Special Land Use Edition: Johnson Valley Airspace Threat in Episode 285

CALL TO ACTION DEADLINE: September 15, 2025
www.blueribboncoalition.org/hammers

Host Big Rich Klein sits down with BlueRibbon Coalition’s Ben Burr and longtime Johnson Valley advocate Shannon Welch to unpack a fast-moving proposal that could reshape recreation at the Hammers. The U.S. Marine Corps has requested permanent Special Use Airspace (SUA) over Johnson Valley—from the ground up to 8,000 feet—split into four corridors (A–D). While framed as limited use, the Environmental Assessment (EA) seeks a permanent designation via the FAA, not a temporary, training-only restriction.

What’s at stake - Medevac and search-and-rescue flights for everyday users, not just races - Backcountry aviation, personal drones, and private landowners (20,000 acres impacted) - Commercial filming/testing (e.g., Ford), ranching operations, and year-round OHV access - The integrity of a Congressionally Designated OHV Area and its $71M local economic impact. A precedent of closure-by-airspace has been seen at White Sands and Yuma Proving Ground.

Community action - Comment deadline: September 15 - Submit via blueribboncoalition.org/hammers – Blue Ribbon guarantees your comments will be shared. Share widely with your OHV, aviation, ranching, and local business networks

Key points - EA claims “no significant impact,” but provides no enforceable safeguards - Marines told some stakeholders “60 days/year,” yet the EA seeks permanent SUA – Blue Ribbon’s reasonable alternative: a 1,500-foot buffer from ground/elevation to protect civilian use

Transcript

[00:00:05.100] 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.400] 

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[00:01:12.400] - Big Rich Klein

This episode is a special Land Use Edition of Conversations with Big Rich, featuring Blue Ribbon Coalitions, Ben Burr and Shannon Welch. We will be discussing Johnson Valley and the Marines' proposed takeover of the OHV area's airspace and the impact that such a move will make to the off-road community and all of the locals surrounding the area. Okay, we are all online now, so say hello to Ben and Shannon. It's so good to have you guys on this. Too bad we're doing this because of a threat to Johnson Valley, but how are you both doing this evening?

[00:01:53.400] - Shannon Welch

I'm good, thanks. Yeah. How about you, Ben?

[00:01:56.260] - Ben Burr

I'm doing great, too. It's good to be back.

[00:01:58.660] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, so let's Let's just jump right in with both feet. Shannon, you're the one with the history on the attempted closures of Johnson Valley. Why don't you bring us up to date on the history for those folks that may not know?

[00:02:18.040] - Shannon Welch

Yeah, sure. It's crazy to think that I'm not a land use veteran because I was a kid on that site. But basically, I don't know exactly when it started. I know it really heated up. It was probably a four or five year fight that was the Marine base ultimately wanted to expand 29 Palms Marine base, which is adjacent to Johnson Valley, what we know of as the Hammers wanted to expand and essentially take over all of what we know of as King of the Hammers race area today. That's how the vast majority of people know it. Those of us that live locally know it as Johnson Valley, and there's a lot more to it than just the King of the Hammers race course. But that entire area, they wanted all of it and more. They did a very big environmental study. There were lots of meetings. There was years of fighting and pushback in our community saying, No, no, no. Ultimately, the Marine said, There's not enough of you to care about this. We're going to win. We're the Marines. That was essentially what we were told over over again. This was early, well, not early days of pirate, but it was pirate days, and the community really banded together.

[00:03:38.960] - Shannon Welch

Then ultimately, I ended up quitting my job and going to work for King of the Hammers in the middle of this Really, it was how fast can we grow King of the Hammers, to get enough people to care about Johnson Valley, to get enough people to tell their elected officials that this area matters to us. It was a many, many, many years fight. We've actually lost a lot of people who were part of that fight. They've just passed away since then. I think it would kill them to know that we are back here again. Ultimately, what ended up happening was the Marines got... It depends on who you ask. I say half. I was talking to somebody today who said they got a third. They did get a good portion of land. They got a lot of really good single track. They got some areas that people were unhappy to give up. But ultimately, we spent years, thousands of dollars, lobbyists, all of that. And ultimately, it came down to the Marines were going to get it passed in the middle of the night, basically in a bill. They were just going to get it added on.

