A coalition of recreation groups and off-highway vehicle users filed suit last week against the Bureau of Land Management for violations of land management policies and failing to consider alternatives to closing Black Sands Beach near Shelter Cove.

The Blue Ribbon Coalition, a national group, along with local four-wheel drive advocates Lost Coast 4x4's and the Shelter Cove-based Friends of the Beach, allege that the bureau violated the Federal Land Policy and Land Management Act, which requires the agency to provide for public use, including motorized access.

The suit charges that the bureau did not conduct an environmental impact statement required by the National Environmental Policy Act before closing the beach, and by not considering the public's desire that alternatives to beach closure should be found.

The three-and-a-half mile section of beach has been closed to motor vehicle access since July 1999.

Don Amador of the Blue Ribbon Coalition said the bureau has been moving toward a more "wilderness area-type management" since the 1970s.

"It's gotten to the point where we have to stand up to it," Amador said, "and not be at the back of the bus."

The area is a wilderness study area, which provides for motorized access, unlike a wilderness area, which does not.

Friends of the Beach member D.J. Miclette said BLM ignored public sentiment that the beach remain open.

More than 2,500 signatures and 97 businesses in the area supported leaving the beach accessible to off-highway vehicles, the suit states.

"We've been shoved off," Miclette said.

Arcata bureau field manager Lynda Roush said the decision was made by considering the best options for public access and natural resources.

"BLM felt it made the right decision," Roush said. In the decision-making process, Roush said, "Numbers don't generate a direction."

"We had to look at the visiting public, too," Roush added, most of whom come to take advantage of the area's primitive nature.

Other factors such as enforcing the rule that vehicles stop at the three-and-a-half mile limit also came into play, Roush said.

Miclette said the suit was the only option left after the bureau ignored the motorized vehicle community.

"For too long, access groups have depended on an increasingly corrupt public process," Amador said. "The only recourse now is the courts."

©2000 Times-Standard
Tues, May 16, 2000