Let’s Make This the Last Race

Mojave desert tortoises would be well advised to stay deep in their burrows Saturday, for they will have 1,200 opportunities to get squashed, and therefore become even more endangered than they are now. The reason is that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has overridden the protests of environmentalists and has approved the annual Barstow-to-Las Vegas cross-country motorcycle race. An estimated 1,200 whining, buzzing--and thoroughly annoying--machines will compete over the 135-mile course that bisects the habitat of the estimable but slow-moving tortoise. This is the California state reptile that was granted federal endangered species status earlier this year.

The BLM did make some token concessions to the tortoise, but then sanctioned the race at virtually the last moment--too late to be challenged in court. The first 25 miles will be rerouted through Ft. Irwin, the Army training center where the desert presumably already is pretty well banged up by tanks. Officials will survey the course beforehand to spot, and shoo away, any wayward tortoises. And the BLM has limited the number of cycles that can start at any one time.

The race, first run in 1967, was controversial long before the plight of the tortoise became known. The contest was halted in 1975 because of environmental damage, but resumed in 1983 after a BLM environmental impact study claimed there would be no significant harm to the desert. That study still is being used to justify the race through territory being proposed as a national park.

The major concession by the bureau is to approve no further races after Saturday before a full new environmental impact statement is compiled. If done properly, that document will conclude that there is no way to conduct such a cross-country race without causing irreparable damage to the desert--and posing an unacceptable threat to the desert tortoise.