RUBICON TRAIL FOUNDATION
Contact: Scott Johnston FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Telephone: 530-409-8482
E-mail: Scott.Johnston@RubiconTrailFoundation.org
Placerville, CA January 20, 2010
PRESS RELEASE: BOARD OF SUPS TO DECIDE ON RUBICON TRAIL
Formal Decision Expected at Tuesday Board Meeting
DOT Staff has recommended that the Rubicon Trail in El Dorado County be defined in order to comply with a cleanup and abatement order written by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board in 2009.
Of the three options listed, Rubicon Trail Foundation (RTF) supports Option 3 with inclusion of all the Recommended Variants and a wide maintenance corridor at Little Sluice and Buck Island to preserve other variant routes within the corridor today and reserve the possibility to create other variant routes in the future, in compliance with the principal goals of the CAO. Preserving potential access to alternates and stub routes in these areas is more consistent with the historical Rubicon Trail Experience than any single trail alignment. Trail users enjoy camping while enjoying the trail and parking issues may result in enforcement issues if restrictions are too high. People come from all over the world to enjoy the historic Rubicon Trail.
Additionally, RTF would like the Board of Supervisors to consider including the following Variants Not Recommended into the Recommended Variants list.
* Map location (C) the USFS portion (14N34B) of the historic McKinstry access to Rubicon.
* Map location (D) is a short section of trail just east of Ellis Creek.
* Map location (E) is the obstacle known as Soup Bowl, and the short bypass near it.
RTF appreciates the hard work that the Department of Transportation spent to formulate a fair framework for the Board of Supervisors to make decisions when they may not all be personally familiar with each section of trail. We know how tough it must have been to find middle ground between two extremes:
folks who demand Rubicon closed to green stickers year-round, closed to motorized use in the winter, and travel limited to only one route
trail users who desire unrestricted year-round access to every section of trail, bypass, or alternate
RTF especially appreciates that the County is neither relinquishing the public's RS-2477 standing nor closing routes, and is limiting their efforts to identifying maintenance priorities for the County, its agency and organization partners, and the hardworking FOTR volunteers that support them.
RTF provides a lengthier opinion with more specifics supporting our rationale at
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=77244146742&topic=16224 (POSTED BELOW)The Rubicon Trail Foundation was formed in 2004. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation dedicated to the future health of the Rubicon Trail and our mission is to enhance the future health and use of the Rubicon Trail, while ensuring responsible motorized year-round trail access. FOTR and RTF works with individuals, 4x4 clubs, organizations, and agencies to maintain and manage the trail. Our Officers and Directors represent a wide variety of Rubicon Trail OHV users, land owners, county representatives, manufacturers, and event organizers.
If you would like to help with our efforts, you may send your tax deductible donations to:
Rubicon Trail Foundation PO Box 2188 Placerville, CA 95667
Paypal donations or major credit cards by calling 888-6rubicon or by signing up for a Friends of the Rubicon work party at:
www.friendsoftherubicon.com_____________________________________________________________________
To El Dorado County Board of Supervisors,
You be presented with an agenda item on Tuesday Jan 26th at 2PM to decide the fate of the Rubicon Trail route and bypasses. There is also an option for corridors to be set up for a larger areas near Little Sluice and Buck Island. Overall, the County is looking at three options in the staff recommendation:
1) One single route with no bypasses.
2) One single route that includes some of the bypasses/variants in the discussions so far at meetings.
3) Combination of option 1 and 2 with the inclusion of two "corridor" areas at Little Sluice and Buck Island.
Some of the things that are important to the County in making this decision are:
Long history of user involvement in maintaining the trail at minimal cost to the County
Many of the bypasses are rock or only need volunteer labor to keep maintained at little to no cost to the County.
County recognition of "public road" since the late 1800's and reaffirmed in 1989, formalizing an RS2477 right of way claim.
Rubicon Trail Foundation has spent tens of thousands of dollars on the trail, has money in the bank and is committed to generating grant and donation income intended for the trail
Concerns about environmental problems on the trail have created differences of opinion on how to apply mitigation for problem areas. Some folks demand excessive restrictions for areas that may only need maintenance or simple water drainage structures built.
