bikers once free to ride some 800 miles of open trails through the rugged, scrubby wilderness were now barred from tearing through the small colonies of Camissonia, and were frustrated when they couldn’t even see what it was they were told to avoid. BLM stewards, with the help of volunteers from the California Native Plant Society’s Monterey Chapter, tried to keep up with newly discovered Camissonia colonies, posting closure signs on trails and planting wire fencing easily breached by the bikers.
As the local office dragged its feet on the issue – for more than seven years – both groups finally sued the agency in spring of 2004 for the same thing: doing nothing. The nationwide Center for Biological Diversity backed the Monterey Chapter of CNPS and actually filed the lawsuit. The Salinas Ramblers dirt biker club, backed by a pro-recreational use group called the Blue Ribbon Coalition, filed an intervening suit.
In the years prior to that the Hollister Field Office had cobbled together a draft Record of Decision on dirt bike trail designations and finally released it in 1999, but never implemented it. BLM, said both environmentalists and off-roaders, was so glacial about deciding which trails were open, by the time BLM got around to it, the sporadic patches of Camissonia – as all sides call it – were either run over or growing elsewhere. The 1998 environmental studies were hopelessly outdated, all contended.
The Blue Ribbon Coalition and Salinas Ramblers now have let go of their two-year-long intervention suit against Hollister BLM. But the Center for Biological Diversity and CNPS still cling to the allegation that the agency has not adequately protected the endangered primrose or other rare species, as required by federal law, despite the new Record of Decision.
Brian LeNeve, President of the Monterey Chapter of the CNPS, echoes the doubt displayed by his fellow society members.
“The judge is likely to dismiss it because it’s moot,” LeNeve said. “They’ve done everything we’ve asked for on paper. But the reality of enforcement is going to be difficult.”
The problem, say primrose fans, is that the Hollister BLM has burned them in the past. Matthews, LeNeve and others in their organization believe the agency caters too much to the “motorheads,” as they refer to the dirt bikers. When BLM assured the plant society in the 1980s that they would fix the trail problem after Camissonia was discovered, said Matthews, it took the agency another decade to make a Record of Decision. When it was finally published, the group’s input seemed to vanish.
“The ROD (Record of Decision) was like Swiss cheese,” Matthews said.
Give and take in the land of asbestos
Hill said that since his agency finally re-wrote and approved a new map for dirt bike trails in November, the environmentalists should support the new network of dirt bike routes.
“We’ve reduced the number of (off-road) stream crossings and routes through riparian areas by 50 percent,” Hill said.
“We’re cautiously optimistic,” said Rosemary Foster, a past president of the Monterey CNPS and longtime board member. “But we’ve had agreements with BLM before that have fallen through.”
The dirt bikers have called off their legal pit bulls, but the new trail closings have created fresh anger among them. Ed Tobin, a spokesman for the Salinas Ramblers who is also known as the “godfather” of the Clear Creek dirt bikers, has been working with BLM bureaucrats, botanists and the plant society over the Camissonia for more than 20 years, and is hardly satisfied. Tobin had always encouraged his fellow dirt bikers to comply with the ever-increasing trail closures because he knew what was at risk: a total closure of Clear Creek.
In the new policy, BLM closed 130 miles of trails, but restored 50 miles of trails previously closed. Still, with only 242 miles of trail now left open, Tobin is recommending that his and other off-road groups appeal the new Record of Decision.
“It takes away too much,” Tobin said. “This is one of the fastest growing outdoor sports and the few areas that are open in Central California are heavily used.”
Most of the bald asbestos hills in the area, called the “barrens,” are now closed to dirt bikers who used to delight in ripping up and down the dozens of treeless slopes that not long ago BLM could not, or would not, close.
“They were like what skiers would call ‘bunny hills,'” Tobin said. “There’s no challenge for anyone anymore. It appears to me that the (new) ROD was driven by ideology and not science or practicality. I see no other way to explain some of the decisions that were made.”
One of the more bitter losses to the dirt biker community is BLM’s closure of the most popular run, Larious Canyon. Seen from afar, dirt bikers used to look like ants scrambling up and down a steep powdery white asbestos slope called Indian Hill, which drops off into the canyon – home to five acres of Camissonia habitat discovered in 2002.
