MVUM Implementation & Law Enforcement

As various Forests throughout the country produce or soon will produce MVUMs, the public will have questions about implementation and enforcement of the MVUM. The General believes the decision notice or ROD should have a narrative for how the agency intends to implement the MVUM.

I have received a number of emails from riders who want to know if the agency is going to immediately start writing tickets based on CFRs cited in the MVUM - as noted below:

Violations of 36 CFR 261.13 are subject to a fine of up to
$5,000 or imprisonment for up to 6 months or both (18 U.S.C.
3571(e)). This prohibition applies regardless of the presence
or absence of signs.


Or, will the agency coordinate a phase-in of law enforcement initially using education and outreach (instead of immediately citing users) such as land agencies did with the 2003 CA 96dBA OHV sound law or law enforcement agencies did with auto/driver cell phone ban?

I found an example of a coordinated/education effort on the Payette National Forest. In their ROD, the Forest describes how it will use a coordinated approach of education, outreach, signing, collaboration, functional maps, doing new trail projects etc. rather than immediately writing 5K tickets or sending people to prison. They will use exiting authority to cite for resource damage in the meantime.

See pages 29/30 for the ROD’s implementation narrative
http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/payette/publications/trvl_mgmt/rods/rod_MCL_KSL.pdf

Regardless of what approach (hard core enforcement v. education/phase-in) the agency adopts, there should be a narrative some place in the decision document or public notice (and clearly posted on the website) so that the public and user groups know where they stand and what to expect.

# # #

OHV Acres Left in California

Every once in awhile, The General gets a question from a rider or reporter about the number of acres in California that still allow motorized recreation. Often that question stems from the wild claims of Wilderness advocates who state that “our Wilderness Bill is only for areas that don’t have legal OHV use in them and that OHVers have lots of other places to ride.”

Well that claim might have been true when the Wilderness Act of 1964 was signed into law, but since then we have had various new rounds of Wilderness designations including the Wilderness Act of 1984 (that’s when a lot of legal OHV routes were closed) and others including the California Desert Protection Act where millions of acres were closed to OHVs or lands were transferred to the National Park Service.

In 2002, OHMVR published a report called Taking the High Road – The Future of OHV in California. I don’t think there are any copies left or in circulation. However, I have posted page 13 of that report which shows the loss of OHV acres from 1980 to 2000. Remember too that California is approximately 100,000 million acres in size.

Link to Taking the High Road
http://www.sharetrails.org/uploads/Taking_The_High_Road_page_13.0001.pdf

Certainly the new rounds of Wilderness proposals, travel management plans, reclassification of lands, and other issues will impact OHV access to public lands. What that means is the fight will be harder to keep what we have left. That means staying engaged in the land-use and political process. Yes, I did say political since ALL land use decisions are political decisions. This is no time for the faint of heart or for those who are easily discouraged. Rather, this is the time for effective advocacy on all fronts.

Helmets off to all of you who support land use organizations, attend meetings, rally local clubs, and partake in the administrative and political process.

The Roads of My Father

The General had a rare and unique “step back in time” experience this weekend while riding the Lost Coast Dual Sport Ride in NW California. As some of my followers know, I was born and raised in Cutten, a small community on the outskirts of Eureka.

*Click on photo for larger view

After WW2, my dad worked in the logging industry from 1950-1961 and then was hired as a foreman for Burman Construction Company. As a kid (aka The Cuttenkid), I remember driving on many of Humboldt County’s roads with my dad. Back in those days, the timber industry was going strong and many small communities had vibrant populations, grocery stores, and gas stations. Today they are mostly ghost towns.

In the early 1970s, The General worked at a lumber mill in Blue Lake that was eventually put out of business by the establishment of Redwood National Park. The sorter crew that I worked on actually set a mill record of pulling/sorting 220,000 board feet of lumber in an eight hour shift.

Seeing this small “logging museum” along one of the back roads in the Fort Seward area brought back some fond memories of driving on those same roads with my dad or handing him up a sandwich when he was running the dozer.

Thanks North Bay Motorcycle Club for the great ride and for allowing me to once again experience the backcountry roads of Humboldt County.

NBMC
http://www.northbaymc.org/content.aspx?page_id=9&club_id=709509

PS - My dad passed away in 1998

HR 1925 UT Wilderness Bill is a Zombie

One thing that I really hate are zombies. There is almost nothing that you can do to kill them … and, just when you think they are dead – they come back to life.

