For years, California State Parks and various environmental groups have clashed over the future of the Oceano Dunes. Now, just months after the last lawsuit settled, another has taken its place and this lawsuit says State Parks still isn’t doing its part to conserve.
The Oceano Dunes state vehicular recreation area was lined with visitors Friday to kick off the holiday weekend. Kenneth Mendez parked his truck near the waves with his dad and grandson. He said he doesn’t see an issue with bringing vehicles on the sand.
“They're not hurting anything," Mendez said. "What are they hurting? The sand washes in, washes out, cleans it right back up, you know?”
The Center for Biological Diversity argues that allowing vehicles on the sand harms endangered shorebirds like the Western Snowy Plover and the California Least Terns — which is the basis for the lawsuit filed against the California State Parks on Thursday.
Jeff Miller is a senior conservation advocate for the center.
“Obviously, their priority and focus continues to be to keep as much of the park open to off road vehicles and beach driving as they can," Miller said. "That's just simply incompatible with nesting and roosting shorebirds, with these endangered birds.”
This lawsuit follows one filed in 2020 that a federal judge ruled last November State Parks was in volition of the Endangered Species Act. As part of the lawsuit, State Parks had to work with the center to find a solution and update its habitat conservation plan.
Miller said the finished and approved plan isn’t protecting the local endangered species like it’s supposed to and violates a number of environmental laws.
“It's supposed to benefit the species that it covers and make conditions better for them," Miller said. "This plan actually makes it worse. On the federal level, the Fish and Wildlife Service has approved the conservation plan. So they now are fully covered for killing and harming endangered species under that.”
Friends of the Oceano Dunes is a group that works to preserve driving on the last beach you can legally drove on in California. They said it’s crucial to keep the unique experience in Oceano.
Mendez said without these recreational activities at the dunes, businesses in town will suffer.
"People wouldn't come out," Mendez said. "People just won't come. The town won't make no money and it just be a ghost town after that."
I reached out to state parks but was told the agency can’t comment on ongoing litigation.
