PDA

View Full Version : Forest Service Seeks Limits on All-Terrain Vehicles



Dan229
07-09-2004, 07:15 AM
Forest Service Seeks Limits on All-Terrain Vehicles
By FELICITY BARRINGER

Published: July 8, 2004 (NY Times)


BATESVILLE, Ga., July 7 - Facing mounting fiscal and environmental costs from damage done by the sevenfold increase in off-road vehicles in national forests in the past 30 years, the Forest Service has for the first time proposed a rule that could eventually limit their use. But an agency spokesmen said Wednesday that no extra money had been set aside to enforce the new regulation.
The proposal, announced Wednesday, would require the national forests to restrict off-road vehicles to designated trails. Some of the 155 national forests, like Georgia's Chattahoochee-Oconee Forest, which designates more than 110 miles of all-terrain-vehicle trails within its 865,000 acres, already do so. Others, like the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota, permit cross-country riding with few restrictions.
"I call these sacrifice zones,'' said Wayne Jenkins, a volunteer with Georgia Forest Watch who has studied the use of trails for all-terrain vehicles in the Chattahoochee. "You take a gas motor and hook it to a vehicle with big, rubber, knobby tires, and ride it around as fast as you can on steep slopes, where the soils are thin, in a high rainfall area. What are you going to get? Bleeding soil into nearby streams."
Mr. Jenkins's 2001 study estimated that user-created "outlaw" trails covered five times as much ground as designated trails and put the annual maintenance and repair bill at $990,000. The Forest Service's chief, Dale Bosworth, has repeatedly cited unmanaged recreation as one of the four greatest threats to the forest.
The proposed rule, which is open for comment for 60 days, covers a variety of motorized off-road vehicles, including dirt bikes and four-wheel all-terrain vehicles, but exempts snowmobiles, saying that the impact of these vehicles on snow and the ground beneath is less than those of the all-terrain vehicles on muddy or sandy soil.
Scott Kovarovics, director of the National Trails and Water Coalition, said the proposal was a worthy first step, but fell far short of what was needed to protect forest habitats. Mr. Kovarovics said that the final rule should set a two-year deadline for completion of the trail designations, immediately bar all use of the user-created "renegade routes" and ensure that the designations made could be enforced.
The damage from the incessant use of motorized vehicles on trails is stark. Deep gouges scar miles of a trail that slides around the edge of Oakey Mountain near here, and even this trail's most ardent off-road vehicle users, like a club that calls itself the Possum Patrol, have united with conservationists and the Forest Service to improve it. They plan to reroute part of the trail that has spilled large amounts of sediment into Chastain Branch, a stream where trout are to be reintroduced.
One aim of the rule, said Rick D. Cables, a regional forester, is to "stop proliferation of new roads and trails, which add to our inventory" of areas that need maintenance or rehabilitation. The current patchwork of practices from one forest to the next, and around the 21 national grassland areas also covered by the rule, "is so inconsistent that users who want to be responsible don't know how to do it," Mr. Cables said.
At the end of the process, a national atlas of open and closed roads and trails will be available, and every forest will use the same designations to alert visitors to their options.
Forest Service spokesmen said Wednesday that no specific money had been set aside for this purpose.
Jack Troyer, a regional forester, said that the service was spending "a lot of money'' in administering recreational use of forests. The rule, Mr. Troyer said, could move the agency toward setting priorities and obtaining money from a variety of recreation and conservation accounts.
While the increase in all-terrain vehicles in the forests rose to 35 million visits in 2000 from 5 million in 1972, in the past two decades nonmotorized activities have also soared. The Forest Service proposal said bird watching had increased 231 percent since the early 1980's, hiking 193 percent and backpacking 182 percent.
The challenge for recreation management is to address the needs and conflicting expectations of millions of people who use and enjoy the National Forests, while providing for long-term sustainability of National Forest System lands," the agency proposal said.
The tension is palpable. As he sat by the Chastain Branch and described some of the work his fellow Possum Patrol members were doing to maintain trails, Rick Browning said, "It's our forest too." A banking consultant and former banker who bought his first all-terrain vehicle eight years ago after his bank repossessed it, he said of his hiker and conservationist antagonists, "What makes them think their way of using it is the only way?"
Public lands from Moab, Utah, a haven for mountain bikers who can tear off the thin tissue of soil on the rocks, to the Chattahoochee Forest along most of Georgia's northern border, which is within a 90-minute drive of perhaps 10 million people, show the scars of urban dwellers' weekend encounters with nature.
Speaking broadly of the timbering, wildfire and recreation issues that are at the forefront of Forest Service concerns, the agency chief, Mr. Bosworth, said in a recent interview, "We've been taking from national forests for pretty near 100 years and I think it's time for reinvestment, to get the national forests in good healthy condition."
In the Southeast, the popularity of all-terrain vehicles is widespread. On Monday at the Oakey Mountain trail, riders were there from Atlanta, more than 90 minutes away, and Piedmont, S.C., more than two hours away. With a downpour having saturating the soil in much of the Chattahoochee, the Oakey Trail was the only one open on the weekend.
Access to public lands is essential, said Alisha Driggers, 19, one of the Piedmont contingent. "We can't afford to buy land to ride on," she said.
But the wilder riders, who gun their wheels in the mud, leaving huge ruts, and shoot off-trail and up the steepest slopes available, have largely defined the public perception of the sport. Asked about the appeal of mud, Ms. Drigger said: "I like getting muddy. If you haven't gotten muddy, you haven't ridden."
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/national/08forest.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Dan229
07-09-2004, 07:16 AM
Forest Service to limit use of off-road vehicles
Charles Seabrook - Staff
Thursday, July 8, 2004

