Showdown at Algodones

To off-road enthusiasts, the vast Algodones Dunes 160 miles east of San Diego are a fat-wheel mecca. To environmentalists, these sandy dunes in the Imperial Valley are a fragile habitat for the Peirson’s milk vetch, a small, broom-like plant protected by the Endangered Species Act that is at the center of an outdoor dust-up. The plant’s protected status bans vehicles from a 77,000-square-acre area where the milk vetch grows, leaving 68,000 acres open to vehicles.

But off-roaders complain that the milk vetch’s protection is a misuse of environmental laws, touting a study paid for by motor recreationists that concludes vehicles have not harmed the plants.

Environmentalists point to government studies that helped declare the milk vetch a threatened species as evidence that opening the area to vehicles would push the plant into extinction.

The Bureau of Land Management has said it will spend $850,000 this year to send workers into the dunes to count the plants, according to state officials. Meanwhile, riders have successfully petitioned for a federal review of the evidence that protected the Peirson’s milk vetch. An answer is expected in May.

-- Charles Duhigg