West Mojave Route Designation Process

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will soon be proposing route designations for the nine-million acre West Mojave planning area and will include opportunities for public review and comment before final decisions are made.

BLM is concurrently preparing an environmental assessment (EA) to designate routes of travel within the West Mojave planning area, and a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the West Mojave Plan Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP). The route designation portion of the West Mojave planning area must precede the West Mojave HCP to satisfy legal timeframes.

The BLM is facing a court-approved deadline to complete the route designation portion of the West Mojave plan amendment by June 30, 2003, as part of a settlement agreement resulting from a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Consequently, BLM will release the EA for a 30-day public review in mid-March. The decision record will be signed by June 2003 and will amend the 1980 California Desert Conservation Area plan.

The draft West Mojave Plan HCP is scheduled for release in mid-May for a 90-day public comment period. The vehicle route designations will be incorporated into the plan. BLM anticipates a Record of Decision for the West Mojave plan by February 2004. It will also amend the California Desert Conservation Area plan. The public will be provided an opportunity to comment on all aspects of the plan.

This route designation process, which will update a network designated in 1987, has been underway in the Mojave Desert since 1997. In 2001, local agencies, off-highway vehicle groups, and other interested constituencies began working with BLM to better identify and "ground-truth" all the existing routes as well as recommend critical access needs in this large area. The interagency planning team has used all this data in preparing the new draft route network that the public will be invited to comment on.

(Source:BLM-CA Web Site - March 4, 2002)