Silent Sports Sounds Off

Ah, there’s nothing like the smell of desperation mixed with ATV exhaust in the morning.

Since the Natural Resources Board (NRB) on April 23 voted unanimously not to allow ATVs in the Northern-Highland American Legion (NH-AL) State Forest, Wisconsin ATV Association (WATVA) President Randy Harden has tried to portray himself and fellow quad members as victims of discrimination.

Having moved on (geographically but not psychologically) to try to keep ATVs running through the Black River State Forest, Harden and cohort Rob McConnell on April 28 sent a screed to several DNR officials blaming unspecified “anti-motorized zealots” and “anti-access advocacy groups” for their organization’s inability to convince anyone of the righteousness of ATV riding on more and more public land.

(The letter linked above and dated May 2 is the same letter Pat Murphy, Black River State Forest Master Plan Team Leader, confirmed she received on April 28.)

In its letter, WATVA also scapegoats DNR officials who understand that birdwatchers and bicyclists need their own paths because they stay away from trails open to ATVers. WATVA dismisses this fact with a truly bizarre, and vaguely threatening assertion:

“The Black River State Forest should be extremely cautious about enthusiastically embracing segregation of this type; it wasn’t good for this country in regards to race relations and certainly is not good public policy for all land management decisions.”

So let’s get this straight. According to WATVA, to argue that safety dictates motorized and nonmotorized trail users have seperate trails is tantamount to supporting racial segregation.

Well, that’s a radical and highly offensive analogy.

To suggest that ATVers suffer daily indignities and violence like racial minorities have in this country is simply outrageous. Far from being forced to sit “at the back of the bus,” ATVers are free to ride their $5,000-plus machines on private land and 8,000 miles of public routes and trails throughout this state.

Segregation of motorized and nonmotorized folks is not only justified, it is necessary. (Does WATVA not believe in sidewalks?) If we agree the health of nonsmokers should not be compromised by smokers, then why should hikers and bicyclists have their lives and enjoyment of parks and trails threatened by ATV speed, noise, dust and damage?

Harden and McConnell are clearly desperate if they’re willing to play the proverbial race card. But they’re probably just voicing what many of WATVA’s good-old-boy members are muttering in frustration.

Still, the organization’s leadership needs a reality check.

Only after the NRB rejected a proposal to develop more than 78 miles of ATV trails in the NH-AL at a cost of up to $14 million did Harden claim that WATVA wasn’t supportive of the project either. If the NRB had actually done the opposite and OK’d the ATV trails, Harden claimed his organization would have “battl(ed) to get it stopped.” This from a guy who served on the stakeholders group which recommended the very trails that were rejected.

So if WATVA’s head honchos aren’t trying to rewrite history, they’re painting thelmselves as victims of Jim Crow like policies. Either way, they’re excuses and vitriol should be rejected as sad and pathetic.

– Joel Patenaude

I sent the following as a letter to the editor of The Country Today, a weekly newspaper about rural issues in Wisconsin and Minnesota, after reading this one-sided, front page news article. Moments after sending it, TCT Managing Editor Scott Schultz called me to say he wouldn’t publish it unless I rewrote it so “that it doesn’t impugn one of my reporters by calling her lazy.”

Here’s what I wrote:

It was sad to see Regional Editor Sara Bredesen fall victim to the ATV industry’s chief spin doctor in her April 29 coverage of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board’s decision not to permit ATV trails in the Northern Highland-American Legion (NH-AL) State Forest.

Breseden’s reporting was so lazy, her primary source, Wisconsin ATV Association President Randy Harden, was allowed to redefine the issue – an issue that in reality was decided after a two-year process that included many more persuasive points of view rooted in environmental science, recreational trend analyses and fairness to the public at large.

In addition to handing Harden the reins to her story, Breseden made one particularly large error: The DNR proposed a 30-foot-wide ATV trail corridor, not a 60-foot-wide one as she reported. The fact is many of the service roads the ATVs would have followed are already 30 feet wide.

It is dishonest of Mr. Harden to claim to be surprised by the trail widths and estimated costs provided by the DNR for 78.6 miles of the ATV trails recommended by a stakeholders group on which Mr. Harden served.

NH-AL Superintendent Steve Peterson said he told Harden and the other stakeholders early in the process that the ATV trails would need to be wide enough for two-way motor vehicle traffic. “I remember walking the possible routes with them and talking about the need to ditch and crown the trails, which would have to be shared with trucks,” Peterson said.

