Congressional Oversight Hearings Summary
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, though that is not catalogued on this link.
Region 6 of the Forest Service shared their plans for restoring salmon habitat and clean water that has been impaired by deteriorating and failing roads pummelled by storms in Washington state. Some part of the $39mm appropriation approved by Congress
in late December 2007 is expected to go towards restoring some of these
road-scarred areas. That appropriation supports the Legacy Roads and
Trails Remediation Act championed by Rep. Norm Dicks (WA).
To download the full report, please click on the link to the attachment immediately below the following summary and recommendations.
On December 26, 2007, President Bush signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act for 2008 into law. That act contained a provision called the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative (LRRI) that provided $39.4 million to the Forest Service for road remediation and reclamation.
This document contains citations and abstracts of the most up-to-date research on the impacts of ORVs on the environment. This is a compilation of ORV research published since 2000, categorized according to resource affected with key findings underlined.
This "Special Report to the National [Forest Service] OHV Implementation Team" reveals that across every forest the use of ATVs, dirt bikes, and 4X4s is pursued by a minority of visitors.
Citation: Dr. Donald B.K. English and Susan M. Kocis, National Visitor Use Monitoring Program, USDA Forest Service. “Off-Highway Vehicle Use on National Forests: Volume and Characteristics of Visitors: Special Report to the National OHV Implementation Team.” August 5, 2004.
What you don’t know can hurt
In June, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) sent a letter to the Forest Service asking some pointed questions about management of their road system (see attachment at bottom of page). In October the Forest Service finally responded to her letter (see attachment). The unfortunate thing is that even though Senator Cantwell asked some very good questions, she didn’t really get many very good (let alone just plain good) answers from the agency.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found a near universal disregard for motorized guidelines when the BLM experimented with a “voluntary off-road vehicle route system” in Nevada. The area in question serves as a refuge for the disappearing Sand Mountain Blue butterfly, a species proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act.
Monaghan and Associates, a marketing research firm, conducted the 2001 study at the behest of the Colorado Coalition for Responsible OHV Riding, a coalition of off-road vehicle representatives, environmentalists and public officials. Researchers surveyed Colorado off-road vehicle riders through a series of three focus groups.
excerpted from Izaak Walton League of America website:
