Arizona

Jorge Salazar

Landowners, leaseholders and taxpayers shouldn’t be liable for damages when off-highway vehicle riders get in accidents on public and private land, a state senator said.

Current law prohibits individuals from suing if they are fishing, hunting, camping and swimming on such land as recreational users.

SB 1229, authored by Sen. John Nelson, R-Litchfield Park, would expand the definition of a recreational user to include a person using an off-highway, off-road or all-terrain vehicle.

“Those that want to drive across those lands on their own and hurt themselves, they should bear their burden of the cost,” Nelson said.

The state Senate has approved the bill, and the measure won a unanimous endorsement Thursday from the House Judiciary Committee.

The Arizona State Land Department asked Nelson, chairman of the Senate Natural Resources and Transportation Committee, to carry the bill. The department manages 9.3 million acres of land around the state.

“With the proliferation of OHV activity, we think it only makes sense we have protection in statute,” said Vanessa Hickman, Arizona’s deputy state land commissioner.

The Arizona Cattlemen’s Association, Arizona Nature Conservancy chapter and the Arizona Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition registered their support for the measure.

Rep. Frank Pratt, R-Casa Grande, who signed on as a primary sponsor of the bill, said it’s important to keep land open to people who want to use it.

“The alternative to defining liability on this quite possibly could be the closure of these lands,” Pratt said.

Nelson said the measure shouldn’t be seen as a way for landowners, leaseholders and the state to duck liability for negligence. The bill and current law make exceptions for negligence and malicious conduct.

“We’re just saying that if you use it on your own and you get hurt, we as landowners should not be held liable for what you as an individual do to yourself,” he said.

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Source: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/arizona/politics/article_6c682a94-409f-11e0-9fde-001cc4c03286.html

Congressman Stevan Pearce has again shown his anti-wilderness stance by providing misinformation and falsehoods about the Gila National Forest and recommended road closures. As William James, the father of modern psychology, said: "There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it." This is the case for the absurd ranting of Congressman Pearce.

Recently, the US Forest Service released a carefully prepared Gila National Forest Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the implementation of the USFS Travel Management Rule to manage the increased motorized vehicle use in the forest. With political rhetoric and no understanding of the "Impact Statement," Congressman Pearce has wrongly described it "as dangerous, economically damaging, and contrary to the freedoms and traditions upon which the country was founded." His arguments are pure and unadulterated poppycock and are simply intended to inflame his anti-wilderness political base.

Sean Holstege and Glen Cano

A familiar brown cloud is settling over a cool, dry Valley, prompting air-quality experts to warn that residents could be in for a particularly dirty winter.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality on Thursday issued the first health watch of the season for Friday, as a bubble of cold air acts like a lid on airborne dust and smoke.

Heather Smathers

Officials from the Arizona Game & Fish Department, Bureau of Land Management, Bullhead City Police Department and Fort Mojave Indian Tribe participated in a sting operation to try and catch violators of off-highway vehicle ordinances at the Colorado River Nature Center on Saturday.

The targeted patrol was the first of its kind, said Zen Mocarski, program manager with the AZGF.

Eryn Gable

Environmentalists are challenging the Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to deny Endangered Species Act protection to nesting desert bald eagles in Arizona, saying federal protection of the bird's habitat is critical to its survival.

In a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, the Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audubon Society argued that habitat destruction and human harassment represent the biggest threats to the eagle, whose population is estimated at about 50 breeding pairs.

Editor:

I live in a neighborhood close to the national forest. There is a trail around the block that often gets used by ATVs.

So this eve, I was sitting peacefully on my porch as the sun was setting and I had a cat on my lap. Suddenly this noisy ATV comes wheeling past my home. I noticed only a child standing up driving it. The cat got scared, jumped out of my lap, and flew into the air and I ended up with a bleeding, 2-inch scratch on my leg. I just would like parents to consider that our neighborhood streets were not designed for ATV riding and how disruptive the noise can be, not only to humans but also to pets!

April Reese

In an unusual move, the Bureau of Land Management's new plan for the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness and thousands of surrounding acres extends the agency's management prescriptions to 7,800 acres owned by the Nature Conservancy and incorporates state wildlife goals in one of Arizona's most popular hunting grounds.

"The plan is meant to be comprehensive, and to resolve or address issues both within the area of contiguous public lands and in the greater Aravaipa watershed," according to the draft Aravaipa Ecosystem Management Plan, issued late last month by the Bureau of Land Management. A new federal management plan for southeast Arizona's Aravaipa Canyon Ecosystem accounts for both private and state wildlife and conservation priorities. Photo courtesy of BLM.

Shaun McKinnon

Maricopa County got the bad news it feared Friday when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it would reject the major components of the region's dust-control plan.

The EPA's ruling, if made final in January, could delay or derail billions of dollars in transportation projects over the next decade and leave the county vulnerable to other penalties if it can't satisfy terms of the Clean Air Act.

Off-road driving on the Agua Fria National Monument has been illegal since the area received federal protection in 2000. But Monument Manager Rem Hawes tells the Prescott Daily Courier that signs and other efforts haven't slowed the problem.