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http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=5074
U.S. puts brakes on ATVs
By Joe Kullman, Tribune
This looks to be the last free-wheeling Memorial Day weekend for
off-roaders in the Tonto
National Forest.
By this time next year, the Tonto and four other national forests in
Arizona likely will restrict
all-terrain vehicles to fewer than half the areas where they are
currently permitted.
The proposed crackdown is in response to the environmental damage
being done to those
public lands in the wake of the rising popularity of dirt bikes, quads
and four-wheel-drive
trucks, U.S. Forest Service officials said.
By continuing to illegally carve new trails through sensitive terrain,
off-road vehicles are
wreaking havoc on wildlife habitat and plant life, and causing soil
erosion so severe it could
disturb watershed channels.
The problems are particularly serious where the Tonto forest stretches
along the East Valley,
said Art Wirtz, chief of the Tonto's Mesa Ranger District.
As growth has spread, the Tonto has become the region's “last big
playground,” Wirtz said.
That has made it among the busiest national forests, and its Cave
Creek and Mesa districts
probably are the most heavily used of all U.S. Forest Service
recreation areas, he said.
The troubling impact of that popularity is most dramatically evident
in places frequented by
off-roaders.
They have been riding in the Tonto for decades, but with their numbers
constantly growing in
recent years, off-roaders have veered rampantly from
official trails and cut about 100 miles of rough, random paths through
fragile desert, Wirtz
said. “Paths” doesn't describe the most abused ground. In popular
riding areas near Saguaro
Lake, long stretches of steep, rolling hills are scarred with crevices
and all but denuded of
vegetation. Soil is spilling from cracks in the slopes.
“A lot of the cuts into those hills are more than 10 feet deep,” Wirtz
said.
Sycamore Canyon's landscape has been so chopped up by off-road
vehicles that the
deterioration is threatening the watershed that feeds the Valley, said
Tammy Pike, off-road
vehicle manager for the Tonto.
The altered contours of the ground could interrupt the flow of water
from Sycamore Canyon
into the Verde River, which empties into the Salt River — a major
channel for water delivery
to the Valley.
Loosened soils threaten to dump a lot of troublesome sediment into
that flow, Pike said.
Forest officials hope much of the reckless riding can be stopped and
damage eventually
reversed. And they're counting on off-road vehicle enthusiasts to
help.
Public land management agencies already are working with off-road
clubs to close illegal
trails, restore native plant life and police other riders, Pike said.
The majority of off-roaders
understand they'll risk losing more riding areas if rogue riders
aren't kept in check, said Mesa
resident Todd Gookin. Gookin and his 10-year-old son, Dylon, were
riding their quads
Saturday near Saguaro Lake.
They've been off-roading together in the Tonto about twice a month for
the past two years.
Dylon “notices (the environmental abuse), too,” Todd Gookin said. “And
it upsets him."
Open house
U.S. Forest Service officials will host an open house about proposed
off-roading restrictions
4 to 8 p.m. June 2 at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 1515 N. 44th St.,
Phoenix.
Written public comment on proposals to restrict use of off-road motor
vehicles on the
Tonto, Coconino, Apache-Sitgreaves, Prescott and Kaibab national
forests also may be
sent to Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests official Jim Anderson at
P.O. Box 640, 309
South Mountain Ave., Springerville, AZ 85938.
Copies of an environmental impact statement concerning off-road
vehicles on forest land are
available at U.S. Forest Service offices or at www.fs.fed.us/r3/ohv.
Contact Joe Kullman [email protected]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who
have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
non-profit
research and educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
U.S. puts brakes on ATVs
By Joe Kullman, Tribune
This looks to be the last free-wheeling Memorial Day weekend for
off-roaders in the Tonto
National Forest.
By this time next year, the Tonto and four other national forests in
Arizona likely will restrict
all-terrain vehicles to fewer than half the areas where they are
currently permitted.
The proposed crackdown is in response to the environmental damage
being done to those
public lands in the wake of the rising popularity of dirt bikes, quads
and four-wheel-drive
trucks, U.S. Forest Service officials said.
By continuing to illegally carve new trails through sensitive terrain,
off-road vehicles are
wreaking havoc on wildlife habitat and plant life, and causing soil
erosion so severe it could
disturb watershed channels.
The problems are particularly serious where the Tonto forest stretches
along the East Valley,
said Art Wirtz, chief of the Tonto's Mesa Ranger District.
As growth has spread, the Tonto has become the region's “last big
playground,” Wirtz said.
That has made it among the busiest national forests, and its Cave
Creek and Mesa districts
probably are the most heavily used of all U.S. Forest Service
recreation areas, he said.
The troubling impact of that popularity is most dramatically evident
in places frequented by
off-roaders.
They have been riding in the Tonto for decades, but with their numbers
constantly growing in
recent years, off-roaders have veered rampantly from
official trails and cut about 100 miles of rough, random paths through
fragile desert, Wirtz
said. “Paths” doesn't describe the most abused ground. In popular
riding areas near Saguaro
Lake, long stretches of steep, rolling hills are scarred with crevices
and all but denuded of
vegetation. Soil is spilling from cracks in the slopes.
“A lot of the cuts into those hills are more than 10 feet deep,” Wirtz
said.
Sycamore Canyon's landscape has been so chopped up by off-road
vehicles that the
deterioration is threatening the watershed that feeds the Valley, said
Tammy Pike, off-road
vehicle manager for the Tonto.
The altered contours of the ground could interrupt the flow of water
from Sycamore Canyon
into the Verde River, which empties into the Salt River — a major
channel for water delivery
to the Valley.
Loosened soils threaten to dump a lot of troublesome sediment into
that flow, Pike said.
Forest officials hope much of the reckless riding can be stopped and
damage eventually
reversed. And they're counting on off-road vehicle enthusiasts to
help.
Public land management agencies already are working with off-road
clubs to close illegal
trails, restore native plant life and police other riders, Pike said.
The majority of off-roaders
understand they'll risk losing more riding areas if rogue riders
aren't kept in check, said Mesa
resident Todd Gookin. Gookin and his 10-year-old son, Dylon, were
riding their quads
Saturday near Saguaro Lake.
They've been off-roading together in the Tonto about twice a month for
the past two years.
Dylon “notices (the environmental abuse), too,” Todd Gookin said. “And
it upsets him."
Open house
U.S. Forest Service officials will host an open house about proposed
off-roading restrictions
4 to 8 p.m. June 2 at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 1515 N. 44th St.,
Phoenix.
Written public comment on proposals to restrict use of off-road motor
vehicles on the
Tonto, Coconino, Apache-Sitgreaves, Prescott and Kaibab national
forests also may be
sent to Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests official Jim Anderson at
P.O. Box 640, 309
South Mountain Ave., Springerville, AZ 85938.
Copies of an environmental impact statement concerning off-road
vehicles on forest land are
available at U.S. Forest Service offices or at www.fs.fed.us/r3/ohv.
Contact Joe Kullman [email protected]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who
have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
non-profit
research and educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
