EDITOR'S LETTER
by Joel Patenaude
The gathering threat to our parks, trails There's been skiable snow up north since late November. From Hayward to Minoqua and, of course, throughout the UP. Snow machines roared to life at Trollhaugen and Tyrol Ski Basin in Wisconsin and at Elm Creek Park Reserve near
the Twin Cites to the delight of Nordic types. I was even sent pictures of white dusted patio furniture on an over eager skier's deck in Naperville, Illinois.
But as of this writing in mid-December, I'm still waiting here in central Wisconsin for a snowfall that sticks. Rain recently erased what looked like a promising base. Hopefully, by the time this issue hits newsstands, the anticipation will be over and I'll be out there striding contentedly.
For now, however, there's time to stew
and plenty of reason to worry for the future of our chosen winter sport and the enjoyment of quiet trails in general.
In this issue, Mike McFadzen, chairman of the Wisconsin Governor's Council on Trails, tracks the proposed cuts to state parks and trails. In an e-mailed update, he wrote that the Natural Resources Board in mid-December approved the Department of Natural Resources' implicit recommendation "that Wisconsin get out of the trail business by spinning off state trails to
counties and municipalities. This opens the door to alternative trail use which will directly affect, hiking, biking, snowmobiling, equestrian and possibly (access for the) disabled."
"Alternative trail use" is a euphemism for ATV use. Where ATVs are allowed, trails become so rutted and eroded they are rendered unuseable by virtually everybody else. Local government, especially in the Northwoods, tend to see economic gain in inviting ATVers into their midst. But the benefits
are short term, the damage often irreversible, and local law enforcement overrun.
Ubiquitous and invasive, ATVs are being built with 650cc and bigger engines so they can bear their riders to previously inaccessible and pristine natural areas any day of the year. And these behemoths come with an even more powerful lobby with unmatched political reach. With some 200,000 ATVs registered in Wisconsin in 2004 surpassing the number of snowmobiles for the first time their owners, clubs and the
industry dream of winning as much trail access as snowmobilers enjoy.
I won't deny snowmobilers their fun. With a 25,000-mile interconnected trail network in Wisconsin alone at their disposal, I can only express envy. Thanks to our segregation, I generally don't have to be anywhere near these roaring speed demons. And thankfully their season, like their tracks over frozen ground, are only temporary.
But ATVers are becoming much harder to elude. It also is becoming harder to deny that
ATVs are anathema to sustainable tourism because of the environmental destruction they cause and the fact that they drive away so many people in search of unspoiled nature and solitude.
Even snowmobile clubs are seeing ATVs as a threat. Outagamie County Snowmobile Alliance officials are opposed to ATV use of a former railroad bed between Seymour and New London, Wisconsin, which may postpone the opening of the new trail. "If the ATVs go off the trails and cause problems with the
farmers' fields, (the snowmobile clubs) stand to lose their easements," Outagamie County parks director Chris Brandt explained last month to The (Appleton) Post-Crescent newspaper.
It's no wonder that private landowners who welcome snowmobilers draw the line at ATVs. The ATV industry, afterall, markets mayhem. Their advertising invariably shows them ripping through forests and wetlands, sunk to the wheel wells in mud. Even Randy Harden, president of the Wisconsin All-Terrain Vehicle
Association who claims only a small percentage of recreational ATV riders emulate the irresponsible ads in the trade magazines can himself be seen parting a sea of mud in a picture posted on his organization's Web site.
Harden can probably argue that the photo of him at last year's Park Falls Mud Run was taken on private property. But that only bolsters the argument against allowing such behavior on public lands. Nevertheless, access to more and more public land is ultimately what Harden
is working to get for his WATVA members and the Wisconsin DNR is poised to deliver at the expense of nearly every other user group of state parks and trails.
In light of the state deficit, the DNR's budget is vulnerable to cuts. In contrast, the ATV lobby is flush with cash from ATV sales, club dues, gas taxes and registration fees paying to expand trails. There's no such direct funding stream for silent sports as a counterbalance, so the voice of the ATV enthusiasts is amplified and
drowning the rest of us out.
