Tough laws sought to regulate ORVs

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Calling off-road vehicles the top threat to public lands, a conservation watchdog group is launching a campaign to toughen enforcement against outlaw riders who carve up delicate ecosystems.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, announced last week the formation of a coalition of former public lands rangers and administrators that will work for tougher rules.

The group, called Rangers for Responsible Recreation, includes former BLM national director Jim Baca, former U.S. Forest Service deputy chief Jim Furnish and former Nevada BLM director Bob Abbey.

"I think they are the most damaging thing that can happen on public lands," Baca, now natural resources trustee for the state of New Mexico, said from Albuquerque in a telephone press conference. "I think people in the field really want to do something, but their hands are tied. There is a lack of funding to enforce any meaningful kind of thing."

The group is seeking laws allowing confiscation of off-road vehicles used in violations and jail time for repeat offenders; greater funding for enforcement, and a congressional inquiry into the actual costs of erosion and wildlife harassment caused by off-road vehicles.

PEER cited BLM statistics for fiscal year 2005 showing off-road-vehicle violations were the top problem for the agency nationally, with more than 5,000 incidents.

BLM spokeswoman Celia Boddington said enforcement of OHV regulations is a "key activity" of BLM law enforcement and is particularly effective on the Imperial Dunes in California.

Frustrated by the sprawl of illegal trails, the Forest Service announced in 2005 that all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles would be allowed only on designated roads and trails in all 155 national forests and 20 grasslands.

Those plans are to be completed for each national forest by 2009, said Northwest regional Forest Service spokesman Jim Sachet in Portland.

He added that the Mount Hood National Forest outside of Portland closed an area to public access when outlaw trails showed up in 2005, and forests around the region are working with local authorities to boost enforcement.

More than a third of the 1,336 off-road-vehicle violations from 2000 through 2006 in the region were for going off trails and into closed areas, she said. In general, off-road vehicles accounted for 13 percent of violations on BLM lands in Oregon and Washington, ranking behind illegal dumping and vandalism.

Off-road vehicles can spread noxious weeds, which harm habitat for sage grouse and wild horses, said BLM spokeswoman Maya Fuller.

Brian Hawthorne of the BlueRibbon Coalition, which represents off-road-vehicle riders, dealers and manufacturers, said he thought PEER was philosophically opposed to all off-road vehicles on public lands.

Hawthorne acknowledged there was an outlaw element, which should be controlled, but added that most riders are responsible and in many states pay registration fees that go to trail maintenance and enforcement.