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Earlier this week the Center for Biological Diversity and the Clean Air Initiative released the report Fuel to Burn: The Climate and Public Health Implications of Off-Road Vehicle Pollution in California, detailing the contributions of ORVs to greenhouse gas emissions. The report adeptly makes the argument that recreational use of these polluting vehicles should be regulated and included in the State of California's climate protection goals.

Click here for more information and to check out the report.

Fighting the tide of locals escaping town during the ugliest event of the tourist season, our brave Utah Coordinator ventures into the desert to capture these images of one of the nation's most high-profile off-roading events. 

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Welcome to Moab on a spring afternoon. You can hear the grass grow and the sand shift. 

Flowers are beginning to uncurl from cracks in the cliffs. You can go barefoot on the sandstone and feel the warmth of the new year's sun.

 It's quiet. 

Too quiet.  

HERE THEY COME.

A crowd near a a rock-crawler area just outside of town 

ORV damage in progress. This creek is both a popular hiking spot and one of Moab's primary water sources.The state lists it as impaired by recreational damage and low flows, but the Bureau of Land Management continues to permit Jeep Safari to bring this kind of ORV use. 

ORV users have created multiple crossings that allow them to drive in circles through the creek and along the riparian area, stripping the banks of vegetation and making them highly vulnerable to extreme erosion during summer flash floods. 

Rock crawlers are built to climb extreme terrain, often causing severe damage in the process.

Official "trail ride" 

Mountain bikers find themselves on a crowded Jeep Safari trail.

Nearly all law enforcement brought in for Jeep Safari is concentrated near or in town, with the result that illegal ORV damage and trespass are very common in the backcountry.

New ORV tracks inside an area clearly marked "no vehicles" and "closed for restoration."

ORV use kicks up dust where it has stripped the desert of cryptobiotic soil crust.

New ORV tracks going past a "closed for restoration" sign

Several areas are crisscrossed by dozens of closely set networks of user-created trails.

Parking lots in Moab are dominated by heavily modified vehicles during Jeep Safari

A rock crawler parked in a rental condo neighborhood in Moab. Many rock crawlers are not street legal, and so have to be towed to motorized trails on trailers pulled by large trucks. 

More rock crawlers

A rock crawler

 One of the features of Moab's Jeep Safari is a series of ORV "expos"--plazas and tents for manufacturers to demonstrate and sell new ORV products. 

Yup, it can be pretty hard to get away from this stuff during tourist season. At least a lot of them go away when the temperature gets above 100 degrees. Bring on the global warming!*

*Yes, it's a joke. Sort of.  

The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife conducted a lengthy investigation to determine who some of the primary responsible parties were in an ORV trespass incident that ruined a meadow and affected an irrigation district near Wenatchee, WA.

Felony charges were filed against six different people and one, who pleaded guilty was sentenced to 22 months in prison for the damage he caused to the area.

One of the wildlife officers won a state award for the investigation, and according to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the officer hopes their aggressive enforcement will deter other similar crimes, though he acknowledged that it is impossible to patrol everything.

The Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday that it would waive environmental laws for the construction of the remaining 470 miles of border fence in an effort to get that fence built before the end of 2008.

The Washington Post article mentions significant potential impacts to wildlife, water quality and vegetation.

Wildlands CPR works to prevent new road  construction becuase roads create such a barrier to wildlife movement, in addition to leading to direct road kill, water quality impacts, and habitat fragmentation.  But the impacts from building this wall will far surpass the standard barrier impacts from other linear barriers.

I've often wondered, but failed to easily find, any data on the long-term impacts the Great Wall of China had on wildlife and vegetatinon over the millenia.  Have there been real impacts to wildlife populations because of the more than 4000 mile barrier that the Great Wall created.  A brief review of other international border walls shows that the proposed wall between the U.S. and Mexico would be one of the longest walls in existence.  

In January 2007, BioScience published a one page summary of environmental impacts from this border wall.  Groups like Sky Island Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife are taking the lead in trying to fight this effort, but yesterday's announcement to waive all remaining environmental laws will only increase their challenge.   

Check out this short video on roadless areas, their values, and why we should continue to protect them from roads.

A bipartisan group of state representatives in Arizona is pushing mandatory ATV registration.  From the Arizona Daily Star:

The measure would create a $20-$25 annual fee for each off-highway vehicle to maintain and build trails, restore damaged areas, educate riders and provide more law enforcement.

It also would make certain activities misdemeanors, including driving off paths in a manner that damages wildlife, property or natural resources. 

A bipartisan group of co-sponsors and a diverse coalition ranging from off-roading groups to environmental organizations supported the original bill, saying it would help protect landscapes and preserve the pastime in Arizona. 

 Let's hope that the house and senate make this bill become law.  If you live in Arizona, please contact your elected officials and tell them to support ATV registration.  You can find who your elected officials are here.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Government Accountability Office has begun a study to look at the pros and cons of moving the Forest Service from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Interior.

Apparently the Department of Interior was the Forest Service’s first home, though it was transferred to the Department of Agriculture in 1905 and has been there ever since, while the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and US Fish and Wildlife Service are all housed at Interior.  Some argue that all of the major public land management agencies should be under one roof, and there are merits to the argument, but questions as well.