Environmental damage from off-road vehicles has become a major threat to national forests, the government said Wednesday, proposing new rules to restrict the vehicles to specific roads and trails in the federal preserves.

By designating certain roads and trails for ORV use, the U.S. Forest Service said, it hopes to accommodate the mushrooming numbers of ORV users while safeguarding the ecological health of the 155 national forests and 21 national grasslands.

One such preserve is the 750,000-acre Chattahoochee National Forest in North Georgia, which has sustained "serious and substantial" damage in the millions of dollars from illegal ORV use, according to forest managers. Restrictions are already in place there, but critics say lax enforcement has allowed drivers to create "renegade trails" through the forest.

"Under the new rules, every national forest and grassland will be required to have a map designating roads and trails for [ORV] users," said Jack Troyer, who led the team that drew up the new rule. "[ORV] use off these routes will be prohibited."

Troyer and other Forest Service officials were vague on how to prevent drivers from leaving the trails and damaging the forests. They acknowledged the agency lacks sufficient law enforcement personnel to patrol the forests against illegal ORV use.

In the Chattahoochee National Forest, rules restricting ORVs to about 100 miles of roads and trails were adopted several years ago under pressure from people who wanted a place to ride. The rules have failed to curtail joy riders.

Illegal ORV drivers have gouged hundreds of miles of illegal trails and deep gullies, wreaking havoc on stately trees, ripping up rare wildflowers and silting crystal-clear trout streams.

Troyer said he believes responsible ORV users will help turn in unlawful drivers.

The explosive popularity of ORVs --- what the Forest Service calls "off-highway vehicles" --- over the past 20 years has left many federal land managers scrambling to put rules in place to protect fragile natural resources.

The problem is especially acute in the South, said Roberta Moltzen, deputy regional forester. The region is experiencing some of the highest ORV sales in the nation, but it has fewer public lands on which to drive the vehicles, she said.

ORVs include everything from four-wheelers, or all-terrain vehicles, to souped-up Jeeps. Nationwide, annual sales of ATVs and off-highway motorcycles increased by 80 percent from 1997 through 2002.

Some national forests, mostly in the South, already have roads and trails designated for ORVs. But illegal ORV use has caused extensive damage in several of the forests.

