Documenting Environmental Damage from Off-Road Vehicles, Pressing for Policy Change

Colorado Wild has been in the field to document off-route abuse of public lands with the onset of the hunting season.  For instance, 4-wheel drive and ATV/motorcycle activities have impacted Dorsey Creek north of Villa Grove for years.  Last year, Colorado Wild documented stream diversions, rutted wetlands and displacement of beaver habitat due to irresponsible motorized use.  After meeting with officials of the Rio Grande National Forest (NF), the Forest Service (FS) effectively closed the Dorsey Creek road to motorized use, protecting both the creek and the southern boundary of the Sangre De Cristo Wilderness from illegal trespass.

Motorized Special Use Events Damaging Public Lands

Each year the FS and BLM issue hundreds of Special Use permits for motorcycle races, trials events, stock car hill climb races, snowmobile rallies and a host of other motorized events on public lands.  Unfortunately, all of us are often taxed for biological evaluations and other costs to permit each two to three day event, while we pay for monitoring and restoration of damaged natural resources afterward.  Direct consequences of these events include compacted soils, sediment loading in streams and wetlands, and vegetative trampling, while we frequently find evidence of illegal campfires, littering, and creation of new trails.  Often the impacts go beyond that plainly visible on the ground.  The frightening and displacement of wildlife, for instance, is difficult to gauge.

The Pike San-Isabel NF has permitted one such event, the Buffalo Peaks Hill Climb, for years near Buena Vista.  Based on our thorough documentation of natural resource impacts, we filed a letter this summer with the FS demanding they not issue a permit for this year’s event.  Recognizing they were on shaky legal ground for failing to perform a biological evaluation or accepting public comment as required by federal law, the FS cancelled the event this year.

The Ute Cup Trials is another prime example of a Special Use Event permitted by the FS without adequate consideration of environmental impacts that nonetheless costs every taxpayer.  This two day event attracts 150 motorcycle riders to the beautiful Sangre De Cristo Mountains each summer.  Up to thirty stations are set up off trail where a rider must perform a stunt or task that tests his/her riding skills, awarding the most skilled (balanced) entrant for going through these stations without falling over or putting down a foot.  Events like the Ute Cup Trials come with ramifications though.  Colorado Wild has documented, for instance, motorcycle tracks straight into streams, even though this is not allowed under the permit, while some of the stations are within twenty feet of the Sangre De Cristo Wilderness!

As such, Colorado Wild submitted comments to the FS prior to this year’s event.  While we were not able to stop the event entirely, we did get the FS to require that riders stay out of streams and riparian areas, ensured that FS personnel monitored the entire event for three days, and forced the event sponsors to fund an environmental analysis.  To their credit, the event sponsors did a good job of cleaning up the station areas after the event, but probably because they were being closely monitored.  Regardless, off-route motorized vehicle use of any type is illegal and violates the Pike San-Isabel NF Plan.  Colorado Wild is considering legal action to prevent additional natural resource damage.

Fourmile Citizens Proposal

Colorado Wild staff approached the Forest Service in September, 1999, requesting immediate action be taken to protect soil and water resources in the Fourmile area north of Buena Vista from illegal and inappropriate ORV use.  Colorado Wild found massive amounts of sediment being deposited into wetlands, Fourmile creek, and the Arkansas River as a result of miles of unauthorized user-created roads and trails.  This April, more than 200 citizens, mostly from Chaffee County, met in Buena Vista to listen to the BLM and Forest Service describe how they plan to manage recreation travel on 103,000 acres of public lands north and east of Buena Vista.  Three citizen working groups were formed as a result to develop a citizens management alternative for the Fourmile Travel Management Plan.  Subsequently, Colorado Wild staff Lisa Philipps and Ben Doon, volunteers, and members of the Quiet Use Coalition participated in monitoring, mapping and inventorying the Fourmile area in the summer of 2000.

As part of a diverse citizens group, Colorado Wild this April finalized recommendations for over 200 motorized routes on 103,000 acres of public land in Chaffee County (Fall 2000 Newsletter, pg. 6; Spring 2000, pg. 6).  Over half of these routes were “user created”.  We worked with ORV user groups to identify numerous routes causing adverse environmental impacts (massive erosion, soil trampling, etc.) and/or routes without significant recreational value.  Together we drafted a lengthy Citizen’s Proposal to be included as an Alternative in the forthcoming Travel Management Plan for the area.  Collaboratively, we recommended closure on 160 of the 200 routes identified.

With the ORV groups and the agencies, we were also awarded a $15,000 grant from the State Trails OHV (off highway vehicle) fund to set  up road closures, signage, restoration, and a data base for collected inventory information.  This is the first time diverse interests of conservationists and ORV users have come together cooperatively to develop a Travel Management Plan with an emphasis on both resource preservation and responsible recreation.

White River National Forest Travelway Inventory Report

The White River National Forest experiences more recreational visitation than any other in Colorado, including tremendous motorized use (snowmobiles in the winter, off-road vehicles (ORVs) in the summer).  Their proliferation throughout the backcountry is bringing significant ecological impacts to the forest.  As a result, the White River NF has proposed to close many duplicative, user created, and/or ecologically damaging roads and trails. Unfortunately, the Forest Service may have less than adequately inventoried and documented the damage to withstand  anticipated ORV group legal challenges.

Colorado Wild and other conservation groups of the White River Conservation Coalition this winter completed inventory and documentation of 25 motorized routes on the White River National Forest (Fall 2000 Newsletter, pg. 6).  We analyzed and quantified the data by resource impacts, recreation values, and Forest Service concerns to create the most scientific, data based method available to support the closure of roads causing ecological damage.  We are now finalizing this Travelway Inventory Report for presentation to Forest Service decision makers in concert with the upcoming Travel Management Plan revision there.  Additional routes will be added as we collect more field data this summer.