This summer, volunteers will cut down dozens of scraggly trees and bushes, truck out mounds of trash and build hilly dirt courses to transform an arid, thorny wasteland adjacent to Sand Island State Park into a 32-acre waterfront playground for off-road enthusiasts.

The project is the first partnership between the state and off-roaders of all kinds — from motocross riders to souped-up four-wheel truck drivers — and is designed to curb illegal off-road driving, a growing problem on remote beaches and other public and private lands statewide.

Once completed, with some tracks opening as early as fall, the park will be O'ahu's first legal off-road venue for four-wheelers — anything from sport utility vehicles to monster trucks. It's only the second off-road track for motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles — small three- or four-wheelers with handlebars.

Off-roaders say the new park will mean less wear and tear on Kahuku Motocross, which is full to capacity most weekends, and on hot spots for four-wheelers, including Ka'ena Point.

"If you had 5,000 golfers and you only had one golf course, then there's a problem; people are going to go anywhere they feel they can go. That's what the off-road enthusiasts have basically been faced with," said Reid Shimabukuro, who has been instrumental in setting up the Sand Island park and coaches a kids' motocross team in Kahuku.

Shimabukuro and a group of volunteers have pledged to build the park and manage it — offering weekday and weekend hours — with $30,000 in federal funds, in-kind and labor donations from the state and sponsors. Users will be charged to ride at the park, though a fee schedule has not yet been drawn up.

State officials say the riding area, which will have courses for everyone from novice to advanced off-roaders, was dreamed up as a compromise: It gives the growing ranks of residents interested in off-road sports a place to ride, and it means there are likely to be fewer off-roaders illegally tromping over flora and fauna and coming into conflict with hikers on state trails.

"The bottom line is they don't have an excuse to break the law now," said Gary Moniz, enforcement chief for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. "The opportunity that's now being offered at Sand Island is an opportunity for everyone to do the right thing."

MAUI IS NEXT

Off-roaders statewide are watching to see whether the project works, while those on the Neighbor Islands are looking for similar state land suitable for riding areas. On Maui, off-roaders are eyeing a 600-acre site above Kahului owned by the state. They have formed an association, contacted the state with their proposal and are the next in line to get help after the Sand Island park is established.

The state is also working with fledgling groups on Kaua'i and the Big Island, where all-terrain vehicles and off-road motorcycles were recently given access to roads on Mauna Kea.

The negotiations signal a dramatic shift from the largely combative relationship the state and off-roaders have had. Though the state helped set up the Kahuku Motocross track in the 1970s, it has since responded to the growing popularity of off-road vehicles with enforcement, or by turning a blind eye, rather than by talking to enthusiasts about setting up a legal place to ride, off-roaders say.

"If you outlaw four-wheel drives, then only outlaws will use four-wheel drives," said Aloha Airlines pilot Mike Uslan, a four-wheeler enthusiast. "What we're trying to do is open up more areas where this kind of activity is not only acceptable, but it's encouraged."

The creation of the park comes just over a year after state auditor Marion Higa released a scathing report of the DLNR's enforcement branch, and questioned its ability to keep off-roaders in check.

In her report, Higa said off-road trucks, motorcycles and ATVs have been tearing up beaches and native habitats on public lands statewide, and enforcement officers were woefully unable to curtail the problem. Since, there also have been reports of off-roaders trespassing into private lands in Mililani, Waimanalo and Wahiawa.

"They're just about everywhere, on both public and private lands," said Moniz, of the enforcement branch.

Moniz could not quickly provide statistics on how many citations have been issued for off-road riding this year because, he said, the division's system of accounting is manual. But he said it appears officers are issuing more warnings and citations for off-roading, and he said they will further increase enforcement when the Sand Island park opens.

Moniz is also hiring more enforcement officers with a recent appropriation from the state Legislature. Right now, there are 35 officers on O'ahu, and they are charged with enforcing regulations on state lands from the "mountaintops to three miles out to sea," Moniz said.

ROAD TO RUIN

Thad Kamakaala, a Kahuku Motocross board member, said he doesn't condone trespassing, but understands why some off-roaders are resorting to it.

The 400-acre motocross is filled most weekends, and is sometimes so crowded it makes riding unsafe, he said.

And four-wheelers have no legal place to go on O'ahu.