[00:04:43.740] - Shannon Welch

We were potentially going to lose all of it unless we drew a line. The line had to be drawn. The line was drawn. What was left, we created a unique scenario. It's called the Shared Use Area. And the reason for that is the same way that King of the Hammers or District 37 or anybody else out there has to go and get a permit to put on an event. The Marines, because it's shared use, get to get a permit twice a year for up to 30 days at a time to do their trainings because they insisted that they weren't going to drop bombs or use artillery or do any of that. So we're like, why don't we just share the area? And so that's where we were at. And we thought it was really amicable and a good relationship with the Marines who are regularly in attendance at King of the Hammers, work closely with the community on that event in particular. And so we were really blindsided when we found out at the end of August that they weren't coming after the land because ultimately after that got decided, we did get the area, Congressionally Designated OHV land.

[00:05:50.870] - Shannon Welch

It's the largest, Congressionally Designated OHV land, and it was the first of its kind. There have been other areas, Congressionally Designated, and What that means is literally an act of Congress is what it would take for it to not be OHV land. That was basically Congress's way of telling Marines, You got what you got. Stay away from the rest of it. It's protected for the off-road community. Hard stuff, or so we thought.

[00:06:17.240] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And now they're attacking us, not by land, but by air. Right.

[00:06:25.300] - Shannon Welch

Correct. Yeah. I I got a couple of strange texts all at once on August 26. I think that was the date, which was a Tuesday or thereabouts. And it said, hey, they're coming for Johnson Valley again. The Hammers is at risk kind of thing. And we need to talk. And I was like, is this for real? I mean, I've certainly heard a couple of random things over there. And usually when I dig in it, I'm like, no, no, no, that's not a thing, guys. Let's not worry about that. But this one felt different. I started looking at the EA, and I was asked to think about, Okay, what are some things that the OHV community might need airspace for? Because ultimately, what the Marines are asking for is from ground to 8,000 feet through multiple corridors, and they're dividing the OHV shared use area by the sky into essentially four corridors, A, B, C, and D. We don't understand why they have these unique corridors. And if it's from ground up for all of them, it doesn't matter. So that's really what we found out on Tuesday. I called Ben almost immediately, and I was like, I don't know if this is a thing, but it feels like a thing.

[00:07:45.400] - Shannon Welch

He got with our policy director and our attorneys, and I got with some local county folks, and we all put our heads together. Ben, what did you find out from that?

[00:07:59.380] - Ben Burr

We My initial take was probably similar to your reaction as, Is this really real because sometimes the threats get overblown in any policy fight, not just land use. And so you want to go dig, ground yourself in what the EPAs or the documentation is actually saying. So that's where we went first. And what I can say is that what's there does not give me enough comfort to do anything other than raise the alarm about this. And that's what we've been doing. We created an action alert that educates people about just the basic contours of what this is proposing to do. A repeat of what Shannon just said is they're wanting to put new restrictions on the airspace that goes all the way to the ground, which means what happens off the ground now. This could be totally uncertain, but definitely a lot of deference will be given to these agencies to potentially restrict aviation access into this area. That's not the primary access of what the OHV community and recreation users are using this area for, but it still is an important part of that access. It's the component of it. And so we dive into this.

[00:09:12.140] - Ben Burr

It's not necessarily the type of federal action that we dig into on a regular basis. But we have dealt with aviation issues from time to time at Blue Ribbon Coalition. And so we said, we'll look into it, we'll mobilize the community. And that's what's happened so far. Now we've had thousands and thousands of people submit comments on this, and we think that's a good start. But people need to keep speaking up. And so, yeah, they can go to our website, to blueribboncoalition.org, go to update I think it's just blueribboncoalition.org/ hammers, right, Shannon? Correct. Was that the custom URL we did? And so if it is your first time hearing about it, then go learn more there and you can find a lot more social media and elsewhere where we've been posting about this. But we take it seriously. We do think that... I mean, there have been some common rebuttals, right Shannon? And we've seen people come in our threads and say, well, they're saying they only want this for 60 days or this won't affect actually the lifelight flights. Our concern is that's not in writing. We need to have that thoroughly documented. And above that, we have a pretty reasonable ask.

