Bush opens up backcountry trails to vehicles

Ben Ruset

Ben Ruset

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http://www.msnbc.com/local/pisea/102348.asp?vts=1120031042

Bush opens up backcountry trails to vehicles


By ROBERT McCLURE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Jan. 1 - The Bush administration, in a move that has outraged environmentalists, is about to hand a big victory to Westerners who want to use a post-Civil War-era law to punch dirt-bike trails and roads into the backcountry.



Untallied thousands of miles of long-abandoned wagon roads, cattle paths, Jeep trails and miners' routes potentially could be transformed into roads -- some of them paved. Many crisscross national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas.
Scheduled to go into effect shortly, the rule change was greeted warmly by off-road vehicle enthusiasts, whose numbers have exploded in recent years. Many oppose attempts to fence off wilderness areas where mechanized vehicles are banned. Where miners and wagons trains went, so should dirt bikes, they say.
"We consider it a pretty substantial gain," said Clark Collins, executive director of the Blueribbon Coalition, an advocacy group for snowmobilers, dirt-bike and all-terrain-vehicle riders and 4X4 enthusiasts based in Pocatello, Idaho.
"That historic use in our view should provide for continued recreational use of those routes," he said. "The government should not be allowed to close those routes."
Environmentalists say the amount of noise pollution, erosion, water pollution and other harm done to the backcountry will depend largely on how the rule is handled by the Bush administration. And they're worried.
"I don't think Congress in 1866 meant to grant rights of way to off-road-vehicle trails," said Heidi McIntosh of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "This is flying under the radar screen, but I can't think of another initiative the Bush administration is pursuing that would have a more lasting and significant impact on public lands."
In Washington state, huge areas -- including parts of North Cascades National Park -- are honeycombed by old mining trails that could be promoted by off-road-vehicle devotees as open to motorized traffic.
Other national parks that could be affected include Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Denali, Wrangell-St. Elias and Rocky Mountain. A 1993 National Park Service report said the impact across 17.5 million acres in 68 national parks could be "devastating."
The law was originally passed when Jesse James was just starting to rob banks and the U.S. cavalry was still fighting Indians. Seattle did not yet have a bank or a public schoolhouse.
It made federal land available for wagon roads, miners' trails and other transportation routes. Its purpose was to open the West to settlement. It would be nine years after the law's passage before the internal combustion engine was invented. Decades would elapse before many newfangled automobiles were scooting around the landscape.
The rule change announced on Christmas Eve by the Bush administration rolls back severe restrictions slapped on the use of the law under the Clinton administration.
"We're really concerned about this because it seems like the administration is encouraging (road) claims that will affect the parks," said Heather Weiner, Northwest director for the National Parks Conservation Association.
Outside national parks, wilderness areas set aside by Congress in national forests and other federal lands also are in play.
"It would disrupt the quiet and the feeling that you're away from civilization," said Seattle activist Pat Goldsworthy.
Lots of land is at stake. In California alone, 19 wilderness areas and proposed wilderness areas could be affected. A full accounting of such areas in Washington apparently has not been compiled, but the Alpine Lakes, Pasayten, Glacier Peak, Stephen Mather and Mount Baker wilderness areas all contain old miners' trails.
"You name it, miners have been everywhere" around the West, said Seattle attorney Karl Forsgaard, an environmental activist. "So keep that in mind."
The one-sentence, 21-word statutory provision in question, known as Revised Statute 2477, was part of the nation's first general mining law, passed July 26, 1866. It says, "The right of way for the construction of highways across public lands not otherwise reserved for public purposes is hereby granted."
The idea was to induce miners to continue to fan out across the West and settle it. To do that, they needed roads, or at least what passed for roads in those days.
That law and its replacements in 1870 and 1872 gave miners the right to buy public land for $5 an acre or less if they did work necessary to discover minerals on the land. Those prices remain in effect today.
A few years earlier, Congress had passed the Homestead Act, which provided cheap land to settlers willing to build ranches, farms and homes on the acreage. That law was repealed in 1976.
That was the same year Congress repealed the roads-for-lands provision of the old mining law. However, at the time Congress gave states and counties 12 years to settle their old road claims. Ten years later, Congress in effect extended the deadline. But the Clinton administration fought most attempts to turn wilderness into roadways.
Now, the Bush administration says it will finalize a rule giving Western states, counties and cities -- some avowedly hostile to federal control of wilderness areas -- a better chance to enforce those claims.
The Clinton administration made it difficult to get the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management to approve the road claims. A burst of litigation resulted, much of it in Alaska and Utah. In Utah, some 15,000 road claims are at issue; Alaska's state government has identified about 650.
In Utah, county governments angry about the establishment of a national monument have become embroiled in a fight over the issue. The state sued the federal government.
And in Alaska, the state government contends that even some section lines -- the imaginary grid that marks off every square mile in the nation -- are subject to the provision and can be claimed as roads. Until now, proving that would likely have involved an arduous legal battle.
Under the Bush policy, though, the BLM can process the claims more readily as an administrative action.
It makes sense, says the Bush administration, because it saves state and federal taxpayers money on court costs.
"The department felt this allowed them to address the . . . issues in a more straightforward way," said David Quick, a BLM spokesman.
Stephen Griles, a former mining lobbyist who serves as the No. 2 official in the Interior Department, told a pro-development group in Alaska that the rule change was spurred in part by the advocacy of the Western Governors Association.
"The department is poised to bring finality to this issue that has created unnecessary conflict between federal land managers and state and local governments," Griles told the Resource Development Council in November.
Griles told the group the rules would be "consistent with historic regulation prior to 1976."
What's changed since then is that sales of off-road vehicles, particularly three- and four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, have skyrocketed. Enthusiasts have started to fight to maintain access to back-country trails.
Meanwhile, environmental activists are trying to declare additional areas off-limits to the off-road vehicles, saying they disturb wildlife and hikers, cloud up streams and cause erosion of trails and hillsides.
The new rule could help put to rest a controversy over a related Clinton-era policy, said the Blueribbon Coalition's Collins. A Clinton policy banned most logging, mining and other commercial uses in 58.5 million acres of national forests where no roads are built.
But under the new policy, if states, counties or others are able to establish a network of legally recognized "highways" through those acres -- even if the highways are dirt roads or something less -- it would give those fighting the so-called "roadless" proposal ammunition.
At least that's what Collins hopes.
"That's why we have a real interest in it," he said. "It does have the potential to influence this debate."
In national forests, those trying to open a route to motorized travel would have to show that the route existed prior to the establishment of national forests -- around the turn of the last century for most places in the Pacific Northwest. In many places, though, miners preceded establishment of the forests. Old maps can pinpoint their routes.
"You're talking about going back and doing some fairly detailed research in old historical documents," said Paul Turcke, a Boise, Idaho, attorney who represents off-road-vehicle enthusiasts, including the Blueribbon Coalition.
It's clear that counties and states have the right to try to open up the old routes. Cities would, too, under the new rule. It remains to be seen whether private groups such as off-road-vehicle clubs could sue to open the routes.
"If I had to predict, I would say the trend is going to be toward more private interests being involved," Turcke said.

