The Newspaper of the San Francisco Bay Chapter
July - August 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Keeping our wildlands from the off-road to ruin
Forest Service constructing umbrella against the driving reign
More and more hikers, campers, and anglers are confronting growing damage and disruption caused by off-road vehicles (ORVs).
These aggressive dirt bikes, all-terrain vehicles, four-wheel-drive vehicles, and snowmobiles, are made to be ridden in the back country. Their tracks may be visible for generations, and their impacts can be far-reaching. The problem runs coast to coast. As the New York Times reported in 2004, "`renegade riders' are increasing, in some cases threatening violence, signs torn down, fences demolished, off-limit areas traversed and public drunkenness."
Aggressive advertising and marketing by an increasingly vocal and powerful recreational-vehicle industry has intensified the problem. When riders pay many thousands of dollars for these high-powered toys, they count on being able to ride them unimpeded nearly anywhere.
In California, hundreds of thousands of these vehicles travel the backcountry every year. When irresponsibly used or improperly controlled, they cause damage to sensitive soils, degrade critical wildlife habitat, disturb and displace wildlife, trespass onto private property and closed areas, and shatter the quiet of the great outdoors. As more people live in urban areas and seek respite in backcountry peace and quiet, such vehicular impacts become more and more disturbing. The problem is especially conspicuous in the vast open spaces of the California desert, but our state's national forests also suffer damage from uncontrolled ORV use.
In 1972 President Richard Nixon signed an executive order directing that America's public lands be managed to "minimize damage" from motorized ORVs. The order states that federal agencies must manage ORV use so as to protect natural resources, promote the safety of all land users, and minimize conflicts among various uses. Open routes must be clearly signed and publicized, closures must be enforced, and effects of ORV use must be monitored.
Thirty-five years later, implementation of this order is still spotty. In areas with plenty of public scrutiny (such as national parks and designated wilderness), ORV closures have been implemented and are generally enforced. Elsewhere, chaos often reigns. The Times article reports, "According to the latest estimates by the Forest Service, almost 36 million Americans use off-highway vehicles, a figure that does not include sport utility vehicles. And with that increase in numbers, many officials said, has come an increase in illegal activity - fences demolished, signs torn down, off-limit areas traversed and public drunkenness."
California leads in designating routes
The Forest Service is finally biting the bullet and conducting a travel-management process limiting motorized travel to "designated routes" only. This is something that Sierra Club and others have sought for many years. Some ORV advocates, however, want every track where a vehicle has ever gone to be designated as an open route.
The pro-conservation majority on the California Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission has approved $8 million in grants to California's national forests to complete route designation by 2009. This financial support is allowing California to lead the nation in implementing ORV travel planning and route designation.
All 19 national forests in California have inventoried existing vehicle routes and have been and will be holding public meetings and conducting environmental reviews to decide which routes to keep open to ORVs. A preliminary report found over 11,000 miles of unplanned and user-created roads and vehicle trails on California's national forests. Conservationists have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect wild places by establishing a sustainable and enforceable route system to keep motorized routes out of potential wilderness and other sensitive areas such as streambeds and meadows. Our goal is to protect wildlife habitat, water quality, and traditional outdoor recreation. Once route designation is complete, routes that are not designated will become candidates for restoration or can remain open to non-motorized recreation.
The Smith River National Recreation Area and Orleans Ranger District have recently issued a final decision to decommission hundreds of miles of roads that were fragmenting habitat and increasing sediment loads in local rivers. In contrast, however, the Tahoe National Forest seeks to add 50 more miles of new ORV routes after discovering more than 2,500 miles of unplanned and user-created routes.
Because the planning process is focusing on motorized-route designation, there is a risk that trails for quiet recreation may be neglected. While ORV enthusiasts say they are happy to share trails, hikers avoid areas frequented by dirt bikes or ATVs, due to the noise, air pollution, dust, and ugly scars on the land.