[00:10:33.580] - Ben Burr

So we're saying we would support an alternative that would allow a 1,500 foot buffer zone from the ground, which means if you go up into a mountain, it's where the elevation of the mountain is plus 1,500 feet. Now it would give a buffer for a civilian aircraft and give us the certainty to know that the aviation related activities that happen in that shared use area won't be restricted by this. And so We think that's the right approach is to at least come to the table with a reasonable compromise. That is what worked with them in the past, even though that might not be something they want to do. We're going to have to put a lot of pressure on them. The politics of this one are a little different. So I can say as someone who has really run through the Ringer the last three to four years on this stuff, where just every day we would wake up and there'd be some new announcement of a federal project that could or would restrict motorized access to public land. We're not getting a lot of that anymore, but this is just a different flavor of a threat, and we have to be ready to address these in any political environment.

[00:11:45.480] - Ben Burr

That's another thing we're taking into consideration on this one.

[00:11:50.700] - Big Rich Klein

What they're asking for these four corridors, is it for 365 days a year or just during their 30-day, twice a year, permitted?

[00:12:05.700] - Shannon Welch

So I'll speak to this. The EA itself is a permanent SUA. So EA stands for Environmental Assessment. So they have this 395-page document. That's called an environmental assessment. Their findings were that this was not a significant... Their assessment of the environment is that it was not a significant impact to the area. So the reason that that's important is because with this EA and what they're trying to do. So the EA specifically says permanent SUA. Sua stands for use area. What's the first word? What's the S, Ben?

[00:12:52.280] - Ben Burr

Do you remember? Is it special use area?

[00:12:54.580] - Shannon Welch

Special, yeah. Special use area. A permanent special use area is That's really what the entire request is. A permanent special use area is not, Oh, we only need it twice a year for 30 days. The interesting thing is that I do know somebody who has gone to the Marine base and talked to them who is involved in this. I don't want to talk to you, but went there and said, Help me understand. They said, Oh, we only need it for a 30-day period, 60 days a year. This individual said, explain that to me. And they said, well, we'll test alternative one for 30 days, and we'll test alternative two for 30 days, and that's 60 days a year. And this individual said, okay, well, what happens after that? And the person responsible for this EA said, well, then we go back to the FA and we'll figure out what works best. But there was nothing said there that was we only want it temporarily during our training exercises. And there's nothing in this EA that says that. Now, that said, we are working with the congressman for the area, congressman Obernald. We've been in communication.

[00:14:07.080] - Shannon Welch

He's a pilot, which has been helpful because he understands the basics of this, and he's also opposed to it. And in talking to him and his staff, basically, their concern is similar to ours, but they actually got something in writing from the Marine saying they only want it for 60 days a year. I asked them, I said, Okay, you've got this in writing from the Marines, but that's not what the EA says, right? They said, No. I said, So if this EA gets approved, they can say anything they want in a typed up letter, but that's not actually what's getting approved. And they said, Correct. This is where it's getting a little confusing when the Marines say they only want it 60 days a year, but they're not asking for temporary in this. They're asking for a permanent. They've asked for a temporary before. In 2017, they apparently asked for a temporary SUA. I found this out during all of our research, and they got it, and they used it for the 10 days they did their training mission. I think they did it once temporarily. They thought, Oh, that's a pain in the neck to have to do on a temporary basis.

[00:15:16.530] - Shannon Welch

Let's just make it permanent. But really, it's pretty shocking how little consideration the EA actually gives to the OHV community. It flat-out says right at the very beginning, it will not affect OHV use. And while on paper, that makes sense, it's not what we believe to be true. When our staff, someone, our policy director, looked at other areas where something like this has happened, Rich, she found two examples. One is White Sands, and the other is Yuma Proving Grounds. And White Sands is in New Mexico. And in both of those instances, When the military took over the airspace, even though the ground underneath it is technically public land, it is essentially unusable because it gets shut down at a minute with 24 hour notice. Somebody actually told me, I have not seen the signs myself, but somebody told me there are signs that say emergency help would be a long time coming. And ultimately, the public land underneath it is no longer usable. So it feels like with this ask, it feels like they're flying in the face of Congress designating a OHV area. And the question we keep asking is, is this a naive thing that they overlooked this?

[00:16:44.500] - Shannon Welch

Are there airspace people just completely oblivious to the needs of the OHV community? Or is this an intentional thing? The answer is we just don't know because nobody from the Marines has told us. And so that's really where we're at on that.