ADDED: The fact that wetlands, lakes and streams constitute as much as 30 percent of the NH-AL, many lengthy boardwalks and bridges would have been required to accomodate ATV travel, the most expensive aspect of the now rejected project.

The problem is, Harden’s ATV organization is not in the business of building sustainable ATV trails; in fact, he does very little to promote accepted development standards. Harden is primarily in the business of demanding ATV access to public land – any and all public land – regardless of how much ATVs cause environmental damage, noise and air pollution and displace the majority of visitors who prefer nonmotorized recreation.

It was irresponsible of Breseden to allow Harden to claim, without proof or challenge, that the process determining whether ATVs belonged in the NH-AL was “hijacked by silent sport people” and dismiss legitimate concerns for ATVers straying off trail. “He said that might have been the problem 25 years ago in the early days of the sport, but it is not true now,” Breseden reported.

Surely Breseden knows that the number of ATVs registered in Wisconsin has nearly tripled just in the past 10 years, suggesting that there is likely more conflict between their riders and hikers, bicyclists and other nonmotorized recreationists.

All she needed to read was the DNR’s 2005-2010 Wisconsin Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP) which states, “It is evident that ATV riding is incompatible with every other land-based activity but snowmobiling.” The SCORP also points out that 85 percent of outdoor enthusiasts in Wisconsin prefer nonmotorized activities.

For further proof that ATVers are very much inclined to stray off trail and trespass, Breseden could have cited a 2007 survey of Wisconsin ATVers by Bob Smail, a graduate student in the UW-Stevens Point’s College of Natural Resources. Smail found 65 percent of trail-riding ATVers admitting they prefer to ride off of maintained trails designed specifically for them. “While this does not indicate that (the majority of ATV) users will disobey trail rules, it does suggest that by staying on-trail, users will be suppressing a preference for riding off-trail,” Smail warned.

It could be argued that Breseden presented both sides in her story. But while the overwhelming opposition to ATV trails in the NH-AL was given one paragraph and a partial quote, Harden got the lede and an additional 11 paragraphs devoted to his POV, however misleading and dishonest it was.

While there was no evidence of independent research or critical thinking on Breseden’s part, it is fortunate the DNR and Natural Resources Board did not take the same approach to the ATV issue in the NH-AL. The state’s largest forest has been spared for those who value safe and serene wild places. Thank goodness.

If you wish to comment on this issue, you can do so here. Registration to view and use the messageboard is quick and easy.

– Joel Patenaude

Curiously, no one at Tuesday’s meeting of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board (NRB) spoke out in favor of the particular ATV trails proposed for the Northern Highland-American Legion (NH-AL) State Forest.

Of the 27 people who testified, only Jane Severt and Mike Peterson, representing the Wisconsin County Forests Association, questioned the DNR’s recommendation against ATV trails in the NH-AL.

Peterson said the state agency’s NHAL ATV Trail Feasibility/Suitability Study “infers there are ATV riding opportunities elsewhere. That’s a transparent statement that the county forests must provide the trails.”

While there are nearly 8,000 miles of legal ATV trails and routes through 32 mostly northern Wisconsin counties, many of the trails cross state land. The DNR is also “committed” to recreational ATV riding through its ATV registration and trail maintenance grant programs, according to Paul DeLong, administrator of the DNR’s Forestry Division.

The DNR’s recommendation not to build ATVs in the NH-AL “should not be viewed as a lack of support for ATVs,” DeLong said.

Yet no one from the Wisconsin ATV Association (WATVA) addressed the NRB on Tuesday. Nevertheless, WATVA tried at the 11th hour to get the DNR to change course. (In fact, it was the only outside group thanked for its late input by DNR Secretary Matt Frank in his April 11 memo to the NRB.)

This morning in a phone interview, WATVA President Randy Harden told Silent Sports he didn’t go because the NRB’s decision “was a foregone conclusion.”

While WATVA Vice President Rob McConnell attended the NRB meeting, Harden did not. “Why waste gas driving there like you people?” he cynically asked of this writer and the many other nonmotorized recreation advocates who did go to the meeting.

Harden said his organization decided to rest its case on written comments submitted earlier to the DNR. In an April 10 letter addressed to DeYoung, Harden and McConnell argued against the need for a 30-foot-wide trail corridor for ATVs. They suggested that the ATV trails in the NH-AL be half as wide and include paved and hilly “technical” sections.

While the WATVA officials said “long, straight trails are found to be boring” by ATVers, they conceded the DNR’s plan to have ATV riders follow existing fireroads “does minimize further fragmentation of forestland.”

