http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080321-9999-1m21barona.html

Residents upset over noise from motorcycle track
Complaints to tribe have gone nowhere

By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 21, 2008

Problems can develop when dirt bikes race too close to homes.

And for several homeowners in San Diego Country Estates, those are problems
they've been unable to deal with.

A motorcycle track on the Barona Indian Reservation behind their backyard
fences has created so much noise and dust that they say they simply can't
enjoy their properties.

Complaints to the Barona tribe have gone nowhere.

“You can hear it in the house,” said Paul Freitas, who lives nearby and has
joined an ad hoc committee of residents who are asking the tribe to move
the track to another spot on the reservation.

“We feel like we're being terrorized in our own homes,” Freitas said.

The group has sought the assistance of local officials and federal
lawmakers in dealing with the Barona Oaks track, which is separate from a
drag strip and oval racetrack for cars, also on the reservation.

County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who represents the area, said she hopes a
recent meeting with the Barona tribal council will lead to a solution.

The track was developed after grading for the homes began in the 1970s, but
it initially hosted only small motorcycles ridden by children. Those
children have grown up, and they still like to ride there on bigger bikes.

“It's been a very frustrating situation,” Jacob said. “Even though this
track has been there a real long time, it's the increased activity that has
caused noise and problems.”

Just like it cannot dictate what the federal government can do on military
bases, the county cannot regulate how Indian tribes use reservation land.

A study by county workers indicated that noise from motorcycles on the
track would violate the county's noise regulations – but only if the track
were on private land.

Sheilla Alvarez, a spokeswoman for the Barona tribal government, said the
tribal council is considering the issues Jacob raised in a meeting earlier
this year.

Alvarez wouldn't answer questions about specific com plaints about the
track.

Like the residents, Jacob said she's not opposed to the track's existence,
but rather its location.

“If the tribe would just move the facility a half-mile away, that would
resolve their problems,” she said. “There's no question we need a place for
the off-road-vehicle folks to ride.”

The track is used by the California Mini Motorcycle Club, which has
scheduled 13 weekend races there before November. Efforts to reach leaders
of the club were unsuccessful.

In addition to noise, neighbors complain that the track activities have
imperiled endangered species and a stream that runs through the property.

“I probably hear about the Barona racetrack on a monthly basis,” said Amy
Miller, who investigates Clean Water Act violations for the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.

She said she visited the track last fall. “I did not find anything that was
wrong.”

But she did give the tribe and track operators tips on how to prevent
sediment from entering a creek running through the track.

Meanwhile, officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said no
endangered species have been identified on the reservation, and tribal
leaders told them there are no endangered species affected by the dirt
bikes.

Onell Soto: (619) 593-4958; onell.soto@...