[00:17:02.880] - Ben Burr

And to speak to that, the right way to have done this would have been, it's not like a secret that the OHV community is there and abundantly present in this area. Instead, if the Marines had wanted to develop this policy in good faith with the OHV community. It's not like we're hiding from anybody. They could have reached out and we could have at least addressed our concerns and made them aware of those and developed alternatives with them that would have met the needs of both communities. Instead, this gets introduced. This doesn't come through the normal channels where we normally find these things, and that's mostly because it's being run under the jurisdiction of the FAA and the Marines. We usually are looking on the E-planning BLM site, where it's standard that you see these kinds of environmental analysis. This is on some 29palms. Worldcom. I mean, a website for this is janky. It's not like a. Gov website. And so it almost didn't feel real to me until I clicked on the EA itself. I'm like, No, this looks like government actual paperwork. It does feel like whether it was intentional or just obliviousness, there was certainly a better way to approach this.

[00:18:24.580] - Ben Burr

It started back in the previous Trump administration, right, Shannon, and then went dormant. And so there's some timing situations here that are just odd to us. And then that also raises this other questions. There are accelerated timelines for these analysis now. That is one of the reforms that the administration has enacted that in most cases we like. We don't like these EAs to get to sit out there for years and years and years. A lot of times that gets used against us to hurt us and to favor the anti-access groups that want to close our access in other areas. But in this case, it means this decision could happen on an accelerated basis, which is why our response to that is this community just needs to get very engaged, very fast. And we think if we do that, hopefully, to my point of what I just said, it's frustrating they didn't come to us early and address concerns early and work those into the process early. But that is why there is this process, is so that we can make these concerns known, we can get them on the record, and hopefully, they'll just respond.

[00:19:38.310] - Ben Burr

And we've given them a viable alternative to consider, and we hope that's what they'll choose to do. And we'll see. I mean, to Shannon's point, there is still a congressionally designated OHV area here. The question of how airspace should be governed over that is obviously something that's going to have to be clarified. But Anyway, so we hope that as the community engages, they'll respond. We are using the process as it's intended, but the time clock on this one is going to be a lot shorter and people need to be aware of that.

[00:20:15.380] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And this is- That's the part that...

[00:20:16.950] - Shannon Welch

Go ahead, Rich.

[00:20:17.960] - Big Rich Klein

I was going to say this is being pushed through the FAA, right?

[00:20:23.620] - Shannon Welch

Correct. Yeah, that will be the organization that makes the decision on this is the FAA. That also is a little unique, because that's not usually when we get into these land use sites who we come up against, because we're talking about land, usually not air. But yeah, that is who this will be through. To what Ben was saying, what really gutted me was to see that they started asking for people's insight. They're required to go to a bunch of tribes in the area, so they did that. They went to aviation communities and ask them, and then basically just said, Oh, it's not an issue for the shared use. But they started sending those letters and doing that work in 2018 and 2019, because some of the letters in there are dated back that far. It's interesting that they started the work then and then paused, essentially during the Biden administration, and then waited for the Trump administration again to actually put the EA through. I think they wanted it to happen when there's an administration that is pro-military. That's the hard part whenever we fight the Marines is we're usually on the same side as being for our military.

[00:21:38.940] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[00:21:41.500] - Ben Burr

Which is why we have a reasonable alternative to be good cooperating partners with them. We're not trying to just oppose this flat out like we would the closure of hundreds of miles of trails in Moab or something, which is just a nonstarter for us. But we feel like there's a workable solution here. We don't want to We want them to be able to train and be an effective fighting force for us. We think they can do that in a way that doesn't completely restrict the airspace above this congressionally designated shared use area. It's reasonable to ask them to reevaluate how they're approaching this, and that's what we hope they'll do. We'll just have to see. It's not a... Anyway.

[00:22:26.060] - Big Rich Klein

So how directly do you feel this affects the general user? And the reason I ask it this way is because there are a handful of people in all the posts that I've seen about this that come on and say, Well, so-and-so is making millions of dollars, and who cares about that event? And that's typically where the animosity is coming, is unfortunately. Sure. But there's But there's a lot of different users.

