Judge Rejects Plan for Off-Road Routes in Calif. Desert

A federal judge has rejected key provisions of a plan for managing millions of acres of California desert on grounds that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management designated roughly 5,000 miles of off-road vehicle routes without taking into account the impact on public lands, archaeological sites and wildlife.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston on Monday ruled that the West Mojave plan, which the BLM approved in 2006 after a decade of development, was "flawed because it does not contain a reasonable range of alternatives" to limit the number of miles of off-road routes.

She also determined that the agency's analysis of the routes' impacts on air quality, soil, plant communities and sensitive species including the Mojave fringe-toed lizard was inadequate, pointing out that the desert and its resources are "extremely fragile, easily scarred and slowly healed."

"The court recognizes the complexity of the issues presented in this case," Illston said, "and that defendants have been given the difficult task of addressing the interests and needs of OHV (off-highway vehicle) recreationists while at the same time protecting listed species as required by law."

The ruling came in response to a legal challenge brought in late 2006 by a coalition of conservation groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and Desert Survivors.

"The BLM planning was backwards," Elden Hughes, honorary vice president of the Sierra Club, said in a statement. "They should first analyze the resources, natural, cultural wildlife, etc., and then plan the route network. They put the route approvals first."

U.S. Department of Justice attorney Charles R. Schockey, who represented BLM in the matter, declined to comment on the ruling. However, Illston said she planned to schedule a case-management conference to discuss possible remedies.