On the front lines of trail development, Brook Waalen has seen the future and says it looks grim. For a few years now, the Luck resident has worked with the Friends of the Lincoln-Osceola-Garfield Greenway (some 300 members strong) to convert a former railroad bed between Amery and Dresser into a 15-mile non-motorized, paved trail. Last winter the DNR bought the corridor but left to Polk County to determine who will use it. Waalen said snowmobile and ATV
interests are pressuring the county for access to the trail. (The region already has over 600 miles of snowmobile trails but Polaris has a manufacturing plant in nearby Osceola.) Since the DNR has passed the buck to the county, state environmental impact considerations will not necessarily apply.
ATV users spent more than $295 million in Wisconsin in 2003, according to economic study funded by the WATVA and published last year by the Wisconsin Department of Tourism. But Waalen argues,
"ATVs do not pay for themselves. They do a lot more damage" than they generate in registration revenue to the state. Taxpayers are paying the difference, he says.
ATV fees do help pay conservation officers and sheriff's departments to enforce ATV laws. But not enough. And no where near the level necessary to cover the costs borne by townships and counties to repair roads and trails wrecked by ATVs. In Burnett County alone, $100,000 in road repairs were needed in 2003 the same
year that county cut a forestry and trail enforcement position in the sheriff's department. Burnett County Sheriff Dean Roland suggested, quite understandably, that if the county could not afford to properly police its ATV trails, those trails ought to be closed.
Yet misguided state legislators, like Republican Mark Pettis, want to open up more trails to ATVs and bankrupt local government in the process. For years Pettis has tried to persuade counties to repay the federal government for
the resurfacing of 47 miles of the Gandy Dancer Trail. The reimbursement, he believes, would free the trail from a restriction against its use by motorized vehicles and set a bad precedent that would put non-motorized trails elsewhere at risk. (As it happens, the northern 51-mile segment of the Gandy Dancer, from Danbury to Superior, is open to ATVs and consequently "too torn up to be decently rideable on a bicycle," a Burnett County Sentinel reporter recently wrote.)
Meanwhile,
non-motorized trails -- the Elroy-Sparta, the Bear Skin in Minocqua, the Red Cedar Trail, the trail in Lanesboro, Minnesota, just to name a few each attract tens of thousands of walkers, bicyclists, inline skaters and cross-country skiers who pour millions of dollars into the local economies every year. Spending just on bicycles in Wisconsin the manufacturing of, retail sales, recreational tourism and racing events generates at least $450 million a year, according to a soon-to-be-released
study by the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin.
That figure is notable for two reasons: First, it's more money than ATVers spend and more than silent sports enthusiasts themselves believe they spend. Second, its money spent on an activity that doesn't produce environmental harm; rather biking has health benefits that if promoted more, could actually reduce publicly subsidized medical costs associated with obesity, heart disease, etc.
These numbers are important, albeit academic and slow
to sink in. While the ATV threat to Wisconsin is finally being acknowledged and debated at the Bicycle and Pedestrian Summit last October and the Governor's Conference on Forestry in November ATV use is already out of control in many corners of this state. Meanwhile, the DNR dithers by trying to adopt construction standards for "sustainable ATV trails" (which few observers believe are possible) instead of "just saying no" to ATVs.
Just because people can spend $5,000 to
$11,000 on an ATV does not endow them with the right to ride them wherever they wish. If there are private property owners willing to have ATVs trash their land, let 'er rip by all means. But opening up public land to ATVs flies in the face of good stewardship, period.
So before you head out the door to ski, read further coverage of these issues on pages 54 through 61. If you agree that our state lands cry out for defenders, put a call through to your legislator and the governor's office.
Let them know you are a silent sports enthusiast who will no longer be silent about the threat ATVs pose.
You can find contact information at www.wisconsin.gov/state/core/government.html. | |
