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Central Valley Water Board orders Rubicon Trail cleanup

Posted by: Maven on April 25, 2009 at 7:10 am

From the Tahoe Daily Tribune:

The Rubicon Trail is a mess, and El Dorado County and the Eldorado National Forest have to do something about it starting this summer, according to a decision by state water quality managers this week. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board unanimously approved a cleanup and abatement order for the trail during a meeting in Rancho Cordova on Thursday night.

The Rubicon Trail is an internationally known four-wheel-drive trail that connects Georgetown to the west shore of Lake Tahoe.

Water board staff have identified numerous problems with the state of the trail, including severe erosion affecting nearby waterways, petroleum products polluting soil and human fecal matter contaminating parts of the trail.

In July 2004, the amount of human waste around Spider Lake was determined to pose a threat to human health and safety, and the area around the lake was closed to camping.

The water board’s order acknowledges efforts by off-highway vehicle groups to maintain the trail and correct the problems, but indicates the work has not been enough to keep large segments of the trail from eroding and pushing excess sediment into area waterways.

Read more from the Tahoe Daily Tribune by clicking here.

From the Sacramento Bee:

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.

Read more from the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

From YubaNet.com:

The presentation by the Water Board prosecution staff yesterday included stark evidence of severe erosion, sediment into native trout streams, petroleum products staining granite slabs and pooled in sediments. Most disturbing was the evidence of human waste that litters the area, and makeshift toilets on stream banks. The popular Spider Lake camping area was closed in 2004 by the County Health Department and Eldorado National Forest, due to the health hazard posed by human feces. There are still no county or forest service toilet facilities along the length of the trail, and efforts to get users to voluntarily “pack it out”, using free Wag Bags provided by the county, have largely failed.

David Lass of Trout Unlimited praised the Water Board action. “The diligent work of the CVRWQCB staff and vision of the Board to unanimously adopt the CAO yesterday is both applauded and commended by California sportsmen and women. There is no doubt this was a divisive and emotional issue, but the Board made the right decision yesterday, a decision that will provide the motivation and framework necessary to correct conditions on the Rubicon. This action is considered a huge victory for the wild and native trout that depend on clean water in the Upper Middle Fork American River watershed.”

“It’s about time OHV recreation is held to the same water quality standards as other uses on our public lands,” noted Monte Hendricks, a local fly-fisherman who sits on the Rubicon Oversight Committee. “They’ve gotten a free pass for polluting for far too long.”

Read more from YubaNet.com by clicking here.

April 25, 2009 · Filed Under Lake Tahoe, the Sierras & foothills

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