Wildlands CPR's Publication "Road Ripper's Guide to Off-Road Vehicles" Helps Halt a 1,000 Acre ORV Park

April 28, 2007

Executive Director, Bethanie Walder, received this email from Quilcene, WA resident Connie Gallant Sat. April 28, 2007.

Dear Ms. Walder,

On behalf of the residents of our small town of Quilcene, Washington, I would like to extend our appreciation to your organization and to Scott Bagley for putting together the excellent publication, The Road-Ripper's Guide to Off-Road Vehicles.

This publication helped us develop our campaign against an ORV site proposed in our pristine and environmentally sensitive area of the Olympic Peninsula.

When the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) offered 1,000 acres to our county for ORV use, we took the following steps:

1. Residents of the town formed a coalition, held meetings, began a strong letter-writing campaign to the newspapers, to the county commissioners who would ultimately make the final decision, and even to our state legislators for good measure.

2. We attended county commissioner meetings, took turns speaking up against such proposal - while always remaining civil and respectful.

3. We mobilized several environmental groups to endorse and support us.

4. We mobilized several government agencies that would be affected, such as the Fish & Wildlife (Quilcene National Fish Hatchery), which has a clean water intake from a creek the ORV users would have destroyed.

5. We alerted and obtained the cooperation of the City of Port Townsend's Water Department because their water resource comes from our town - primarily from one of the areas of choice by the ORV users.

6. We lobbied the commissioners individually, and took them to the proposed site(s) - there were several proposed - to show them the tremendous negative impact such a site would have on noise, our watershed, our trails, our mountains, and our wildlife.

7. We published and mailed a "super card" similar to the ones sent by political candidates. It was comprised of photos of "before" and "after" shots showing our pristine area on the front, and on the back showing several photos of other areas destroyed by ORV uses.

8. We placed ads in local newspapers which were very effective.

The process finally ended this past February, with all three county commissioners voting 3-0 against the ORV site proposal, and they further added the stipulation that no such site will ever be considered in our county again.

It was a major victory for our small town and everyone is elated and relieved. The amount of work that went into this effort was substantial. This was definitely a team effort success.

If you get the opportunity to do so, please view the article written in the quarterly newsletter of the Olympic Forest Coalition, at the following link (it's a pdf document):

http://olympicforest.org/newsletters/april_2007.pdf

The article heading is: "Quilcene Folks Score Big Win Against ORV Invasion"

The following link is an online article that I also wrote for our local newspaper when we formed our coalition:

http://ptleader.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=16168&SectionID=85&SubSe...

The article heading is: "Quilceneans form opposition group". It is followed by several comments from readers.

If it's beneficial to Wildlands CPR, I'd be happy to also send you a pdf document of a Perspective article that I wrote for our local newspaper, citing facts and figures about ORV accidents, statements made by DNR officials, and
other site closures due to vandalism and crime. When the article was published, it was the catalyst that truly united the entire county, not only our town, against such a proposal.

Once again, thank you so much for the invaluable information your organization provided to us through The Road-Ripper's Guide to Off-Road Vehicles and other sections of your website. I know I will be joining your organization to support you in your endeavors.

Cordially,

Connie Gallant
Quilcene, Washington