Reforms needed in pioneering state program
California's Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Law of 1971 provides a blueprint for managed Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) recreation in designated areas, requiring maintenance and oversight to allow for long-term OHV use consistent with environmental stewardship. In 1982 the legislature created the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division in the state Parks and Recreation Department to administer this OHV program, and also the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission to allow public input and provide policy guidelines.
The commission now allocates an annual grants budget of $18 million to manage ORV recreation on California's public lands. Leadership and funding provided by the commission have been the force enabling California's national forests to lead the nation in route-designation efforts.
The future of this important program is gravely at risk. The State OHV Program that funds these grants, as well as the operations and maintenance of six State Vehicular Recreation Areas, is set to expire on Jan. 1. The program is up for renewal in the legislature, and ORV-industry groups are working to undermine environmental programs that prevent and repair ORV damage to California's wildlife habitat, waterways, and wilderness.
California state Sen. Darrell Steinberg has introduced Senate Bill 742 to renew and reform the State OHV Program. We are hopeful that Senator Steinberg's bill will provide for reasonable motorized and non-motorized recreation while strengthening law enforcement and restoration programs that protect wild lands and communities from ORV damage. The current draft of SB 742, however, currently doesn't fund traditional outdoor recreation and would hand more authority to the OHV Division, which focuses on providing ORV recreation, often at the expense of restoration and non-motorized recreation. Conservationists are urging Sen. Steinberg to accept conservation amendments to SB 742.
WhatYouCanDo
Contact Sen. Darrell Steinberg at:
State Capitol, #4035
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916)651-4006
fax: (916)323-2263
Senator.Steinberg@senate.ca.gov
Express support for conservation reforms to California's OHV Program. Ask for the following revisions to SB 742:
- increased restoration funding to repair public lands, outside of State Vehicular Recreation Areas, that have been damaged by ORVs, with no weakening of the definition of "restoration";
- assurance that restoration projects are efficiently and effectively funded; the restoration grants should be managed by a state agency with habitat-restoration expertise such as the Wildlife Conservation Board, not the OHV Division;
- creation of a non-motorized-recreation grants program to make sure that the hikers, campers, and anglers who pay into the OHV Trust Fund through the state fuel tax (as they drive to places to hike, fish, etc.) benefit from the program too;
- law-enforcement reforms to protect private property owners and public resources, including increased fines for illegal riding and a license-plate requirement to enable better enforcement.
Sierra Club volunteers are working with the California Wilderness Coalition, the Wilderness Society, and other conservationists throughout the state to monitor and improve route-designation proposals. Volunteers are especially needed to attend Forest Service public meetings and speak up for closing duplicative, damaging, or otherwise undesirable vehicle routes and preserving vehicle-free places for quiet recreation.
For information on the travel-planning status for each California forest visit www.wilderness.org/WhereWeWork/California/tracking.cfm
To work with Sierra Club California's Wilderness Committee on ORV issues, contact Vicky Hoover at (510) 977-5527 or email vicky.hoover -at- sierraclub.org
ORV or OHV?
Don't be confused. The terms off-highway vehicle (OHV) and off-road vehicle (ORV) are nearly synonymous. ORV implies use only off roads while OHV does not.
In California, ORVs are those dirt bikes, dune buggies, and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) of all sorts which cannot legally be driven on state, county, or other maintained dirt or paved roads or highways. In other words ORVs are not street legal. ORVs are designed to travel off-pavement and off-road, and because of their rugged versatility, they are often the vehicles which cause damage to wilderness and back-country areas .
OHVs include all of our two- and four-wheel-drive cars, SUVs, light trucks, etc, that are licensed for "street legal" travel, but are capable of going off-road as well.
Off-roaders coined the term "off-highway vehicle" in the early 1970s as a greenwashing name because they "never drove off-road, just off-highway". Environmentalists usually prefer to use "ORV" (which focuses on the problems) rather than the green-washing "OHV" term.
© 2007 San Francisco Sierra Club Yodeler