U.S. Sides With Toads in Dispute Over Trail

U. S. Forest Service officials have withdrawn plans to reopen a motorcycle trail through a Ventura County stream bed, heeding biologists’ warnings that it could wipe out the local population of the arroyo toad.

Environmentalists hailed the decision, saying it will help protect the tiny toad--a candidate for the federal endangered species list--that lives and breeds at the point where the 9.5-mile Snowy Trail crosses Piru Creek in the Los Padres National Forest.

The motorcycle trail has been closed since the summer of 1990, when it was ruled to pose a serious fire danger. Later, Forest Service officials learned of potential danger to the toads and decided to move the creek crossing 10 feet upstream.

The Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Center of Santa Barbara and a local biologist were among those who appealed the Forest Service’s decision to reopen the trail, Forest Service spokeswoman Kathy Good said. That prompted the decision Wednesday to place the trail off-limits to vehicles indefinitely while a new study of the area is done.

“The trail is closed, and will remain closed, until a new analysis is completed,” Good said. “The idea is to look at an alternative crossing about 600 feet upstream that will keep the trail out of the known arroyo toad habitat.”

The new crossing--proposed by UC Santa Barbara biologist Sam Sweet, an internationally recognized arroyo toad expert--has a bedrock bottom and is located in much shallower water than the current crossing, rendering it inhospitable to toad breeding.

Although Sweet approved of the decision to keep the Snowy Trail closed, he said the two-year debate could have been avoided. “I did suggest to forest officials two years ago that if they put the trail in the position that I have recommended it would solve all their problems,” Sweet said.

“They didn’t want to do that then, and now we are back to the initial suggestion.”

Much of the dispute over the trail, which begins in the Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area, centers on its use by about 7,500 motorcyclists and other off-road vehicle enthusiasts a year.

“We are not particular about where we cross the creek,” said Dana Bell, a longtime trail user who serves as the American Motorcyclists’ Assn. legislative officer. “We would simply like to have access so we can use the trail again.”

Bell said members of the organization are willing to do any construction work required to build a new trail crossing to ensure that some of the area is open to recreational use. “We believe in appropriate wilderness, but we also believe in responsible recreation,” she said.

The trail’s closure and last spring’s heavy rains have greatly helped the toad population, Sweet said. “The toads are doing pretty well this year,” he said.

Marc Chytilo, chief counsel of the Environmental Defense Center, disagreed that motorcyclists’ impact on the creek was inconsequential. He said conflicts over recreational land use within the forest will continue until forest officials place restraints on land use.

“The Forest Service has to manage the habitat for wildlife as well as motorcyclers,” Chytilo said. “If they can solve this problem by moving the motorcyclers--and it is apparent that they can’t move the wildlife--well, that’s an easy solution.”

He added: “But if you continue to site off-highway vehicle trails in sensitive biological areas, yes, there will continue to be conflicts.”

Sweet agreed that the Forest Service’s decision to help off-road enthusiasts gain access to backcountry areas in the forest’s Mount Pinos District set up the confrontation between motorcyclists and environmentalists. But he said the battle over the Snowy Trail has had a second, unintended result: bringing to the public’s attention the realization that it must change its behavior to prevent species from being lost.

“People are not prepared to understand that something like a toad as an individual can have the same rights as the California condor,” Sweet said. “But the law doesn’t make any distinction.”