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| The
Vroom Report The State of Off-Road Vehicles (ORVs) Across America
May 7, 2003 In this Issue: · Sixty Percent of Minnesotans want All-terrain Vehicles
on Designated Routes Look to the Future Sixty Percent of Minnesotans want All-terrain Vehicles on Designated Routes: The Minneapolis Star Tribune poll, published May 6, 2003, reports that sixty percent of Minnesotans want all-terrain vehicles to remain on specific routes "specially selected to protect the environment." According to the Tribune, the results were similar "across every demographic, geographic and political group" measured in the poll. Read the article at: http://www.startribune.com/stories/468/3866685.html As ATV Safety Hearing Gains Momentum, More Doctors Join the Debate: On June 5, 2003, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) will conduct a public hearing at West Virginia University Health Science Center in Morgantown to hear the public's view on the growing ATV safety crisis. The hearing, the only one currently scheduled nationwide, will be held in the state with the highest ATV death rate in the country on a per capita basis. As the momentum builds towards this hearing, more doctors nationwide
are expressing concerns about the growing number of ATV-related
injuries and deaths, especially to children. In Texas, Dr. Corrine
Stern, the El Paso County Medical Examiner, spoke out strongly last
week in the El Paso Times following a significant increase in ATV
deaths in her area this year. Another Texas doctor explained that
every weekend, "…at least on person, usually a minor,
is treated in the emergency room for ATV-related injuries, particularly
head wounds." Chief Bosworth Highlights Off-Road Vehicles as One of the Four Greatest Threats to National Forests: In an Earth Day speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth highlighted four "great issues" facing National Forests, including unmanaged off-road vehicle use. In his speech, the Chief described the explosion in illegal, user-created
routes: "Each year, we get hundreds of miles of what we euphemistically
refer to as 'unplanned roads and trails.' For example, the Lewis
and Clark National Forest in Montana has more than a thousand unplanned
roads and trails reaching for almost 650 miles. That's pretty typical
for a lot of national forests, and its only going to get worse."
The Chief then went on to describe a litany of other adverse impacts
caused by uncontrolled off-road vehicle use, including soil erosion,
habitat destruction, damage to cultural and sacred sites, and conflicts
with millions of other visitors. So we have to ask - though the Chief's speech represents an important acknowledgment by the Forest Service that off-road vehicle use is out of control on National Forests, is he just making a speech designed to improve the administration's poor environmental image, or is he prepared to lead the Forest Service nationally in an aggressive, consistent, and comprehensive response to this problem? Read the speech: http://www.fs.fed.us/news/2003/speeches/great-issues-great-diversions.pdf San Bernadino County Makes Nation's First RS2477 Claim: In San Bernadino County, California, the Board of Supervisors has voted to submit an application to claim the right-of-way to Camp Rock Road, an existing road that crosses federal land owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This could be the first claim submitted to the BLM by any county in the West to claim ownership of rights-of-way on federal lands. This effort comes after the Department of Interior published a rule in January making it easier for states, industries, and off-road vehicle interests to claim that thousands of miles of foot paths, streambeds and illegal off-road vehicle routes are "highways." The issue isn't Camp Rock Road in and of itself, which appears to meet the core definition of a highway. The issue is that stacked up behind are cow paths, single lane hiking trails, wash bottoms and illegal off-road vehicle routes --many of which traverse National Parks and sensitive wilderness areas -- which are not roads at all. Read articles on the issue in the San Bernadino Sun and the Press
Enterprise at: http://www.sbsun.com/Stories/0,1413,208%257E12588%257E1358914,00.html?search=filter The first article in a series on the many impacts of noise on public lands hit the press on May 4, 2003. "Drowning out Mother Nature," discusses the issues surrounding the increasing impacts of motorized sounds, ranging from dirk bikes, ATVs and jet skis to helicopters and airplanes, in places like Yellowstone National Park and other public lands around the nation. The article makes it clear that noise is "much more than an aesthetics issue." Its impact is so reaching, that economists have estimated its negative economic impact. One study conducted for the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse entitled "Drowning in Noise: Noise Costs of Jet Skis in America" calculates that jet skis "impose approximately $900 million of noise costs on U.S. beachgoers each year." Read report at: http://www.nonoise.org/library/drowning/drowning.htm. Read the article: http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2003/05/04/news/wyoming/7230f865adcbdffa458693006dd0d80d.txt SUMMER SHORTS - This section is dedicated to short snippets of news that may be of interest. Doctor educates public about ATV Safety:. West Virginia has the highest per capita ATV-related deaths in the nation. Dr. Jim Helmkamp, of the Center for Rural Emergency Medicine at West Virginia University has literally mapped out all the places around West Virginia where kids under the age of 18 have died in ATV-related incidents. Read the article at: http://www.dominionpost.com/a/news/2003/04/20/du/ U.S. Rivers - A Hotbeds of Debate: According to an article in
Texas: Look to the Future: Algodones Dunes Land Management Plan: This month, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) could issue a final plan governing off-road vehicle use on approximately 150,000 acres of the Algodones Dunes. This action follows a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), that resuming off-road vehicle use on the Dunes would not jeopardize threatened plants and animals. The FWS justified its decision in part, using a study conducted by an off-road vehicle group. Quotes of the week: "I think they are extremely dangerous, and children shouldn't
be on them at all." "I'd expect to be back with many, many more roads." "We do know from studies that motorized recreation along a
trail tends to create a mile-wide footprint of noise."
The Natural Trails and Waters Coalition includes conservation, recreation and other groups working to protect and restore all public lands and waters from the severe damage caused by snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes, jet skis and all other off-road vehicles.
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