By Rob Thornberry
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Caribou-Targhee National Forest officials have escalated their war against people who pioneer illegal roads on the 3 million-acre forest.
This summer and fall, Forest Service officials closed 377 illegally created roads on the seven districts that are spread from Lone Pine and Henry's Lake in the north to Montpelier and Malad in the south. The closures have blocked off roughly 50 miles of illegally created roads.
The Forest Service has spent roughly $285,000 to destroy illegal trailheads, much of the money coming from federal stimulus money.
In two-thirds of the cases, entrances to the illegal roads have been destroyed by an excavator that has built berms, dug trenches, moved rocks or knocked down trees.
"Illegal use of (all-terrain vehicles) is a huge problem," Forest Engineer Wes Stumbo said. "Unmanaged recreation is one of the top four threats to the health of the forests across the country, and 85 to 90 percent of the time, the problem is illegal ATV use. This work is an answer to that threat."
Stumbo said the aggressive tack is necessary to prevent erosion across the forest and to protect the service's multi-use philosophy. It is also important for protecting big game.
"We are trying to provide opportunity for everybody, but not everywhere," Stumbo said.
The Forest Service's stance has numerous critics.
"The Forest Service is just making a power grab," said Kay Carter, a Boise resident who has a summer home in Island Park. "They are condensing us down to nothing, no access."
Others charge that the effort to block roads is ugly, creates dangerous riding conditions and won't stop riders who don't follow the rules.
"It makes the forest look like hell," said Gary Oswald, an Idaho Falls hunter. "Unless you dig a pit around the entire forest, people are going to go in there and break the law."
Stumbo understands there are complaints, but he said the work needs to be done.
"I can't argue that it is not butt ugly, but we can't stand by and ignore the problem."
Use of ATVs in Idaho has exploded in the past two decades.
In 1990, there were 9,000 registered all-terrain vehicles in Idaho. By 2009, there were 137,000 registered ATVs, a 1,422 percent increase, according to the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation.
With that increase, illegal use has risen dramatically.
"I think 80 percent of our users are good," Stumbo said. "It's the 20 percent that won't play by the rules that ruin it for everybody."
The illegal trails increase erosion, decrease big game security and upset forest users who want to enjoy their passions, whether it's hiking, biking or horseback riding.
"Unregulated motorized activity is generally harmful to big-game hunting," said Steve Schmidt, Fish and Game's supervisor in the Upper Snake Region.
Schmidt said Fish and Game can provide a variety of types of hunting, but illegal ATV use can compromise that effort.
"Our objective is to provide a diversity of hunting, a whole menu of different types of hunting experiences," he said. "Within that objective, we are trying to provide as much general hunting as we can as long as we can. One factor in providing general hunting is making sure that animals have places where they are hard to get to."
To battle those who pioneer illegal trails, the Forest Service in 2001 started a three-pronged attack.
The first was education, working to publicize the forest's travel plan and engaging ATV clubs about the scope of the problem. The Forest Service, Fish and Game, the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, the Bureau of Land Management and the Idaho Department of Lands also created the Idaho Interagency Off-Highway Vehicle Education Campaign to teach the proper use of ATVs.
At the same time, the Forest Service stepped up enforcement of the travel plan, which lays out when and where people can travel. The Forest Service and Fish and Game now use an airplane to patrol during hunting season, looking for those using illegal roads.
The Forest Service also erected signs to discourage use of illegal roads.
The signs didn't work, hence the escalation of the war.
"We need to make it difficult to use illegal roads," Stumbo said. "It is too bad that we have to go to this level of closure, but we have to make it work."
Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/10/31/1399762/forest-officials-take-steps-to.html#ixzz151Ax6kzW
Response
Congratulations to the Idaho Forest Engineer Stumbo for working so hard to spend the $285,000 to eradicate ATV Trails and remove the recreation from the People of America from spending time with their families in our own forest. This Land is Our Land....not the Forest Service, BLM, USDA, or any government entity. Let me see here, calculator in hand, - $285,000.00 spent in the forest to eradicate ATV Trails - the cost of "paid in" unemployment for one person would be around $600 a month - so this would have provided 475 people for a month of unemployment - provide medical care for those whom are unemployed - food for homeless for 57,000 people at approximate $5.00 a plate. Do I really need to continue these comparisons, I think not.
The USDA/USFS budget cost for trails has diminished drastically so that in most cases there is no budget to maintain any trails or management of.
Most trail systems are under the care of the local clubs and volunteers to start with. Such spending shows how the Forest Service is mis-managing of funds and then complaining there is no money for them to manage properly.
I, myself, have never said No to Forestry when it came to working on the trails for ATV use. Volunteers provide more labor - FREE - than any entity has. Volunteers and clubs obtain grants from manufactures of ATV's in the amount of $10,000 and are able to complete more work than the $285,000 that Forestry has spent here and accomplished much less.
This article by Forestry is just another fabrication to prevent motorized recreation in the American People's Forest. Well too many times clubs and volunteers have presented their services to Forestry to care for trails, following the rules of Forestry, and are turned down most of the time. Again, mis-management occurring. It is time that the American People step up and inform our government that this type of waste has gone on long enough.
Thank You, ATV / OHV Trail Advocate...R. Brooks
To follow up with this, below an article from Adena Cook, Local columnist, BlueRibbon Coalition
Build bridges, not fences
Adena Cook
Local columnist
Blueribbon Coalition
The polarizing rhetoric preceding this last election demonstrated that mud slinging gets attention. The media happily jumped on it as the public chose up sides. We lost a chance for thoughtful discussion.
Similarly, a recent negative Post Register report on road closures in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest got attention. It colorfully demonized ATVs. It bypassed discussing how closures are a part of balancing opportunity with forest protection. Instead, it characterized recreation management as an "escalation of the war," a "battle" and a "three-pronged attack."
It misused statistics to allege increased motorized use, reporting a 1,422 percent increase in 19 years. The cited 1990 figure of 9,000 counted only registered off-road motorcycles, not ATVs. Back then, registration compliance was low (the Motorcycle Industry Council estimated 36,000). In 2009, 137,000 were registered, but that included motorcycles, ATVs, UTVs and specialty vehicles. Compliance has vastly improved. Who knows how much increased use has actually occurred? Any conclusion drawn is certainly suspect.
The article did not distinguish between routes that were created by people deliberately going off trail and those routes that were previously legal but not part of the current travel plan. Quotes were selected to focus on the negative.
The media loved it. It jumped from the Post Register to the Idaho Statesman online. It was repeated in the Statesman's Sunday (11-7-10) print edition. I wouldn't be surprised if The Associated Press picked it up.
Inflammatory articles can be as much a part of the problem as those ATVs that run amok. Just like the landscape is scarred, so are people's perceptions scarred by the vitriol of the pen. Good management and closures of undesignated roads heal the landscape. Polarization created by biased reporting can't be easily healed. Instead, it escalates, deepening the division between recreationists and making management more difficult.
Potential lines of communication are broken. Where we could be working together on projects where we agree, people choose up sides. Demands for designated wilderness, a zero-sum game if there ever was one, increase. Valuable energy is spent by each side building walls instead of bridges.
The Caribou-Targhee did a good job over the summer rehabilitating the undesignated routes so people would stay on the trail. They also improved a lot of trails, built some new trails, built bridges and worked with volunteers (both motorized and nonmotorized) in this effort.
Eastern Idaho is lucky to have a world-class system of trails and facilities in the national forest. Both managers and recreationists work to not only keep it that way but improve it every year. Closures are a small part of it. It's not a "battle" or a "war," it's a place for people to enjoy. That's what needs to be reported.
Cook is a consultant with the BlueRibbon Coalition.