[00:23:02.880] - Shannon Welch

Yeah. Well, let's talk about that. I know, because that was my thought was, I'm like, All right, if this just affects King of the Hammers, right? If it's just King of the Hammers, King of the Hammers could probably work something out with the Marines for the duration of King of the Hammers. But really, the thing that hit me the hardest and fastest on this, Rich, was the medevac out there. That is needed, whether there's a Hammers event happening or not. I mean, on any given weekend, for anybody that's been to Johnson Valley, you know that means has those leftover bomb craters in it, right? Here's a name that we haven't heard in a long time. God rest his soul. Gary Ferravanti the first time he ever went out there, bought an ultra-four car, went out there. This guy had this like world-about law background, fast racer. Literally, I watched him put on a clinic at Crandon. But he comes out with His first ultra-four buggy comes out. He's going to try out what's out at the hammers. I think I showed up probably an hour after, and Dean Bulloch is standing there and he's like, I just watched the gnarliest wreck I'd ever seen in my entire life.

[00:24:14.830] - Shannon Welch

Because Gary unloaded his car and just hauled ass across that lake bed and didn't know about the bomb craters. When you haul ass across that lake bed and you don't know about those bomb craters, your tires hit them unevenly because it's a circular and you don't see it depending on the way the light's hitting it. You will do a full on sale across that lake bed. You need, when that happens, a life flight to be able to be out there. I'm talking, your 16-year-old kid with their first UTV out there could do the same thing. It does happen on the non-racing weekends. If you're out there for Thanksgiving, if you're out there for New Year's, there's thousands of people out there. There are Medivac flights almost, I would say multiple times a day, some days, when you've got basically the equivalent of a small city out there on an average wheeling weekend. Because there's so much less space available than there was even 10, 15 years ago in Southern California. Johnson Valley can be really congested on any given weekend. So it's similar to Glamis as far as the amount of people that are out there and the amount of accidents that can happen.

[00:25:29.480] - Shannon Welch

And so for the average user to not be able to have access to medevac in the area is a problem. I was interviewed last week for the LA Times about this whole thing, and she's like, But isn't that because motorized is dangerous? I'm like, Okay, take motorized out of it. If you break your leg on the Pacific Crest Trail, how are they getting you out of there? They're getting you out of there in a helicopter in a medevac. They're not taking you down the side of the mountain on a backboard. They're not doing that. So take motorized out of If people want to go out and enjoy their public lands, there needs to be the ability for search and rescue, and there needs to be the ability for medevac. It was just a couple of years ago that I got tagged in it so many times. This six-year-old boy, Stanley, it was a crazy, crazy thing. They literally were getting their other kids ready to go out. He just got in his new dirt bike. He was geared up, and they thought he was still on the perimeter, and they lost him. The kid ran his dirt bike and ran out of gas.

[00:26:31.660] - Shannon Welch

They couldn't find him in the dark in Johnson Valley, like the amount of people who drove out in the middle of the night to find this kid near Cougar Buttes. The second light hit, there were drones up in the air doing search and rescue, just trying to follow his track, figure out where he was. He was ultimately found by a really good tracker on the ground. I think it was San Felipe Bob who was involved with that. But that is why we needed... Who cares about that? I don't think who cares about King of the Hammers. But if we're talking about this being public use out there, in one of the shares of my original post on it, I wish I could find the gentleman again. He told me that his son and his daughter were out using their UTV appropriately, had a terrible accident. His son spent 50 minutes performing CPR on his daughter. His daughter passed away. Life Flight came and got his son, and he would have neither of his children if his son wasn't medivac'd out of there. To me, that That's the reason that the OHV community needs to support this, not just because Race Ops.

[00:27:38.140] - Shannon Welch

But Race Ops is important, too. I mean, really, it would shut down people's ability to watch the race and honestly, keep people safe during the race, quite frankly.

[00:27:49.160] - Big Rich Klein

Hopefully, that helps paint that picture. The activities that go on outside of the racing during that time, or even just the personal use of drones, or I know people that fly out there to meet friends and land on the Lake bed or the road.