NH-AL Superintendent Steve Peterson suggested Harden is feigning surprise when he claims he didn’t expect the DNR to map ATV trails wide enough for two-way motor vehicle traffic.

“I remember walking the possible routes with them and talking about the need to ditch and crown the trails, which would have to be shared with trucks,” Peterson said. “Most of the ATV trails would have followed forest roads that are already 30 feet wide.”

Harden and McConnell also expressed doubt the ATV trails would cost $4.8 million to $14.9 million to build, as estimated by the DNR.

In their letter, they suggested eliminating from the plan a 11.6-mile section of trail through what the DNR described as an “ecologically sensitive” peatlands area. Because that trail alone would have required 3,250 feet of boardwalk and cost as much as $5.1 million, it was the least likely alternative to be constructed anyway.

The NRB decision to accept the DNR’s recommendation will likely keep the NH-AL closed to ATVs until at least 2020 when a new master plan for the forest will be due. The master planning process will start in 2018. Only a change in state statute could keep ATVs out of the NH-AL permanently.

– Joel Patenaude

After two years of study and unprecedented public debate, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board (NRB) finally answered the question “Should ATV trails be built within the Northern Highland-American Legion (NH-AL) State Forest?”

With a unanimous 7-0 vote yesterday afternoon, the board simply replied, “No.”

So with “overall public opposition” cited as one of the reasons, the NH-AL has been spared from the environmental damage and recreational displacement ATV riders would cause.

The NRB’s decision was anticipated only since April 11 when Department of Natural Resources Secretary Matt Frank issued his recommendation to the board that the 78.6 miles of proposed ATV trails through the 230,000-acre forest, Wisconsin’s largest, “not be considered further.”

The NRB accepted Frank’s detailed recommendation, which estimated the ATV trails would cost between $4.8 million and $14.9 million to build through an area 30 percent covered by wetlands, lakes and streams.

NRB members asked few questions of the 27 people who testified (all but two of which opposed ATVs in the NH-AL) and didn’t spend any time discussing the issue amongst themselves before voting.

One board member, anticipating there would be little debate among his colleagues, assured the 75 people present that the board has been considering the ATV trail plan for more than a year.

The vote was met with applause, sighs of relief and congratulations among the many assembled advocates for an ATV-free NH-AL. Sue Drum and her Vilas County-based organization Northwoods Citizens for Responsible Stewardship worked tirelessly on the issue – starting not long after the hard-fought passage of a 2004 referendum against ATVs on Vilas County land. Drum rallied the troops time and again, and the coalition represented at Tuesday’s meeting –including a biologist, geologist, professional wildlife photographer and many nonmotorized recreation advocates – was laregely a culmination of her efforts.

There’s much more to say about the significance of the nonmotorized majority’s victory regarding the NH-AL, not the least of which being the ATV community’s likely response. I have more to report.

Stay tuned.

– Joel Patenaude

Wisconsin DNR Secretary Matt Frank is recommending against the development of ANY ATV trails in the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest.

In a memo to the Natural Resources Board released this afternoon, Frank said his reasons included:

• the negative impact ATV trails would have on many of the 2 million nonmotorized NH-AL visitors every year,

• the “very strong opposition to ATVs on public land,” particularly in Vilas County,

• “the potential for adverse ecological impact” from ATV trail development,

• and the high cost of ATV trail development, on-going maintenence and law enforcement.

Frank’s recommendation comes in advance of the April 23 meeting of the Natural Resources Board (NRB), at which a final decision will be made whether to permit ATV trails in the NH-AL.

The Frank memo is an excellent sign that common sense and good public land management will prevail. And the recommendation was not unexpected by anyone that read Frank’s February memo, discussed here.

No one should assume, however, that the NRB will agree with Frank and vote to prohibit ATVs in the NH-AL. Chances are they will, but I, for one, won’t plan to attend any parties until after the votes are cast and counted.

As stated in an email by Sue Drum, a leading opponent of ATVs in the NH-AL, “Now we need people, more than ever, to come to Madison for the April 23 meeting to show the NRB that this recommendation has many supporters. When we are winning, it is not the time to pull back.”

In order to speak at the meeting on the 23rd, you must call NRB liasion Laurie Ross at 608/267-7420 by this Friday, April 18, at 4 p.m. Testimony will likely begin at 1:15 p.m., according to the NRB meeting agenda.

– Joel Patenaude

By a 27-4 landslide vote, the Outagamie County Board last night designated as nonmotorized the 22.8-mile, yet-to-be developed Seymour to New London Trail.