The never ending effort by SUWA and out-of-state legislators to resurrect the infamous 9.4 million acres of "potential Wilderness" in new versions of the same old Wilderness bill (now called HR 1925) reminds me of a land-use version of a zombie.

In Sept, BRC issued an alert to have its members send letters to their legislators in prep for the Oct. 1 hearing:
http://www.sharetrails.org/alerts/?alert=1070

It looks like a lot of riders sent those letters, based on what I heard about the testimony of the UT Congressional Delegation and other gov.t officials:
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=27&extmode=view&extid=292

Sen. Orrin Hatch Takes Issue with HR 1925
http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.View&PressRelease_id=10b99c3a-1b78-be3e-e003-8a6390fa20bd

AMA also had something to say about the proposal
http://www.ama-cycle.org/news/story.asp?id=1375

On May 5, The General wrote a blog about new Wilderness bills and the need to include the “Pombo Doctrine” in any new Wilderness legislation – see blog for a discussion of that issue and a copy of the Pombo Doctrine.
http://thegeneralsrecreationden.blogspot.com/2009/05/time-to-revive-pombo-wilderness.html

I think I have found a cure for the “Wilderness Zombie.” How about giving the wilderness undead a large dose of the Pombo Doctrine?

Green Conflict Industry in High Gear

The “Green Conflict Industry” may be a new term to recent followers of The General’s blog. GCI has been around for a long time and it is no stranger to this land-use warrior.

In March, I wrote about GCI’s attack on the mountain bike community:
http://thegeneralsrecreationden.blogspot.com/2009/03/peer-sends-love-letter-to-imba.html

Later in March, I wrote a longer blog on other examples of how GCI attacks even responsible OHV use of public and private lands:
http://thegeneralsrecreationden.blogspot.com/2009/03/rta-trojan-horse-or-skunk-at-party.html

Recently, GCI has reared its ugly head in two places:

STOCKTON RECORD ARTICLE (Sept. 29) A lawsuit filed again Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area (with a quote from Don Amador/BRC)
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090929/A_NEWS/909290323/-1/A_NEWS14#STS=g06pr6xj.19tz

CBD Lawsuit Filed (Sept 9) to Close Eldorado NF OHV Routes
http://biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/eldorado-09-09-2009.html

OHV/BRC has fought back and won on a number of previous cases including the original Clear Creek ESA-based lawsuit and Eldorado National Forest lawsuit. More battles are assured as GCI challenges to OHV recreation continue to mount.

Our task is to never give up and let GCI get us down. Gear-up is what we need to do.

The General is in the Field - Sept. 24-27

The General is in the field. Will return to HQ on Mon.

"Blessed" Routes Closed in Current MVUM

In a recent blog, The General advised his followers to “hold the Forest Service accountable” particularly when it comes to travel management planning. A good
case study of a unit being unaccountable is the Smith River National Recreation Area.

*Photo: Trail that is open and blessed on the 1994 Forest Visitor Map, yet it is closed on the current MVUM

In 1990, President George Bush signed the Smith River National Recreation Area Act.
http://www.smithriveralliance.org/resources/library/SmithRiverNRAAct.pdf

As you know, the NRA just published a MVUM that was apparently based on a pre-Act
(circa 1990 Forest Visitor Map - with many OHV routes not being shown) rather than basing the MVUM on the post-Act 1994 Forest Visitor Map (that showed NRA/Act “blessed” OHV routes) as was promised to the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors.

The Forest’s current and past rationale for making such ad hoc decisions (i.e. to arbitrarily close roads and trails without project level NEPA) is based on their false belief that the 1990 Act gave the NRA “special authority” to bypass the NEPA process and just close routes as they see fit.

The crazy thing is that in the 1995 Forest Plan it references that OHV projects should be “scheduled” to implement OHV use on trails and roads. See excerpt from 1995 Forest Plan:

******************************************************************

http://fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsm9_027543.pdf

Page 13
Off-Highway Vehicle
(OHV) Management
Strategies
Assess areas for OHV use. Schedule projects to implement
vehicle use in some areas and restrict use in other areas.
As needed Recreation
Transportation Management
Strategy
.
Assess transportation system and use. Schedule projects to
construct, reconstruct, or decommission roads based on
anticipated needs.
1998 Engineering
****************************************************************************

Yet over the years and until BRC and local stakeholders started to complain about ad hoc closures, the NRA had been doing aggressive road decommissioning/obliteration without any (in most cases) project level NEPA to back up the work. It appears the NRA continues to use this invalid rationale to deny public access to “blessed” routes via its current MVUM.