Volunteers can maintain this trail at very low cost to the county. Volunteer labor is free. FOTR has logged tens of thousands of volunteer hours
DOT employees are paid from grant money to do work on the trail, thereby enabling employee retention in uncertain economic times.
Failure to comply with the CAO issued by the Water Board can cost the county $10K a day for non-compliance.
Anti-OHV proponents are asking to restrict access to the Rubicon to street-legal vehicles only. This could be the beginning of closures as it would reduce in-lieu fees and prevent OHMVR grants for maintenance efforts. There is no reason not to allow this to be a mixed use road. OHMVR and California Code defines a mixed use or OHV road as "roughly graded"
The Trail is a valuable asset to the county as far as a tax base. It is estimated that OHV use on the Trail can generate 10 million dollars annually spent for Rubicon related tourism.
RTF appreciates the hard work that the Department of Transportation spent to formulate a fair framework for the Board of Supervisors to make decisions when they may not all be personally familiar with each section of trail. We know how tough it must have been to find a middle ground between two extremes:
folks who demand Rubicon closed to green stickers year-round, closed to motorized use in the winter, and travel limited to only one route
trail users who desire unrestricted year-round access to every section of trail, bypass, or alternate and cross-country travel
RTF especially appreciates that the County is neither relinquishing the public’s RS-2477 standing nor closing routes, and is limiting their efforts to identifying maintenance priorities for the County, its agency and organization partners, and the hardworking volunteers that support them.
Of the three options listed, RTF supports Option 3 with inclusion of all the Recommended Variants and a wide maintenance corridor at Little Sluice and Buck Island to preserve other variant routes within the corridor today and reserve the possibility to create other variant routes in the future, in compliance with the principal goals of the CAO. Preserving potential access to alternates and stub routes in these areas is more consistent with the historical Rubicon Trail Experience than any single trail alignment. Trail users enjoy camping in these locations and parking issues may result in enforcement issues if restrictions are too high in these areas. People come from all over the world to enjoy the historic Rubicon Trail.
RTF would like the Board of Supervisors to include the following Variants Not Recommended into the Recommended Variants list, for the following reasons:
Map location (C) is USFS historic trail designated 14N34B RTF is aware that the El Dorado County section of this road is a couple to a few hundred yards long and extends only to the county line. After that, the road enters in to Private land as well as Placer County. RTF asks that El Dorado County include this short section of connector road by adding it to the Rubicon Trailand its variants. This portion of the road is easily maintained as it is not a sediment threat to Ellis Creek. It is an important egress disabled vehicles, injured people and evacuation in the event of wildfire.
Map location (D) is just after Ellis Creek and staff recommendation refers to preferred and non-preferred. OHV preference as diverse as it is proves that many people prefer to use either or both routes and traffic issues will result if there is a single route determined here. The two routes are almost close enough to be considered two lanes of traffic. The entrance to both routes is in need of maintenance as well as the traditional route. The bypass will quickly degrade if significant work is not done to harden it for sole use.
Map location (E) is Soup Bowl. RTF is aware of no incidents or accidents at Soup Bowl, and believes that while it can challenge the flow of traffic, it is not a safety hazard. RTF encourages BMP mitigations to install barriers to protect the area from further vegetation loss, and control sediment concerns.
Fiscal impact:
RTF believes that the fiscal impact of restricting access and use of many of the current bypasses that are attractive to OHV may create a significant loss to tax revenue to the County. By taking away some of the fun in this historically difficult trail, people may desire to find other places to challenge their vehicles, taking away sales of gas, groceries and hotel lodging.
Because of the large FOTR volunteer base, maintenance cost to the County will be minimal and as you know, no general fund money may be used to maintain this road. Grants can and will fill in where money is needed for maintenance and volunteer labor can offset costs.
All that said, RTF believes that the Rubicon Trail is an OHV experience. Though this experience supports access to many vehicular challenges on the trail, as well as camping, historic, and recreation experiences near the trail, vehicles need to stay on the trail or in approved parking and/or corridor areas near the trail. Rubicon Trail does not support unstructured challenge and/or vehicle travel off the trail, and none of the public or private property owners alongside the trail allow cross-country vehicle travel.
Scott Johnston
President, Rubicon Trail Foundation