[00:28:12.320] - Shannon Welch

I'm sure a lot of your audience is familiar with Cody Waggoner in Laser Nut and Laser Town out there, too. I was talking with Cody because he's a landowner out there. One of the things that we found last week and looking at it all is that there's 20,000 acres of private land, not not just be on public land, but 20,000 acres of private land that would be affected by this from ground up airspace. And ultimately, I know a handful of people that own property out there so they can fly into their property. And that was an includes ranchers and things like that out there that absolutely use helicopters and drones on their property out there. And so I got with Cody and I said, Hey, I know you know a bunch of land owners out here. Can you help me get the word to them? And he said, Yeah, absolutely. So I was working with Cody Waggoner on that last week, too. And he definitely got with the Brentles and all of the folks out there that have bought property. Including... I mean, Ford has their own test facility out there now. And so I know that their people are working with their Congressional office on this as well because they're like, You have to be kidding me.

[00:29:30.000] - Shannon Welch

They fly executives in and out for that. Again, I get that yours is not being wealthy people on that side of things. That's not the part that scares me. The parts that scare me for the average user are not being able to do search and rescue, not being able to do a lot of that, and really what we've seen happen at both White Sands and Yuma proving grounds as far as once the military had the air, the land became essentially unusable because the military then dictates when people can use the land underneath it. And that's what This would be creeping towards in my mind. So let's keep King of the Hammers out of it if you want to. And it's still a threat to one of the last large OHV areas in Southern California. What that would do to the rest of the OHV areas if you couldn't use this area would be devastating. It would just overrun them all.

[00:30:23.860] - Ben Burr

I would like to point out, to the point of these other users, if Ford has a testing facility out here. I think of the places where you can just shoot a TV commercial because the answer is actually a maybe yes from the agencies that govern these lands. It's only in our open OHV areas where we can go and do that type of open country riding anymore. That's just not common anymore. There are so few areas where we can do that. And so it makes sense that you want a full range of activities allowable there. And There's a lot of commercial use that comes into this. If we're being honest, if that's all true, then the fact that the Marines are just doing an EA on this is probably questionable. It probably should be an EIS if there are significant economic and human factors in play. It's easy to assume they probably just thought, Well, they use the ground, and we're not affecting the ground. But to have these areas where is the permission to do a little bit of spectacle, we don't have very many of those left in America anymore. True. And so it's not thinking of places like San Hollow or Johnson Valley or Glamis.

[00:31:47.220] - Ben Burr

Those are the bigger ones. You get beyond those, they all get very small, very quick, like a small little sand dune area somewhere, and then those are still highly regulated. At least the answer can be yes in these places. Everywhere else, you think you're going to go do this in the new Chardwala National Monument, get a fly behind a race vehicle and get some footage of that, be able to make TV commercials of off-road vehicles, doing their full capability, what they can do. It's really only places like this where you can get a YES or else private property. There is a lot of economic value to that that would happen year round. Blue Ribbon Coalition will fight for King of the Hammers. We don't care if they're a big event and they can afford to defend. We fight for everybody. We'll fight for the rock crawlers and the ATV riders and the dirt bikers and the backcountry pilots. Our mission is to fight for everybody. It's to make sure that all the government policies that are being proposed do it in a way that lead to shared use, public use, and a well-regulated system where all the interests can get the benefits out of the public land system they want.

[00:33:05.120] - Ben Burr

I don't think it's helpful for our community to find reasons to fight with itself for why this is maybe not a big deal or not. Let's just all rally together and fight for what we have because we keep losing more and more of it the other way.

[00:33:20.500] - Shannon Welch

That's an excellent point. But I do think for people who are like, Oh, if I don't go to King of the Hammers, why should I care? If you have an off road vehicle  and you believe that public lands should be where you get to use your off-road vehicle if you need to care about this site. This isn't a King of the Hammers exclusive. That's the part I'm getting at. That said, yeah. Eighty thousand people go to King of the Hammers. It is the second largest event that happens on public land. The first one is Burning Man. The second one is King of the Hammers. I mean, San Bernardino County did an economic impact study in 2023. The event alone brings in $34 million. In congressman Obernald, who took over for congressman Cook, is the congressman for the Johnson Valley Shared Use Area and where 29 Palms is. That congressman said that the Johnson Valley Shared Use Area brings $71 million into that community. That community should really care about this.

