Despite the latest wave of increased COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations throughout California and the resulting implementation of a regional stay-at-home-order, State Parks has no known plans to close the Oceano Dunes to vehicles as it did at the beginning of the pandemic. While that’s good news for off-roaders, some Oceano community members say the decision will encourage non-essential travel into the area and could potentially lead to further coronavirus spread on the Central Coast.
The Oceano Dunes (State Vehicular Recreation Area) reopened to street-legal vehicles on Oct. 30 after a seven-month closure that started as an effort to reduce crowds and discourage travel to slow the spread of COVID-19. Now with cases of COVID-19 raging throughout the state, some community members are questioning State Parks’ differing response.
But local campgrounds within the State Parks system are closed and safety measures are being enforced, and for now, the department says that’s enough.
“While the new order is asking Californians to stay home as much as possible and for campground sites in impacted regions to close, the state also recognizes that mental health is physical health,” State Parks wrote in an emailed statement to New Times. “As such, State Parks welcomes the public to recreate in the outdoors provided that they stay local, plan ahead to find out what is open, wear a face covering, practice physical distancing and avoid gatherings with people outside the immediate household. Oceano Dunes SVRA and Pismo State Beach are open for day use recreational activities, including for street legal vehicles.”
Conservationists have been fighting the park’s reopening to vehicles since the Oceano Dunes first closed due to COVID-19 on March 26. Despite budding reopening plans in the summer, State Parks agreed to keep the Oceano Dunes closed to vehicles through Oct. 1 in a consensual cease-and-desist order with the California Coastal Commission.
In the order finalized on July 7, State Parks agreed to halt a number of development activities that the commission claimed were unpermitted and possibly harmful to snowy plovers. Without vehicles in the area throughout the spring, snowy plovers built nests outside of their “seasonal exclosures”—designated breeding areas that are off limits to vehicles and visitors—and State Parks had attempted to prevent plovers from nesting in those areas in preparation for reopening.
On Oct. 20, State Parks announced plans to reopen the Oceano Dunes to vehicles in three phases that are “designed to support a safe and healthy environment for employees, visitors, and natural resources such as the endangered Western snowy plover and California least tern.”
Since the park reopened to vehicles on Oct. 30, more than 25,000 vehicles have entered the grounds, according to data State Parks shared with New Times. An average of about 700 vehicles entered the Oceano Dunes SVRA each day in the last two months.
In a Nov. 26 letter to New Times, Nipomo resident Dorothy Hines said that’s too many, and that keeping the park open to vehicles is an “invitation to continued high levels of COVID-19 cases.”
“Given all of the closure mandates in other parts of the county,” Hines wrote, “Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area must be re-closed to vehicles.” ∆
This article appears in Last-Minute Gift Guide 2020.
The number 25,000 vehicles is very misleading because it implies those are all different vehicles. With locals going to the beach 2-3 times a week in the same vehicle, the actual number is actually significantly less. Typical State Park exaggeration–like their economic impact exaggerations.
No real way to mix “street legal vehicles” and recreation. Who goes play on a freeway? Even kids are taught not to play in the street! Add in the annoying flags, engine noise, huge gutters to walk thru, more trash left behind because now they can bring in cases of beer instead of just a bottle or 2 and the whole thing is a disgusting attempt by State Parks to bully the residents of Oceano. Join the fight! peopleforhedunes.org
Driving to the beach is the only way my step mother can even reach the beach, as she has significant mobility issues. You shouldnt take that away from her. There is plenty of beach where traffic is prohibited, so its not that hard to avoid her and her car, if she bothers you that much. Even pre-COVID,people were social distancing at the beach, since it would be excessively rude to set up less than 6 feet from the people already there. I would say thats a non issue. When I go to the beach, I find myself picking up about twice as much trash as I generate, on average. If locals are such a large percentage of those driving to the beach, Im picking up local trash, too. Youre welcome.
I have been enjoying/ridding the dunes for over 25 years now. I used to drive up from LA (Go Dodgers) just to ride the dunes, since high school. For the past 15 years I frequent the dunes 1-2 times a month, from San Jose. My kids have grown up ridding the dunes and is still our number one place to go (besides the Hawaiian Islands)! Over the years we have spent 10’s of thousands of dollars in the local area from eating almost every restaurant Pismo has to offer, retail shopping, dirt bike parts, gas and I even purchased a toy hauler down here. I am now looking to purchase a second home here to enjoy the area more often. In short, the dunes have brought people like me to the area and have made the local economy what it is today (before Covid of course). They need to open the dunes for camping and ridding ASAP, social distancing is a given and family camping is a very low risk (if any) to the public and in comparison to other issues that have arose due to staying at home (depression, suicide, drug use, etc.) All the locals and Environmentalists who object to reopening the dunes for OHV use need to get a clue/life and stop all the bureaucratic BS and start thanking people like me for their jobs and home value increases over the years. I will soon be a local and I will not only continue help this area thrive but I will also continue to advocate for OHV use and camping within the dunes. life is to short wasting time and effort taking away our freedoms for a little dust and a F**** Snowy Plover bird who has millions of miles to migrate on. My two cents! “Ride or Die” people!
-MS
Open the area to camping and riding like it was before! Stingy people think the area is for them only to enjoy…get over yourselves!
NO ONE is spreading covid at the beach, KEEP THE OCEANO DUNES OPEN!!!!! If you don’t like the risk then don’t go there. ALL KARENS STAY HOME!!!!!!