There have been numerous past suggestions to move the agency out of Agriculture, though none have been successful to date.  According to a March 11 letter from the GAO to the Department of Interior, this current GAO study would address the following questions: 1) What options exist for consolidating the Forest Service into Interior? 2) What are the political strengths and weaknesses of each option? 3) What challenges exist to implementing these options and what are potential means for overcoming these challenges?

These questions may or may not get at the real natural resources problems of moving the agency from one department to another, as opposed to the political problems.  In addition, they don’t seem to directly address the fiscal costs or savings of moving the agency.

When some people think of Interior they think of the Park Service, and assume that moving the Forest Service over might result in management more akin to National Park management – generally protective regulations with an emphasis on recreation.  But the Bureau of Land Management is also in the Department of Interior.  And management at the BLM is very resource extraction heavy, especially when it comes to minerals.  The BLM actually has control over much mineral leasing on Forest Service lands as it is.  So while conservationists and recreationists might think about the National Park Service model if the Forest Service were to move, oil and gas companies are probably thinking about the BLM model, and salivating at the opportunity to even further streamline permitting processes for minerals, oil and gas extraction.

All that said, there is some logic to housing all of the natural resource agencies in one place.  If that were to happen, and the agency were to be moved, it would also provide opportunities for clarifying the purpose and mission of the Forest Service.  That’s a big can of worms to open, and one where conservationists might not have a lot of control over the outcome.  At this point, it looks like we’ll just have to wait and see what the GAO report says.

On March 13, the Subcommittee On National Parks, Forests And Public Lands held an oversight hearing on “The Impacts Of Unmanaged Off-Road Vehicles On Federal Land.”  All of the written testimony from the invited witnesses for the hearing can be found here.

Other individuals and organizations also submitted written testimony.

According to the subcommittee’s chairman, Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the hearing was about, “the agencies’ inability to manage the areas that are being overrun. This is about managing the legal use of ORVs. This is about creating a culture of responsible recreational use.”

We sincerely appreciate Congressman Grijalva’s efforts, especially to create a culture of responsibility surrounding off-road vehicle recreation.  Current off-road vehicle management, unfortunately, promotes a culture of lawlessness that results in severe damage to the land and to other recreational opportunities.

The hearing was a first step in long-absent congressional oversight regarding failed off-road vehicle management on federal lands.  Unfortunately, the testimony from the Forest Service and BLM representatives was less than informative about the scope of the problem and the challenges these agencies face in bringing rampant off-road vehicle abuse under control.

On the other hand, testimony from several other key witnesses was very helpful in articulating the scope of the problem and making key recommendations - for more information, see our resources page.

We recommend that you review their testimony in it’s entirety at this website.  It was clear from the agency and from the off-road vehicle industry representatives that their mantra about a few bad apples has not changed.  Fortunately there were speakers who pointed out the profound enormity of this problem, and that real regulatory changes are needed if we are to develop that culture of responsibility.  Those changes include the protection of special places, the adoption and implementation of tough, strict rules of motorized recreation on public lands, and the swift and consistent enforcement of those rules.

In February the Forest Service released a report titled, "Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation in the United States and its Regions and States: An Update National Report from the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE)." (http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/ohv/IrisRec1rpt.pdf).

The numbers for this report come from the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment and was generated through a collaborative effort between the USDA Forest Service’s Southern Research Station and its Forestry Sciences Laboratory in Athens, Georgia; the University of Georgia in Athens; and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee.

This is notable since the USFS Southern Research Station released a national report in 2004 titled, "Off- Highway Vehicle Use on National Forests: Volume and Characteristics of Visitors," which was based on the National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) program. This report is specific to Forest Service Regions and individual National Forests, while the newer report uses a more generalized survey sample: "NSRE is a general population, random-digit-dialed household telephone survey designed to measure participation in outdoor recreation activities and people’s environmental behaviors and attitudes."

The difference between these reports is significant since the newest one does not track where the use occurs, rather it just measures use levels and demographics. The result is that the numbers in the 2008 report indicate a higher overall level of ORV use than the 2004 report. The discrepancy is due to the fact that the 2004 report only shows use levels on National Forest lands. The new report may be used by some ORV proponents to show that ORV levels are higher than what the Forest Service reports, so it is important to keep in mind that the 2008 report does not ask where ORV users recreate.

Still, the new report is useful because it indicates ORV use levels and sales continue to decline in recent years.

The House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands will hold an oversight hearing on "The Impacts of Unmanaged Off-Road Vehicles on Federal Land this Thursday, March 13th at 2:00 PM eastern time.  The committee will hear testimony about the impacts that ATVs, dirt bikes, and other off-road vehicles have on communities, tribes, and private property owners among others. The committee will explore how the federal government’s failure to manage off-road vehicles is causing hardship to real people and communities, and continuing enforcement problems. 

Speakers include agency staff, physicians who treat injured ATV riders, former law enforcement officers, private property owners and others.  The hearing will be available on a live webcase at: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/.

We'll post commentary on the hearing on Thursday or Friday.