[00:34:17.360] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Absolutely. Because even though the general enthusiast, four-wheel drive enthusiast, or motorcyclist, or whoever else may use that not being part of a commercial endeavor, they're buying food locally, they're buying gasoline locally, they're staying at Airbnbs or hotels, not just staying on the on the Lake beds or wherever. They're using the restaurants, the auto parts stores, Walmart, Home Depot, all of those things, when they go out there to recreate. And that's going to be a big hit in a lot of jobs. And the Marine, I hate to say this, but I don't think the Marine base gives a crap about that. Otherwise, they wouldn't even be thinking of that.

[00:35:23.460] - Shannon Welch

Well, I would agree with that to a certain extent. I don't think they took the economic impact, and I don't think they took the people impact. When Ben says that they did an EA, that's an environmental assessment. We end up talking in geek land use speak because we have to. Eis is an environmental impact study. That's a much more in-depth thing that they have to do. If we ask them to do that, it slows down the process to maybe get them to come up with an alternative. It's interesting. I have, they're dear friends of mine. I've wheeled, off-roaded with them as long as I've owned a Jeep, so 20 plus years. And they happen to be friends with General Mad Dog Mattis. They literally travel with the guy, I guess, former Marine general. And they picked his brain about it this weekend because they care about this site. And in talking to him, one of the things that he said is the Marines prides itself on having a good relationship within the communities that they have bases. And 29 Palms is really considered the crown jewel of that, and we need to keep that in mind.

[00:36:30.000] - Shannon Welch

I thought that was very interesting because I do think on one hand, when we are out at the Hammers, I met with the Marines. They come and do an entire day of ride-alongs in the middle of the King of the Hammers event. They're really proud. They have their photographers. I used to give them tours. They have their photographers come out. They're proud to be associated with it. It's like, which part of the Marines are we actually dealing with here? Because the Marines that know and love King of the Hammers, I will tell you, because obviously consulting with Hammer King on this, too, my understanding is because they have to be in regular communication. They've got an event coming up in February, right? So I think they had a regularly Hammer King and Marine had a conversation last week. And out of that conversation, the three people on that call were like, No, no, no, no, no, this isn't going to be a big deal. And it was pretty clear that they weren't on board with what the EA says and didn't even really know. We really have to get to who's behind this environmental assessment and really get them to the table to clarify and confirm what it is that they really need out of this, which is also something that General Mad Dog Mattis said.

[00:37:46.460] - Shannon Welch

Honestly, he's like, You guys just need to sit down and hash this out because the Marines want an amicable relationship. Again, he's not a Marine right now, and he's not the base commander. But it was interesting to hear that. I I would love to believe that they can be reasonable on this. That is not what I saw the last time around. We had 30,000 people comment last time around, and it still was almost taken from us in the middle of the night, simply because they wanted a larger base. The 29 Palm Marine base used to be the largest base in the world than Fort Irwin expanded. Marines didn't like the army had a bigger base, so that's why they wanted it. They ended up, they're not the biggest again after the land that they took when we had to draw the line in the middle of the night. So they are a very large Marine base. But honestly, they weren't going to back down. They weren't going to work with us initially. And that's the part that scares me is that if we don't get to those people, it's going to be a problem. And the fact that they released the EA on August first and did not tell anybody in the community they released it.

[00:39:00.800] - Shannon Welch

That's why I found out about it on the 26th. It actually came through the county office. I mean, the good news this time, if there is good news, the congressman last time around, before Cook was in office, was a congressman, Louis, and he was near retirement. He did not want to get involved. He wouldn't take our calls. He wouldn't meet with us. He just did not want to deal with it at all. And congressman Cook got elected, and he did carry our weight, and he did fight and get us congressionally elected, which is good. Now he's retired from being a congressman. He's actually San Bernardino County supervisor, and this is in San Bernardino County. Now we have congressman Obernaldi. And congressman Obernaldi is a pilot himself. His staff, I had a meeting with them on Friday, they were opposed to this. They wanted it to be temporary and only temporary. So the congressman was on board in working with us on it. The county is opposed to it. I know that directly. And it feels like we got a lot more momentum a lot quicker. I mean, literally, we found out about on the 26th.