Even if the Camissonia in Larious Canyon dies out for some inexplicable reason, there’s little chance the dirt bikers will get it back. Recently, members of the Native American Tachi Yokuts – specifically, the Ohlone Bear Clan – have claimed Larious Canyon as a sacred site where they will be performing an annual ceremony.
“I think they only picked it because they can drive to it,” Tobin said.
A sense of betrayal
Hill, soft-spoken but well versed in the rugged landscapes of both outback wilderness and office bureaucracy, takes over a tough post. His predecessor, former Hollister BLM Director Beelher, pleaded guilty last August to embezzling nearly $18,000 in federal funds from the local office.
Though he claimed he didn’t realize his mistake while making it, Beelher used federal agency credit cards to cut himself personal checks over a three-year period. He avoided prison but was forced by a U.S. District Court to pay back the $17,939 in restitution or face 10 years in prison and a $200,000 fine. Beelher had been working for the agency for 28 years when, after a two-year investigation, the inspector general of the Department of the Interior charged him with fraud. He was placed on administrative leave, then discharged from the job after pleading guilty.
Hill is calm, even dismissive, about the office drama. But other long-time BLM employees shared their real feelings while taking a break in the Hollister BLM lunchroom this week. Botanist Julie Delgado said reaction from staff over the Beelher embezzlement ordeal ran the gamut of human emotions.
“Shocked, confused, some felt betrayal, anger,” Delgado offered. “Some people didn’t give a s—. Some people were glad because they knew he (Beelher) would get replaced.”
Much land, few happy campers
BLM Hollister has a vast empire – or public trust, depending on one’s viewpoint — to overlook. The 275,000 acres the office manages is about to grow by another 5,000 when it acquires land dubbed the “Davenport Dairies,” off Highway 1 north of Santa Cruz. Hill said the transfer should be final sometime in April, when the federal government finishes cleaning up a toxic parcel left in the aftermath of a defunct cement plant in the area.
The Hollister Field Office, comprised of about 40 staffers whose expertise ranges from anthropology to fire management, is responsible for the management of lands located in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, in addition to portions in Fresno, Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties. The most notable holdings are the 50,000-acre Clear Creek Management Area, the former Fort Ord military base and the western San Joaquin Valley.
About two-thirds of these lands consist of chaparral and oak woodland, and the other third are grasslands and half-shrub vegetation – although botanists would categorize the Clear Creek area as a special and rare serpentine habitat. One thing that conservationists, director Hill and other employees of the office would agree on is that the agency does not have enough enforcement power to monitor all that land. Of the 40 experts employed, only one – BLM Ranger William Schwartz – has the power to legally enforce the rules at Clear Creek and issue citations.
That might change in the fall when BLM plans to start charging a fee to get into the Clear Creek. Hill said by charging a yearly fee of perhaps $60 to $100, or a day pass of $4, his local agency could possibly hire more personnel to actually manage the management area.
LeNeve said he won’t hold his breath.
“I know they don’t have the funds nor the manpower to enforce it and I doubt they have the will,” he said.
A new deal?
And what of the new phonebook-sized management plan? Hill sums it up by saying it replaces one done in 1984, and that it deals mostly with an expected statewide population boom.
CNPS’s Matthews says she’s not impressed.
“It was so badly done,” Matthews said. “It’s one of the worst documents I’ve seen, proposing heavy impacts and then saying everything will be fine. We know what directives they’re getting from the administration in Washington.”
To the layman, the draft Management Plan looks good. It’s loaded with jazzy colored pull-out maps and describes BLM’s usual choices when the agency has to make land management decisions: they could do nothing, preserve the environment more, exploit the environment more, or strike a happy balance between the two. While BLM almost always chooses the last option – on paper – as the agency seemed to do with the latest decision on Clear Creek, it seems to rarely please anyone.
LeNeve and his colleagues see BLM’s problems as part of a larger crisis.
“I’m a lifelong Republican but the Bush Administration has a total disregard for science,” LeNeve offered. “It’s frightening. That’s part of the cultural problem of BLM. It percolates from the Bush Administration on down. If you don’t follow the current administration’s mandates, you’re not going to be a career BLM employee.”
LeNeve added, “They (BLM Hollister) have a really tough job, and nobody is going to be happy with what they do.”
