ATV plan on access riles some

Lisa Rathke

HARDWICK (AP) -- When Danny Hale bought an all-terrain vehicle in 2000 he quickly learned that finding a place to ride it would be challenging.

The old logging roads and rough dirt roads his family used to drive -- his grandparents in a Model-A and his parents in a retrofitted VW bug with pickup tires -- were now gated or closed to visitors.

So, he formed a local ATV club and worked with landowners to develop ATV trails on private land for members to use. He also joined the Vermont All Terrain Vehicle Sportsman’s Association, eventually serving as vice president, president and now executive director. The group has developed a network of trails covering 600 miles on private land and town roads.

After five years of nudging by VASA, the state’s Agency of Natural Resources is wrapping up a proposal that would establish a rule that allows ATV access to public lands. But the proposal has triggered a furor in environmentally conscious Vermont, with opponents concerned about potential land erosion caused by the vehicles’ tires, water pollution, wetland destruction and noise.

The Agency of Natural Resources has received nearly 2,000 letters on the issue, and the topic has been debated in letters to the editor at newspapers across Vermont.

The Conservation Law Foundation says the state hasn’t adequately studied the impact on the environment. The group also is worried about problems "caused by legal ATV trail riding as well as the inevitable off-trail illegal riding which is a problem that the state hasn’t really been able to get a handle on," said Anthony Iarrapino, an attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation.

Both VASA and the state acknowledge there’s a big problem with illegal riding, but Natural Resources Secretary Jonathan Wood said opening up state lands will cut down on renegade riders.

That was the case with snowmobiles, he said.

"They were a pariah. Everybody didn’t like them. They were everywhere and uncontrolled," he said. "It took them quite a long time but they developed a system where that’s now a very well controlled form of recreation. People use the trail system. They are restricted to the trail system."

Other states allow ATVs on public property, said Brian Hawthorne, public lands policy director for the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a national off-highway vehicle advocacy group based in Idaho.

"We think it’s a good thing," Hawthorne said. "If the state land is supposed to be managed for the benefit of the public it seems reasonable that somewhere else could be identified to provide for recreational opportunity for those citizens. ... It’s a popular activity, and it could be an economic benefit to a community."

During the last six years, VASA has shown its ability to manage its trails, Wood said. The group works with nearly 170 landowners. In areas where local clubs have become more active, there’s less illegal riding, Wood said.

Under the proposal, the Natural Resources secretary would review requests for ATV access on state lands to connect trails. The secretary would have to consider environmental impacts, compatibility with other users of the land and any effects on abutting land.

Requests also must outline how the trail would be built, maintained and repaired and how the requesting agency would enforce appropriate trail use.

The Agency of Natural Resources is now reviewing feedback to see if changes should be made to the proposed rule. Eventually, a legislative rules committee will evaluate the proposal and make a recommendation.

Hale says VASA for now is seeking just one connector trail -- 500 feet of roadside in Island Pond to prevent ATVs from crossing Route 105 at a curve.

But Iarrapino isn’t sold on the idea. And he points to Minnesota as an example of this concern. The state opened its forests to ATV use on designated trails in 2005.

"They’ve opened significant amounts of legal trails to ATV riders but they’ve been utterly unable to control the illegal trail riding that’s occurred from spurs off of those legal trails," Iarrapino said.

Minnesota conservation officer Colleen Adam, who’s in charge of off-highway vehicle enforcement in part of the state, said there’s less illegal riding in the state than when there were no legal trails. But it’s still a work in progress, she said. Catching riders long after they’ve done something illegal is a challenge, she said.

"There always seem to be those people ... that want to do the stuff that’s environmentally insensitive -- the running in the wetlands. Those kind of people hopefully we catch them."

http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_12980490

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