Environment Department urges more control of off-road vehicles

Staci Matlock

The Santa Fe National Forest is less then a month from issuing a draft plan for managing motorized vehicles, but the New Mexico Environment Department says the agency isn't doing enough to prevent off-roaders from damaging streams.

The long-awaited plan outlining where motorized vehicles will be allowed in the Santa Fe National Forest is at the printer and should be available for public comment by the end of July, according to forest staff. The public will have at least 45 days to comment on the draft environmental impact statement.

Meanwhile, New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry said the Forest Service should do more to protect streams and rivers from off-highway vehicles, especially in the Jemez Mountains. Curry has visited the area a few times in the last year at the request of a resident. "We're just trying to say the problem is still there and the problem is getting worse," Curry said.

Curry is asking the EPA for help and $150,000 to hire a contractor and measure the sediment and turbidity caused by off-roaders creating dirt trails near streams in the Jemez Mountains.

State water-quality standards apply to all lands except tribal. But New Mexico is one of only four states that cannot enforce its surface water quality standards and must seek help from the EPA.

Cindy C. Chojnacky, Santa Fe National Forest acting public-affairs officer, said the agency has taken a variety of steps to prevent off-road vehicles from damaging the area Curry is most concerned with — Forest Road 288 — in the Jemez. "I don't think the (Forest Service) has been asleep at the wheel in trying to protect that area," Chojnacky said.

A July 1 letter from Daniel J. Jiron, Santa Fe National Forest supervisor, acknowledges some off-roaders are skirting a locked gate across the road and damaging soils.

All national forests, are developing "travel management plans" to control off-road use, identified a few years ago as one of four major environmental threats to national forests. Santa Fe National Forest's draft plan has been delayed more than once. "If we have a hastily prepared (environmental impact) analysis, we'll have protests and that delays active management on the ground," Chojnacky said.

Marcy Leavitt, water and wastewater division director for the Environment Department, said the state's concern is protecting water quality. Leavitt, a hiker, said the damage from off-road use has increased on forest lands in the last decade. "There certainly are responsible OHV users out there," Leavitt said. "But the kind of impacts we saw in the Jemez were not from a hunter going from a road to a hunting camp. This was people joy-riding up and down the banks of streams. That's not responsible use." 

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Source: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/LocalNews/Environment-Department-urges-more-control-of-off-road-vehicles

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