SEQUIM — Maybe the name of that place south of Sequim should change from Burnt Hill to Mounting Frustration.
When the Department of Natural Resources’ Burnt Hill Recreational Plan was withdrawn May 5, off-road vehicle enthusiasts Bob Walberg and Jay Oen were frustrated.
A lawsuit filed Jan. 30 by the Burnt Hill Home Owners — neighbors frustrated by noise and trespassing — effectively stalled the plan.
The Home Owners sued to halt the plan along with its projects, which included construction of a parking lot for off-road vehicle users.
Natural Resources, too, was frustrated.
Olympic Region Manager Charlie Cortelyou said much-needed trail and gate stewardship programs can’t start until the plan is adopted.
The lawsuit prompted Natural Resources to pull the plan and conduct further “analysis and documentation,” Cortelyou said, of noise and ORVs’ impact on the Dungeness elk herd.
The department may hire an engineering firm to do a noise study, he said. And Cortelyou plans to attend a elk policy meeting Thursday with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, co-manager of the herd with the state Fish and Wildlife Department.
Once “all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted,” Cortelyou said, the plan will be readopted under the State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA, approval process.
By then the Home Owners lawsuit will have been dismissed, Cortelyou hopes.
But he and Natural Resources may be in for, you got it, frustration.
State trust lands
Peter Eglick, the Seattle attorney representing the Home Owners, said the lawsuit questions whether Natural Resources should provide for any ORV use on its state trust lands.
Oen, who grew up dirtbiking across the North Olympic Peninsula, called the Home Owners “Californians running my life.”
At least one of his clients is from the Golden State, said Eglick.
To him, that’s irrelevant.
“A bad idea is a bad idea,” Eglick said, referring to the creation of an ORV-friendly area on state lands.
