The Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Division of State Parks and Recreation has an impossible task. It's 2008 Strategic Plan, that is months late, requires it to go green. The Department of Finance will not fund the OHV budget, $60 million of which comes from the gasoline tax, if it does not meet its legislative requirement to protect the environment.
In this documentary, the Deputy Director of the OHV, Daphne Green, tells the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Commission at their Dec 3 2008 meeting that California is looking at things a new way. She advises the Commission that global warming is a problem for the OHV, because, she says "at our core, we burn fossil fuel...we do that".
A retired chemistry professor, Brahama D. Sharma, Ph.D. states that vehicles recreating on the dunes cannot easily be converted to less polluting vehicles, since even electric conversions require fossil fuel. He further states that driving big rigs on highways to get to the recreation area burns fossil fuel, and highways require concrete which also creates greenhouse gasses to produce.
Retired mechanical engineer Tom Lily, C.M.E, states how he calculated the carbon footprint of the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area and recommends that the vehicles be eliminated altogether.
Both agreed that we must rely on science in order to protect ourselves and our planet.