[00:40:09.390] - Shannon Welch

I know we've had thousands of comments alone, and I know we're not the only organization out there. But ultimately, you want to not submit through the Marines website. You're better off submitting through blueribboncoalition.org/ hammers. I know SEMA sent something out. I think they're tracking it. Here's the thing. I don't trust the Marines website, It's a janky website. It's seven years old. And even if you try to apply for updates, it sends it as a comment. So I could see them dismissing people's comments. If you submit through Blue Ribbon, we keep a record of that comment, and we actually make sure it gets resubmitted to them just in case they lost the first one. And we make sure that every comment counts. And we got this community, along with a lot of people's help, got this community to react quickly. In less than two weeks, we've got thousands of comments. But last time we had 30,000, and that wasn't enough, Rich. That's what scares me.

[00:41:10.080] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay, so call to action. We have a short period a short window of opportunity here, correct?

[00:41:19.900] - Shannon Welch

September 15th is the last day to make your comments known. Yes.

[00:41:25.760] - Big Rich Klein

So what we need people to do is to go to Blueribboncoalition.org is a mouthful, but you can find it pretty quickly. Find a regular website and then put just slash hammers on the end of it, and it'll take you right there.

[00:41:39.480] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. I've already done the comment. I hope everybody else does as well. It's very important. I don't spend much time down there anymore, except during the Rebelle Rally, and then a couple of days here or there just cruising through. But there are a lot of people in Southern California and all over the West and the East that come out to enjoy that area because there's no other place wheeling like it. And let alone all the motorcycle riders and UTVs and ATVs and everything It's just something else that goes on out there. I mean, it's pretty crazy. And just the personal use of somebody's drone is going to be restricted because it's from the ground up. So if you like to record your kids, or you're an influencer, keep that status. You better be making comment right now.

[00:42:39.760] - Ben Burr

That's my point about the shared usage. There's so few places where the answer to that stuff is a default, yes. Usually the answer is a default, no. And so this is going to take one of those last few places where it's like, I run into this a lot where people are like, Where can I find my drone? I'm like, Well, not a National Park, not a wilderness, not a wilderness in a study area. There's a thousand designations where the answer is definitely no. In an open OHV designated by Congress area, that answer should be yes. That's where you can go do these recreational activities and not have to be overly concerned that you're... I mean, there was a guy that cut a switchback in the Teton, and he's getting charged with criminal charges by the federal government because he They will come after you in these other areas. And this is the one area, one of the few, where the answer should be yes. And so that's another reason why we just don't need to see another restriction in the one area where they haven't gone overboard in creating restrictions already for us.

[00:43:49.260] - Big Rich Klein

So we ask everybody whether you're somebody that uses Johnson Valley, the Hammers area, or not, to make a comment and to help those of us that do use it, whether it's commercial or private, where you're just an enthusiast. Everybody that's an off-road enthusiast or a public lands enthusiast should be making comment on this.

[00:44:20.140] - Shannon Welch

Please. Yes.

[00:44:22.320] - Ben Burr

I was checking our numbers. It's gone up five in just the last two or three minutes of the people making comments on this. So it's It's getting out, it's getting around. But if this is your first time hearing about it, then that means there's also a lot of other people who haven't still heard about this yet. We need you to help us spread the word after you've made your own comment. Make sure your friends in the off-road community also know about this.

[00:44:45.520] - Big Rich Klein

Well, cool. Anything else to add that we haven't touched on?

[00:44:51.160] - Shannon Welch

I appreciate you making time to get this out, to give people time to still comment. Thank you for doing this. I know this is a special edition, so thanks for making that happen, and thanks for being a voice for our community.

[00:45:02.400] - Big Rich Klein

It's my turn to give back after 25 years as a business owner that's around off-road, and then 43 years. Is it now? No, 43, 47 years as an off-road enthusiast. Yeah, it's my time to give back, and this is just part of it. So it's my honor to work on this. I've done a couple of other things here lately and going to continue to do, to try to fight the fight. So here we are. I want to say thank you so much for agreeing to do this. It's a late evening, just to let everybody know. And We're going to get this out right away.

[00:45:48.380] - Shannon Welch

Great. Thank you very much.

[00:45:50.280] - Ben Burr

All right. Thanks, Rich.

[00:45:51.600] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, Ben, Shannon, thank you so much. And let's hope this works and share it when we air it, which will be Thursday morning. Appreciate it. Great.

[00:46:02.880] - Shannon Welch

Thank you. Okay. Okay.

[00:46:04.440] - Big Rich Klein

Bye-bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have, or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.