Contact: Dan Schroeder, Chair, Ogden Sierra Club, 801-393-4603 or 801-626-6048
SIERRA CLUB APPEALS FOREST SERVICE DECISION TO ESTABLISH ATV TRAIL
The Ogden Group of the Sierra Club has filed a formal administrative appeal of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest Revised Management Plan, seeking to remove a provision in the Plan that would establish the proposed Shoshone ATV trail system without opportunity for public input. The appeal was mailed to Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth on Friday.
The Shoshone ATV trail is a proposed system of approximately 500 miles of connected routes that would span a 1000 square mile area of public and private lands in Cache, Rich, Weber, and Box Elder Counties. Proponents of the system have touted it as an economic benefit, because it would attract more ATV users to northern Utah. But Jim Catlin, a member of the Sierra Club's national Board and coordinator of the WIld Utah Project, points out that our National Forests are far more valuable as watersheds, wildlife habitat, and places where families can escape from the noise and traffic of the city. "The mountains next to our communities on the Wasatch Front set us apart from anywhere else in the country," Catlin said, "but they are currently under assault from motor vehicles. The Plan that the Forest Service has issued will make this situation worse."
The Forest Service issued the new Management Plan in late March, after a four-year process that included considerable environmental analysis and several opportunities for public input. However, the provision to establish the Shoshone ATV trail system was not mentioned in any of the earlier drafts of the Plan. The Forest Service has not analyzed the environmental impacts of such a connected trail system, nor has it offered the public any opportunity to comment on this proposal.
Dan Schroeder, Chair of the Ogden Sierra Club, praised the Forest Service generally for the open public process that led to adoption of the Plan, but noted that the Shoshone Trail provision was a glaring exception. "Its inclusion in the Plan was a complete surprise to us," said Schroeder, "because the Shoshone Trail proposal was kept secret until four months after the public comment deadline on the draft Plan had expired. We assumed that if the Forest Service wanted to establish the Shoshone Trail, they would first ask the public what we thought of the idea. That never happened--instead they simply inserted the decision into the Plan at the eleventh hour. We believe that the decision process should be more democratic."
According to a recent news report (Standard-Examiner, 12 May 2003), this concern is shared by Brad Palmer, a BLM field agent with the Salt Lake office. "My concern is that we've had such limited public involvement," said Palmer.
Schroeder points out that increasing use of the Paiute ATV trail system in southern Utah has led to numerous environmental and law enforcement problems: "Dispersed campsites have proliferated along the Paiute Trail, surrounded by denuded ground and networks of new ATV tracks. Some signs and fences have been put up to keep motorists out of a few areas, but there's still plenty of off-trail riding." These problems are documented, with photographs, on the Sierra Club's web site at http://utah.sierraclub.org/ogden/shoshone/paiute/.
In recent months, Forest Service officials have defended the Shoshone Trail proposal as a way of "managing" off-highway vehicle use in northern Utah and of diverting OHV enthusiasts away from environmentally sensitive areas. The Sierra Club endorses these goals. However, there is no evidence that the Shoshone system routes were chosen to avoid sensitive areas in the National Forest. "Perhaps there exist areas that can withstand increased motorized use," said Schroeder, "but we need to have an open, public discussion of where those areas might be."
The Forest Service has also actively pursued the extension of the Shoshone trail system to include new routes that are currently closed to motorized use. Some of these routes would cross wide stretches of private land, where landowners have expressed opposition to ATV access. The extended system would also include several new motorized routes within the National Forest. The Ogden Ranger District is already managing most of these routes as open, in violation of its own motorized Travel Plan. District Ranger Chip Sibbernsen has defended this practice by pointing out that the District's Travel Plan will be revised during the coming year.
For more information, contact:
Dan Schroeder, Chair, Ogden Sierra Club, 801-393-4603 (home), 801-626-6048 (office)
Jim Catlin, member of the Sierra Club Board of Directors and Coordinator, Wild Utah Project, 801-328-3550
Thomas L. Tidwell, Forest Supervisor, Wasatch-Cache National Forest, 801-524-3900
Chip Sibbernsen, Ogden District Ranger, 801-625-5112
See also the Ogden Sierra Club's Shoshone Trail web site, http://utah.sierraclub.org/ogden/shoshone/.
Last modified on 27 June 2003.