OHV Issues

The newly-adopted Forest Service Off-Road Vehicle Route Designation rules have gotten a lot of publicity in recent weeks, but the Route Designation process in California National Forests is well ahead of most other states. In August 2003, the Regional Forester signed a Memorandum of Intent with the State Off Highway Vehicle Commission. The Forest Service agreed to begin the OHV Route Designation process and complete it by 2008, and the OHV Commission agreed to provide the Forest Service $2 million a year to fund the process.

How can the public effectively participate in route designation, to make sure resources are protected and their Forest doesn’t become (or remain) a spaghetti bowl of redundant routes?

WASHINGTON - California's off-road enthusiasts will face new limits under first-of-their-kind Forest Service rules made final Wednesday.

Some favorite Sierra Nevada play areas might go out of bounds. Overall, though, Forest Service officials contend, the new restrictions will better balance recreation and resource conservation....(more)

Sacramento - A federal court judge yesterday tentatively ordered the United States Forest Service to close over 700 miles of roads and trails on the Eldorado National Forest to off-road vehicle (ORV) use. Judge Lawrence K. Karlton announced his tentative order at the conclusion of a remedy hearing in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups challenging the Forest Service's management of ORVs throughout the Forest. The court's closure order follows its February determination that the Service adopted its 1990 ORV plan for the Forest in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Judge Karlton also gave the Forest Service 30 days to propose a time-schedule for completing the required, forest-wide NEPA analysis for its forest-wide ORV plan. The plaintiffs, Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation, Center for Biological Diversity and California Wilderness Coalition, and the ORV groups that intervened in the lawsuit, will have 30 days to respond to the Forest Service's proposal before Judge Karlton makes his order final.
Environmentalists, who had requested an order generally suspending illegal use of ORVs in the Forest pending NEPA compliance, call the closures and the imposition of a fixed timetable for NEPA compliance a good start. "These non-system routes are largely unplanned, user-created running sores on the landscape that contribute to sediment in our streams, habitat fragmentation and wildlife disturbance," said Karen Schambach of CSNC. "Closing these most damaging trails while requiring the Forest Service to analyze and designate a legally defensible off-road travel plan will have huge benefits for the Forest, both in the short-term, and in the long-term."
The ruling marks the second, significant defeat for ORV groups in the case, who initially argued for no closure of the unauthorized and illegally created trails while the Forest Service reconsiders its ORV route designations. The first defeat for the ORV groups came in Judge Karlton's February ruling, when the judge threw out their claims of standing under NEPA. In dismissing the ORV group's proposals, Judge Karlton noted that the Forest Service had ignored NEPA and its own regulations in allowing illegal routes to proliferate across the Forest for the past 15 years, despite undisputed documentation of ongoing ORV violations leading to environmental damage across the forest during that time.
"Once again, when common sense and the law are applied, nature wins and the bad guys lose," said Daniel R. Patterson, Ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. "We support Forest Service efforts to reduce damaging off-roading, and this decision on the Eldorado will help by maintaining access, while curbing off-road excess."

Sacramento, February 15, 2005– A federal court judge has declared that Eldorado
National Forest managers failed to comply with federal environmental
laws and regulations when they designated hundreds of miles of
trails for off-road vehicles througout the forest in l990. Judge
Lawrence K. Karlton’s decision also faulted the Forest Service's
adoption of the Rock Creek ORV management plan, because it failed
to adequately consider and mitigate potential threats to wildlife,
especially the Pacific deer herd.Environmentalists are pleased with the decision. “We knew that an
impartial court would recognize the problems with a plan that designated
virtually every user-created route on the forest, without the slightest
pretense at the legally required analysis,” stated Center for Sierra
Nevada Conservation President Karen Schambach. “Prior to filing our
lawsuit, the plaintiffs and a number of other environmental
organizations had repeatedly contacted Forest Supervisor John Berry with
our concerns, but he never responded. With damage to the forest rampant
and increasing, they left us no choice but to ask the court to review
the legitimacy of the ORV plan.”CSNC was joined in the lawsuit by Center for Biological Diversity and
the California Wilderness Coalition. CBD ecologist Daniel Patterson
emphasized that CBD will be closely watching for protection of listed
species in any future ORV plan. The forest has documented damage to
sensitive plants and animals from off-road use.A coalition of off-road groups intervened in the lawsuit, making their
own claims that the Forest’s failure to analyze alternatives for the
Rock Creek ORV area allowing road/trail densities in excess of 5 miles
per section violated the National Environmental Quality Act. Judge
Karlton categorically rejected those claims as at cross-purposes
with the National Environmental Policy Act: “I do not pause here to
consider whether the intervenors, whose purpose is to seek plans that
have more significant impact upon the environment, have standing to
object under NEPA, which was passed by virtue of growing
public concern with environmental effect of governmental action.”While environmentalists expect off-road use to be sharply curtailed
until the Forest Service complies with the judge’s order, Schambach says
CSNC is ready to work with the agency and the off-road groups to develop
a plan that allows reasonable off-road recreation while still protecting
the forest.

CSNC lawsuit is one of many such lawsuits against the US Forest Service. And environmentalists are winning against what may have become a "Rogue Agency"....(more)

CSNC's 1999 report, California's Off-Highway Vehicles: In the Money and Out of Control, has been widely circulated, with requests for copies coming from several governmental bodies, both within and outside California. In California, the improprieties documented in the report have led to a complete overhaul of the State's OHV Division. Regulations were adopted that implement environmental protections for public lands where OHV use is funded by the state. There is an environmental majority on the State's Off Highway Vehicle Commission. Former Governor Davis established an OHV Stakeholders Roundtable, where OHV users and environmentalists hammered out changes to the program that largely benefit the environment and wildlife. AB2274, which became law on January 1, 2003, greatly reduces the allowable decibel levels for vehicles used on public lands, from 101 db to 96 db. For more on these changes visit the California OHV Division website, at http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/.