The November issue of this newsletter noted that the Yolo County Board of Supervisors had voted in October to ban off-highway vehicles (OHVs) from Cache Creek. The notice was a bit premature. What the supervisors did was to ask their staff to draft an ordinance to close the creek to OHVs, and bring it back to the Board at a later meeting for public comment and, after that, a vote. The sentiment of the Board favored a ban.
How did we get to this point? People have been driving OHVs in and alongside the bank of Cache Creek, particularly in the reach from Road 87 to Road 94B, for many years. This has always surprised me, because I don’t know of another permanent stream in California where this happens regularly. In any case, the number of vehicles trended sharply upward starting last year, both because the drought has exposed more creek bed, making it more accessible than before, and because the pandemic gave people more free hours at the same time that public outdoor recreation facilities were shut. One compelling video of OHVs in the creek taken by Mark Jones can be viewed here.
Private landowners along the creek and the local water district complained about an increase in trespass and vandalism. A YAS member, Rick Williams, and others documented the intensity of OHV use and the corresponding damage to the creek and its animal and plant life, recording some of it on video, and presented the evidence to the supervisors. Yolo Audubon and others then asked for a ban on OHV use.
The supervisors were briefed at their October 26 meeting. Their staff described recent efforts to establish a county-run OHV park that would divert the considerable demand for this kind of outdoor recreation to someplace other than Cache Creek. So far, neither a location nor funding has been identified. The County’s outside experts on the creek, the Cache Creek Technical Advisory Committee, described the damage inflicted on the creek and recommended an OHV ban.
The supervisors’ response was to ask for a draft ordinance. The ordinance appears headed for a public hearing at the January 25 meeting of the Board of Supervisors and, if all goes smoothly, for a vote on February 8. If you’re like to submit a comment on the issue to the Board of Supervisors, you can send an email: clerkoftheboard@yolocounty.org
Michael Perrone, YAS Conservation Chair