Motorized plan aims to manage ATV use

GREEN RIVER -- Rather than close roads and access, a proposed draft travel plan for the Flaming Gorge reservoir in southwest Wyoming will actually designate more motorized routes for the popular recreation area, Ashley National Forest officials contend.

The new plan will update the existing motorized travel plan last revised in 1995, officials said during a public meeting in Green River on Tuesday night.

The proposed plan aims to improve the management of the current road system around Flaming Gorge and to better clarify for users those roads open for public motorized travel, including all-terrain vehicles, Ashley Forest Supervisor Kevin Elliott said.

"ATVs are a legitimate use of Forest Service lands ... but it needs to be managed to provide the appropriate access, while protecting other resource values," Elliott told a crowd of about 60 area residents.

"Our travel plan intends to help us manage that increasing ATV use. ... We're trying to find that balance, those appropriate places for ATVs while at the same time protecting the area's water quality, wildlife and soil resources," Elliott said.

Ashley officials sought to assuage many of the concerns raised by local residents during a heavily attended meeting last week that was organized by a coalition of local government entities.

A huge crowd of several hundred area residents packed the Green River High School cafeteria May 14 to express their displeasure with the draft motorized travel plan.

Many residents worried the plan would close roads to their favorite fishing and camping spots, cause crowding at Forest Service campgrounds, and give boaters an unfair advantage to access fishing and camping areas.

Avid ice fisherman Andy Anderson of Rock Springs told officials Tuesday night the access to the Flaming Gorge has been "pretty good" in recent years and he wants to keep it that way.

"I had concerns about the shutting down of access routes and concerns about possible closures ... but I'm very encouraged about what I'm hearing with some of these proposals," Anderson said.

Damage more prevalent

The Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in southwest Wyoming includes the popular, 91-mile-long Flaming Gorge Reservoir located mostly in Sweetwater County south of the city of Green River. A portion of the lake spills into neighboring Utah.

The agency's draft environmental impact statement said the plan will improve the management of summer motorized use on the recreation area by designating roads and trails, and by limiting dispersed camping to areas up to 150 feet from those designated roads and trails.

However, Elliott told residents the dispersed camping limits would remain at 300 feet in Wyoming.

He said the provision would be enforced in Utah to keep it "consistent" with other Utah recreation areas and was not intended for Wyoming users. "That should put one argument to bed," Elliott said.

Co-project leader Don Jaques noted the number of permits issued for ATVs on the Wyoming side of the reservoir increased approximately 226 percent from 2002-2007.

The result, he said, "is that damage is becoming more prevalent, as well as the propagation" of unauthorized motorized routes.

"In some areas, there's a spider web of different routes to get to the same location ... these are the types of problems we're trying to address," Jaques said.

"It's not just about providing access, it's about people going everywhere," he said. "We want to provide better opportunities for sustainable motorized recreation in areas ... that won't cause that resource damage we're concerned about."

The document's preferred alternative "actually designates more routes to access the reservoir than we have today," Jaques said.

"There's a lot of the current use not on designated routes ... and the alternative provides for a lot of that use to be able to continue under the plan."

Under the existing motorized plan, travel is only allowed on designated routes, trails and roadways. All cross-country motorized travel is prohibited and motorized travel below the reservoir's high-water mark is allowed.

Those rules will continue under the new plan, officials said.

Source: http://www.trib.com/articles/2009/05/20/news/wyoming/d436841bc9b311d6872575bc0081a2a0.txt

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