The Sierra Nevada's legendary Rubicon Trail must be cleaned up, state water quality officials ruled Thursday in a move to fight pollution on the popular off-road vehicle route
The Rubicon Trail crosses National Forest land between Wentworth Springs and Lake Tahoe. The historic trail is known as one of the world's most difficult off-road vehicle recreation routes.
It also has become one of the most popular, resulting in environmental problems. Erosion threatens trout-spawning gravels, human feces and a lack of toilets endanger public health, and chemicals from tipped-over vehicles cause pollution in the American River headwaters.
After a six-hour hearing, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered El Dorado County and the Eldorado National Forest to immediately address these problems. It also set deadlines to adopt long-term management plans.
<SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; FONT: 17px Verdana; TEXT-The order, after revisions, appeared to please both conservation groups and off-roaders
"This order is tolerable from our perspective," said Randy Burleson, president of Friends of the Rubicon, a nonprofit group that has organized volunteer trail projects. "More than anything, it reminds the bulk of responsible users that we need to be even more forward in our discussions with our peers to ensure they are respecting the trail."
The order requires the county and Forest Service to adopt measures to control erosion and pollution, such as completing new stream crossings and bridges, and user education programs.
They also must develop a water quality protection plan by October 2010 and a long-term management plan by April 2011. Quarterly and annual progress reports must be submitted so the cleanup can be monitored.
More basic steps require an official map of the route, which has never been done, and a complete count of vehicle traffic.
Significantly, the order does not require any trail closures, nor does it limit traffic or require access permits. It does require these steps to be considered if other measures fail.
The board acknowledged that volunteer groups have worked hard to improve the trail.
"We appreciate all the work they have done," said Wendy Wyels, the board's enforcement supervisor. "But there are still problems out there."
The Rubicon Trail sits entirely on National Forest land, but El Dorado County asserted ownership of the route years ago. Still, in contesting the cleanup order, the county claimed it had no obligation to maintain the route and no power to impose fees for that purpose.
The county had been developing its own long-term management plan for the trail using grant funds but halted that work last year, citing budget troubles.
County Supervisor Jack Sweeney said he doesn't know how the county will pay for projects required by the cleanup order. But he hopes to obtain more grants.
"I'm not sure there's a true government entity responsible for this, but we're going to do our best to fix the problems," he said.