[roc-chat] Official ROC Launch Site Background Information

From: Allen H Farrington <allen.farrington@xxxxxx>
To: ROC Chat <roc-chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 17:42:47 -0700

First, I hope that some of the enthusiasm of the chat can be translated into
enthusiasm for helping out during ROCStock with various jobs around the launch.

I realize that folks are naturally interested in what's been going on with our
permit and launch site configuration but we (Richard and I) have been reluctant
to tell the story until we have the entire story set. I hope that everyone will
understand and please stop jumping to conclusions regarding what's happening
and why its happening. Unfortunately, I have been out of the country for the
past few weeks and have not had good access to the chat to explain everything
that's going on.

That said, I will try to fill everyone in on where we are right now. I'm not
going to get into particulars about any new POSSIBLE range configurations
because they're not yet set and the board isn't deciding anything until next
week. Once the decisions are made, there will be another announcement but in
the meantime, I will try to give everyone the background.

So a couple of months ago, we discovered that we didn't actually have a permit
to use the BLM land in our "traditional use" area of Lucerne Dry Lake. I'm not
going to get into why the permit didn't get renewed, let's just say that there
was a miscommunication and neither BLM nor ROC realized it until about the same
time.

Let me be clear on the next statement…the lack of a permit was NOT BLM's fault.
Essentially, BLM changed some procedures and requirements for permits after the
off-road racing accident that killed 8 people and ROC didn't file for a new
permit properly. So, water under the bridge as they say…we worked quickly with
BLM to get things squared away. For those of you that may hold the opinion that
the BLM is a bureaucratic black hole full of unnecessary regulations, I can
only say that in our particular case, they worked with us and waived some of
their own deadlines and requirements to process our new permit application very
quickly.

So…what about the land use issues, etc…

One of the requirements of the permit is to establish where our launch
operations would take place with respect to official BLM maps. As we were
investigating exactly the location of our current range head and range
configuration, we read very carefully all of the NFPA site dimension, Launch
Safety standoffs, and FAA waiver dimension regulations. As we did that, we
asked our club lawyer (and a fellow flyer) to provide a liability analysis of
how we have traditionally been operating. All of that careful work pointed out
some issues that the board decided to resolve. Many of you may not realize, but
ROC is actually a non-profit corporation in the State of California so we have
certain legal responsibilities that we have to execute so that the board
members are not personally liable for any mishaps that occur. Since there are
sometimes accidents, we have to be careful lest we place our own personal
assets in jeopardy. Our NAR and Tripoli insurance that covers the club also has
provisions that we follow all the codes, local, state, and federal laws to be
valid. After much discussion and careful consideration, the board has decided
to look into some changes to the range to improve this situation.

Now for the specific land data…
ROC's traditional range head has been located on this piece of land: SEC 26 TP
5N R 1W 640AC as legally defined by San Bernardino County. On a BLM map, this
is parcel #26 on the lakebed. Each square is 640 acres and a mile on a side
(approximately). We did some measuring and noted in our BLM application that we
launch about 540 feet south and 890 feet east of the north-west corner of the
square. This is along the access road sometimes labeled as "Cambria Road" even
though we couldn't find an official designation. This location is squarely and
completely on BLM land. You may notice, if you look at the county parcel maps
or the BLM map that the parcels directly to the north and to the west (but not
the north-west) are privately owned. These parcels have been privately owned
for some time (20+ years from what I could find).

Someone passed a map with some arrows and GPS locations on the chat along with
some email communication from BLM that they had some time ago. I looked at them
carefully and while they are of our general area, they do not represent the
actual location of the ROC range head. Earlier this week I posted the actual,
annotated maps that we used in the permit to the chat as an attachment. If you
want to look at maps, then please use those maps.

On our map, you will notice that the range head is only 540 feet from private
land which means that for years we've been setting up our range partially on
private land as our "back row" is at least 850 feet from the range head. Add to
that the fact that with prevailing winds, a great deal of rockets come down
slightly to the north-east of the range head and you see that we've been using
that private land for quite a while.

So after we did the permit, and with our newfound knowledge of the rules,
regulations, and responsibilities that we have as a board to keep our insurance
valid; we took a look at our range configuration and where rockets tend to
land, etc… and determined that we might need to adjust our range location in
order to keep nearly everything we do on our BLM square. I looked into
contacting the other landowners, but they are all holding corporations. Now
imagine for a moment that you are the lawyer for a holding corporation and you
receive a letter asking for permission to conduct rocketry activities along
with an offer to cover them with insurance. What would be your reply? Of
course, "NO". Why open that can of worms? Based on that, we have concluded that
we should try to move our range a little to keep everything except for
incidental activities on the BLM square.

So in summary, you should all know that this is a complicated issue and cannot
be "blamed" on anyone, the government, or anything else. For those of you who
wonder, "what changed", all I can say is that the current board's knowledge of
what we should be doing to keep our insurance valid improved and based on that
we decided to look into making some adjustments.

Now for what exactly those adjustments will be, that will have to wait until
the board considers the options next week and then we'll let you know.

I hope that this satisfies everyone's curiosity for a bit. We're working hard
to make things as easy as possible for the bulk of the club members, but
sometimes this stuff is just really complicated and has to be done carefully
and slowly so that we don't all lose our homes due to some accident.

Thanks.
Allen
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Allen H. Farrington - L3
ROC Board Member and Secretary
NAR 73474, Tripoli 12280
K6AHF
http://www.allenfarrington.org

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[roc-chat] Official ROC Launch Site Background Information

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