"Kahuku is getting a little packed," Kamakaala said, pointing out that the motocross is only open on weekends and holidays, while the Sand Island park will be open every day except Tuesday and Thursday under a proposed schedule. "If Sand Island opens, you're just going to alleviate all kinds of trouble."

The Sand Island park will have tracks for four-wheelers, ATVs, motorcycles and BMX bikes.

There also will be a children's motocross course and a race track with grandstands.

No one has publicly opposed the Sand Island riding park.

Instead, it has the support of several area groups, including New Hope Christian Fellowship, which has a stewardship agreement for Sand Island State Park and stores its canoes at the nearby marina.

Sierra Club executive director Jeff Mikulina, who was also consulted on the park, said he supports the riding area as a means of getting off-roaders away from protected habitats and into a sanctioned space.

"It is far and away better to have these vehicles in a controlled environment," Mikulina said, adding that his support is "conditioned by stricter enforcement in ... places where they're harming the environment."

But Mikulina said he is not too optimistic that the park will drastically reduce the number of illegal off-roaders, pointing to several local Web sites that blatantly post photos of off-roading on public land. On one such site, 4x4boyz.com, big-wheeled trucks and sport utility vehicles can be seen driving through tidepools on beaches and over plants, including at the natural area reserve at Ka'ena Point.

Curt Cottrell, state trail and access program manager, who has been helping set up the Sand Island park, said there is a renegade culture among some off-roaders — and that persuading those riders to obey the law will be more difficult. Others, though, have resorted to illegal off-roading because they have no other place to go.

"It's just pure logic. It makes sense for us to provide recreational space as we become more stringent on places we don't want them to go," Cottrell said. "What we're trying to do is come up with a compromise."

LESS MESS

On a tour of the future park last week, Cottrell walked along thin dirt trails, cut out by squatters over the years, and pointed out mounds of rubbish littering the site. There are piles of cut wood, construction material, rusted machine parts and household items, from sleeping bags to bicycle parts to cans.

"This would eventually end up in the water, killing sea turtles," he said, pointing to a pile of trash.

Off-roading is by no means environmentally friendly, Cottrell added, but off-roaders will be leaving the park in a better condition than they found it.

The site has never been used, and has no master plan. In the 1970s, there was some hope of turning it into a recreational area for watercraft, but the idea died. It sits next to Sand Island State Park, and there is a locked gate separating the two properties. An emergency-access road circles the property, and provides a buffer between what will be courses and the ocean.

Starting next month, volunteers with the Sand Island Off-Highway Vehicle Association, which Shimabukuro leads, will start hauling away junk from the site and bringing in bulldozers to build tracks and berms. In exchange for using a portion of the property for storage, Grace Pacific has agreed to put in a parking lot for users and a fence around the perimeter.

Depending on when work starts and how many volunteers are involved, the park could open as early as this year.

Volunteers are shooting for a soft opening in August.

The association will get a two-year lease for the park, but could get a longer lease in the future.

The state Land Board must approve the lease, after evaluating the completed environmental assessment. The draft report was released for public comment on May 8. Though the park has the potential to create lots of noise and some runoff and air pollution, the assessment found no significant impact to the surrounding community since there are no homes or retail storefronts nearby.

The association also said in the report it will keep a water tank on the property while it builds courses to help make sure dust does not become an issue.

Cottrell said the state Land Board is expected to approve the lease, barring any strong opposition from the public.

AROUND NEXT BEND

For off-roaders, the creation of the park is a good start.

Though the state has said it will likely not hand over another parcel of land on O'ahu to off-roaders, enthusiasts see themselves opening more parks in the future, possibly with private sponsorship or community support.

"While this park won't satisfy everybody's desire to access natural areas, we do hope that the park's success will be an opportunity to springboard to a large, more diverse area," said Uslan, the four-wheeling enthusiast. "We're hoping if we build it, they will come."

Uslan and others also pointed out that the off-roading community in the Islands is growing — and fast. It is difficult to measure the rise of off-roading in recent years, since the city doesn't license all-terrain vehicles, and doesn't distinguish off-road four-wheel vehicles or motorcycles from those used on city streets.

But many say the crowds at the Kahuku Motocross and the increase in illegal off-roading are data enough to show that the number of people riding off-road vehicles is growing. Another sign of the popularity of the sports is the traffic on Hawai'i Web sites dedicated to off-roading —4x4boyz.com, which was launched in October, today has 250 forum members and gets about 54 posts a day.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.