Nipomo Park
Santa Maria Estuary
Cabin Destroyed in 1991
Mussel Rock Looking South
Point Sal
Road Out
Laura and Jenny
Bill, Buck, Norm Hammond, Karola and Friends
The coast is a precious habitat which can provide us with the peace and quiet that we so much need. These areas are being endangered by State Vehicle Recreation Areas (SVRA's). Despite the need for conservation, funding for state vehicle recreation areas increases with each passing year. Their funding is inviolate and tied to the gas tax. It is now over $40 million per year (1 percent of California gas tax) and increasing. Why do we promote the use of fossil fuels for use of off-road vehicles, a questionable form of "recreation"? This is insanity. State Park Rangers should be telling citizens and kids about nature and respect for our natural world and NOT promoting more vehicle use.
Point Sal Hike
Off-highway use is not a type of recreation. We already have too many roads, too many parking lots, too many freeways, too much air pollution from vehicles. Cars make us weak and lazy. They drown out the sound of waves, birds, and the wind. Vehicles are too much with us.
Fossil fuels are a finite resource that are rapidly being depleted. The Department of Energy estimates that U.S. current known reserves and potentially discoverable oil resources are now limited to less than 15 years consumption at present levels of use. Our dependence on fossil fuels has already led to highways, freeways, and airways coughing with pollution. Why do we continue to promote their use in such fragile habitats such as Oceano Beach and Nipomo Beach?
Let's reduce our addiction to the internal combustion
engine (ICE). Let's under fund State Vehicle recreation Areas
and put the money into our real parks. Let's pay our rangers
to educate and interpret nature.
