Contact: Dan Schroeder (chair, Ogden Sierra Club), 801-393-4603 or 801-626-6048

Sierra Club Report Documents How Forest Service Encourages and Rewards Illegal Off-Road Vehicle Use

The Ogden Sierra Club has issued a new 30-page report titled "Public Disinformation," documenting more than two dozen ways in which the Forest Service tolerates, encourages, and rewards illegal off-road vehicle (ORV) use on its lands.

The examples cited lie within the Ogden Ranger District in northern Utah--formerly the back yard of Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, who previously served as both Wasatch-Cache National Forest Supervisor and Intermountain Regional Forester. Since becoming Chief of the Forest Service, Bosworth has repeatedly referred to unmanaged recreation as one of the "four threats" facing America's National Forests.

Based on information provided by the Forest Service and extensive field work spanning more than two years, the report details how the Ogden Ranger District has generally adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" stance toward illegal ORV use: If ORV users don't ask where they're allowed and not allowed to ride, the Forest Service doesn't tell them. Although the District has an official policy of allowing ORV use only on routes that are designated on a published Travel Map, this policy is rarely evident from posted signs and users must go out of their way to obtain a copy of the official map. Many closed routes are unsigned or incorrectly signed, while the Forest Service has posted incorrect maps in some locations and endorsed another incorrect map published by Box Elder County. A provision allowing vehicle access to dispersed campsites has become a policy loophole, resulting in vast off-road vehicular play areas. In total, the District has been managing approximately 50 miles of legally closed trails as if they were actually open to ORV use.

In response to this situation, the Ogden District is currently proposing a Travel Plan revision that would legally open about half of these managed-as-open routes. If enacted, this proposal would reward past illegal activity and encourage future illegal ORV travel. The consequences would include further loss of wildlife habitat, damage to watersheds, unsafe trail conditions, and loss of opportunities for quiet enjoyment of the Forest.

The report also documents how the Ogden District's ORV management lapses are not due to lack of resources. In fact, the District spends thousands of dollars each year on ORV management projects. Though partly successful, these projects have been localized and sporadic, with little attention paid to follow-up maintenance or public education. Forest Service staff are generally aware of the problems, but have taken little action to correct them. Possible explanations include bureaucratic inertia, pressure from ORV users, and a general distaste for rules and regulations. The fault lies not with a few individual employees, but rather in the general culture of indifference toward illegal ORV use that permeates the U.S. Forest Service (at least in Utah).

The report concludes with a list of 13 recommendations to the Forest Service, describing how to solve these problems with little or no monetary cost. While several of the suggestions are directed at local districts and Forest supervisors, the most timely recommendations are for revising the new nationwide ORV regulations recently proposed by Intermountain Regional Forester Jack Troyer and the ORV Policy Team of which he is the leader. For example, the Sierra Club recommends permitting ORV use only on routes signed as "open"; limiting the system of open routes to those the Forest Service can afford to patrol and maintain; and prohibiting vehicular play in dispersed camping areas.

Dan Schroeder, Ogden Sierra Club chair and principal author of the report, emphasized that the goal of the report is to broaden the dialog over these problems and their solutions. "The new national 'designated routes only' proposal is a positive step but will have little impact unless it is effectively implemented on the ground," said Schroeder. "We've had 'designated routes only' in the Ogden District for over 20 years, but only on paper. The Forest Service needs to learn from the mistakes documented in this report and break the cycle of first tolerating and then rewarding destructive ORV activity."

To download a copy of the report, please visit the Ogden Sierra Club web site at http://utah.sierraclub.org/ogden/ORV/.