Last year, Georgia Forest Watch, a conservation group based in Ellijay, sued the Forest Service because of massive damage to one of the Chattahoochee preserve's most popular trails, called the Rich Mountain Road.

The group withdrew its lawsuit after the Forest Service closed the road and promised to keep it closed until a plan is devised for repairing the damage.

"Even if the Forest Service designates roads for ORVs, it doesn't have enough money to maintain the roads," said Debbie Royston, executive director of Georgia Forest Watch.

Other conservation groups said that while some of the rules are positive steps, overall the new plan will not be very effective in curbing damage.

Some critics say the Forest Service caved in to ORV owners at the expense of other users of the forests.

"The proposed rule unfairly favors relatively few off-road vehicle riders at the expense of millions of recreationists who seek some peace and quiet," said Jim Furnish, who ended a 34-year career with the Forest Service as the agency's third-highest official overseeing the National Forest System.

"Off-road vehicle reform is badly needed to heal the land and create some peace. This proposal is sluggish and doesn't get to the heart of the problem," he said.

Under the proposed rules, national forest and grassland managers must within two years designate roads and routes that are appropriate for off-road vehicle travel. The public will be allowed a say through public hearings and official comment periods.

For national forests like the Chattahoochee that already have designated ORV trails and roads, the routes will be rolled into the national plan. Moltzen said it is unlikely that additional routes in the forest will be designated.

Once the rules are implemented later this year, forest and grassland managers must immediately bar ORVS from all unauthorized, renegade routes.

Managers also will have the authority to close down any designated routes that they determine are no longer suitable for ORV travel.

A SOUTHERN DILEMMA
In the South, the growing popularity of off-road vehicles, or ORVs, poses the greatest recreation management challenge for national forests:
> About 12.5 million people drove or rode ORVs in the South during the past year.
> Georgia's two national forests, the Chattahoochee and the Oconee, recorded 72,425 ORV visits in 2002.
> In 2002, Southerners purchased 252,000 four-wheeler all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, the most popular type of ORV.
> Between 1997 and 2002, sales of ATVs and off-highway motorcycles increased nationwide by 80 percent. Sales in the South represented 33 percent of the national market.
Source: U.S. Forest Service

Dan229
07-09-2004, 07:17 AM
The Possum Patrol is the club I am a member of and even though I like to race GNCC and local races in this area most of the time when I am not racing I prefer to ride at the National Forests around this area as they truly are great places to ride; are a lot cheaper than the private areas, and due to the low cost of the NF’s I believe by them being relatively close they help keep the private areas at a reasonable cost. Anyone want to pay $50 to $100 bucks plus per day per ATV or bike to ride at a private area? I certainly don’t! But if there are no other legal areas to ride what choice would you have? Buy your own land to ride on I guess.

In short, the ATV and dirt bike riders themselves have to step up to the plate and take a very active roll in preserving these forests. If you have not considered doing volunteer work in conjunction with your local forest rangers please do so and if you see someone tearing up the forests turn them in!!! You are doing no one a favor by turning a blind eye to that sort of behavior as that will result in all of us being kicked out of the National Forests for good. The writing is already on the walls folks! The rangers will be allowed to close any trial they want to for as long as they want. Keep in mind there are very few people to watch of the National Forests! What is easier for them, to close a trail or spend weeks out there trying to repair the trail with little to no help? Put yourself in their shoes! Contact the local rangers in your area and find out when their workdays are for the National Forests in your area and get yourself there!

mudboggin
07-09-2004, 01:22 PM
bump

dpizz450
07-09-2004, 01:55 PM
theres no way anyone is gunna read all that :huh

Mxjunkie
07-09-2004, 03:23 PM
i read it, it was interesting;)

Out_Sider
07-09-2004, 07:47 PM
**** tree huggers :mad: the world is already destroyed from all the other bullsh1t going on, why do they have the **** with us.. basterds :cuss: