California’s legendary dune-buggy playground is beneath siege.
A strong state company and environmental teams are waging a years-long authorized marketing campaign to curb off-roading at Oceano Dunes — the birthplace of California’s dune-buggy tradition — whereas livid riders preserve preventing to protect one of many state’s most uncommon leisure traditions.
The seaside on the heart of the dispute is 3,600 acres of spectacular sand alongside California’s Central Coast, the place roughly 1.5 million guests a 12 months come to tear throughout the open dunes in off-road automobiles.
And there’s nowhere else fairly prefer it.
Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Space stays the one California state park the place automobiles can legally drive immediately onto the sand and seaside.
That distinction has made the spot a mecca for off-road fanatics — and a goal for environmentalists who argue the automobiles injury wildlife habitat and worsen air high quality.
The California Coastal Fee decided in 2019 that off-road automobiles had been a web destructive and has since pushed to section out the exercise, arguing that it has degraded dune habitats and harmed native species.
Environmentalists have additionally argued that automobiles disturb the dunes, sending wind-blown sand into close by communities and contributing to air-quality issues.
Pals of Oceano Dunes sued in 2019, arguing the Coastal Fee had exceeded its authority and sidestepped required environmental evaluations and public hearings.
The California Supreme Court docket in the end declined to listen to a petition from the fee in July 2025, leaving motorized recreation at Oceano Dunes intact.
However the combat was removed from over.
This April, the dunes had been briefly shut down after the Heart for Organic Range gained a positive federal ruling arguing that off-road automobiles threatened native shorebirds, together with the endangered snowy plover.
The dunes reopened in Might after park officers fenced off areas the place the birds had been nesting.
In June, environmental teams and a tribal council filed one other lawsuit difficult California State Parks’ habitat conservation plan, arguing it “conserves off-roading, not habitat,” based on Jeff Miller of the Heart for Organic Range.
The most recent lawsuit is now only one entrance within the sprawling battle over who will get to determine what occurs on the sand.
The federal authorities has additionally launched a evaluate of the Coastal Fee over what it described as “insurance policies that delay important nationwide infrastructure within the identify of environmental extremism.”
The renewed combat is now drawing political consideration.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton jumped into the fray Friday, blasting the fee and different opponents of off-roading and claiming the exercise generates $500 million a 12 months for the native economic system.
“They’re JOYLESS bureaucrats who don’t need anybody to have enjoyable!” he stated, sharing video of himself visiting the dunes and promising to create an Workplace of Enjoyable and Freedom if elected governor.
California officers, in the meantime, have defended the Coastal Fee amid the federal evaluate.
“For many years, coastal states and the federal authorities have labored collectively to successfully handle our coastlines, advancing federal and state priorities whereas giving native communities a important voice in decision-making. Now, the Trump administration is launching a brand new assault on that collaborative relationship—simply because the federal authorities is already working to open California’s coast to new offshore drilling,” California Secretary for Pure Sources Wade Crowfoot stated in an announcement.
“Our $51 billion coastal economic system serves as a strong engine for the state’s prosperity, and the folks of our state should preserve a seat on the desk to guard it.”
For dune-buggy followers, nonetheless, the difficulty is about greater than environmental coverage.
Dune buggies themselves have deep California roots. Engineer Bruce Meyers constructed the prototype for the enduring Meyers Manx in Newport Seaside in 1964, serving to launch a uniquely California off-road craze.
At present, Oceano Dunes is among the final locations the place that tradition can nonetheless be skilled.
