The CARS down embankments were not from OHV users, but from the bored youth of Sooke and the surrounding area. They would go out to Victoria in the evenings on weekends, find that there was no transportation home late at night, and then steal cars to get home. To discard of them, they would drive up the repaired road into Harbourview (roads were repaired when some new logging took place, which made it easier to access what were otherwise 4wd-only roads) and burn the cars to destroy the evidence.
Other cars that were removed by groups and individuals during clean-up runs, many of which had been there for years and even decades, were then disposed of properly so they could not longer introduce toxic leachates into the environment.
When I hunted, fished, hiked and fourwheeled in the Harbourview Rd. area many years ago, there was virtually no wanton destruction of areas by ATVs, 4x4s or dirtbikes that I ever found. The problems tend to arise when an area becomes gated, as the natural policing effect of having a more balanced user-base disappears.
The Harbourview Road area is hardly "a pristine wilderness environment" as many have suggested. Even when there was fundraising in the 1990s to put this area aside, I laughed out loud at the poor, uninformed, person who rang my doorbell telling me I had to donate money to save this pristine area. I asked if he had even been there, and the answer was "no" with a little bit of a deer-in-the-headlights look after informed him of the area's previous industrial use and how he was being mis-lead by the TLC (this was long before any of the HV issue was even contentious).
With respect to "parks status" and land use zoning, there seems to be a rather large discrepancy between what some want to believe, and what Sooke's OCP and zoning quite clearly states. "Park" is not allowed use.
Clearly, there are people out there who are near-sighted, mis-informed and arrogant. Unfortunately, it would appear that a considerable portion of these individuals can be found in poorly founded groups such as the TLC.
The Land Conservancy often has little to no ability to purchase or care-take the lands they desire, and have the CRD (which means us as taxpayers) take on a lot of the financial burden to carry out their purchases. Also, The Land Conservancy often puts no money aside for the ongoing care of the properties they take on - leaving the on-going financial burden to others.
~NH3