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P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com
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J

JeffD

Guest
Hurray that W is tearing down that fences that Slick Willy put up on behalf of the environmentalist whackos to keep me out of millions of acres of our land and keep mother nature in. Maybe we should have a government program to give the environmentalists complaining about W's sensible policy some cheese to go with their whine! Such lame excuses these people give. People I think are finally wising up to the environmental extremists.

Actually, opening already established roads to off-roaders will make our national lands more like the Pine Barrens. There's nothing wrong with opening up these corridors through the woods, as long as the off-roaders act responsibly and stay on the trails. I don't see how this would interfere with wildlife and hikers. I don't think people are going to hike 100 miles just to take a hike, or for a Camel. During the Gulf war, pilots may have flown 100 miles to smoke a camel, but flying is faster than hiking.

I think it's good that there are trails designated for hiking only, such as the Batona trail. The rule for designated trails just needs to be enforced. Groups such as the Blue Ribbon Coalition need to continue to promote playing by the rules and responsible off roading.

There really shouldn't be a conflict between off-roading and hiking. There is ample room in our forests for everyone. I remember hiking on a trail in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. When I first got on the trail, I heard the gunshots of hunters in the distance. As I hiked the opposite direction, the sounds of gunshots faded away. The forests should be for multiple use, not just for the exclusive whims of some environmentalists, who would sue because their wilderness experience would be ruined if they saw a speck of cinders on the horizon ten miles away!

And, as a parody of Elton John's LION KING would go

Can you see that W's right?
Yes I can see that far
It's enough
to see that sandal-clad dope-smoker
Is gone
So we can live the very best
 
Furball1

Furball1

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Dec 11, 2005
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Far as I can tell, people have been a part of the wilderness experience from time immemorial---Native Americans, for example. Granted, they did not zip around in jeeps, dirt-bikes, SUV's, and four-wheelers---but they got around all the same, probably preferring to go where the game thrives. They might have used horses to make the journey faster and more efficient. I think a balanced decision is better than the extreme, that is, allow certain areas to be open to motor vehicles, and others off-limits except to hikers, canoes, kayaks---low-impact type methods of transportation. Not allowing people to use lands that are public just sets up a system that will bog down in lawsuits. These lands are incredibly vast---almost incomprehensible in their magnitude in size. As good as this all sounds, people will be pissed no matter what is decided, for their justifiable reasons. There has to be a degree of compromise.
 
T

Tom

Explorer
Feb 10, 2004
231
9
I usually keep to my self on this forum, but sometimes you simply must say something. I have enjoyed this site for a few years now, every since I read TeeGate's article on the Lawrence Line - great article. It is a great place to find historic info and find people who share the same interests. I don't enjoy logging in to feel my blood pressure rise. Some comments should be well thought out before they are posted. Unless, one really doesn't like the people he posts with.

It sounds to me like someone thought he was logged onto Scarborough Country rather than the NJPineBarrens! Strap on sandels, smoke some dope and chillout.

I myself am niether for or against it...kind of indifferent.
 
Teegate

Teegate

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Sep 17, 2002
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JeffD...still getting people riled up after all these years :)

Guy
 
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