The decision ended a months-long debate over whether the trail should be open to ATVs, and thus unappealing to hikers and unrideable for bicyclists, or a key connector trail for several existing nonmotorized trails in east-central Wisconsin (the Wiouwash, Friendship, Mountain Bay and Fox River state trails).

The county board ought to be congratulated for giving the issue reasoned consideration. An overwhelming majority of the board concluded that the Seymour to New London Trail is best suited for nonmotorized recreation. The vote reflects the majority of likely users and the trail’s potential as a connector for a great regional network of hiking and bicycling trails.

Thanks largely to the grassroots organizing by Fox Cities Greenways Inc., the Fox Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club, Bicycling Federation of Wisconsin, Pacesetters Running Club and many area residents and many individuals, the trail will be available to the majority of outdoor recreationists. (As a silent sports trail advocate, avid trail runner and cyclist in adjacent Waupaca County, I was more than a bit interested in seeng this campaign succeed.)

Last night’s county board debate was remarkable for several reasons. But the number of supervisors who said they had been persuaded by our side was most gratifying. One supervisor said he had received 20 letters and every one of them argued for keeping the trail nonmotorized.

Now comes the hard work, however. A state grant of $180,000 for trail development is on hand, but we’ll be lucky if that gets half of the trail built. Because snowmobiling will be allowed on the trail in the winter, the trail will be eligible for state snowmobile maintenance funds.

A number of us are already talking about forming a Friends group to help see the project through, provide volunteer maintenance and promote the trail. We are open to working with anyone else interested in making the trail the success we know it can be.

As I told one of the leading ATV proponents and a Black Creek resident after last night’s vote, “Hopefully, we’ll see eachother on the trail. That’s possible now.” He’ll have to leave his ATV at home, but he’ll be welcome to walk and pedal a trail that’s safe for him, his kids, grandparents and everyone in between.

Again, congratulations to the county board, which showed tremendous foresight, and to my fellow nonmotorized trail advocates. It’s nice to win once in awhile.

To the ATVers who are disappointed in the vote, I sincerely hope we can work together on this trail. If you decide to pursue an appropriately located and contained ATV park, you can count on me to support that project. Good luck to you.

– Joel Patenaude

The strong public belief that ATV riders and nonmotorized folks ought to have seperate trails may have convinced a committee of east-central Wisconsin’s Outagamie County supervisors to recommend against mixing the two on a yet undeveloped rail trail.

This afternoon, the county airport/property committeee voted 3-2 to keep ATVs off the Seymour-New London Trail. The vote was a lot closer than public opinion on the issue. In an online poll conducted over the weekend with the results published in this morning’s Appleton Post-Crescent, more than 74 percent of respondents said ATVers, bicyclists and pedestrians should not mix.

The newspaper was prompted to conduct the poll by an ongoing debate over whether the 22.8-mile Seymour-New London Trail should be either nonmotorized (allowing bicycling and walking, but also winter snowmobiling) or “multiuse” (the same but with year-round ATVing added).

The newspaper didn’t mention the Seymour-New London Trail in the question it posed. Instead it asked more generally, “Should all-terrain vehicles be allowed on recreational trails used by bicyclists and walkers?”

The results of the poll – open between Friday morning and Monday evening – were as follows:

With 503 votes cast, 25.6 percent said, “yes, ATV users deserve more trails” and 74.4 percent said, “No, ATVs should be on their own trails.”

That was the result despite a link to the poll and a call for votes on the Wisconsin ATV Association messageboard. The nonmotorized majority carried the day.

But if you think the poll results will convince WATVA and an area ATV club to build trails where they actually make sense instead of turning a prime regional bicycling rail-trail connector into a noisy motorized speedway, think again.

And if you think the 36-member Outagamie County Board will automatically follow the committee’s lead when it discusses use of the trail on March 25, as is expected, then that too would be a naive assumption.

We won this round, but the trail has not yet been saved. Stay tuned.

– Joel Patenaude

I feel spoiled. I’ve now skied two American Birkiebeiners – first in 2006, then this past Saturday – on days with ideal conditions for a hilly, 50-plus kilometer grip-and-glide. (Last year, when 50-degree temps melted the course to a 20K recreational ski outing, I just skipped it; packed up my skis and high-tailed it home.)

I’m a bit late with these observations, but Saturday was lovely. Cloudy and a few degrees below zero at the start, but by the end we had a clear blue sky, a radiant sun and temps in the mid 20s. Although the new classic trail added 2K to my fellow striders’ race, it was a wonder to behold. I imagine elite and Wave 1 skiers are accustomed to trails that pristine. But for mid-packers like me, it was a welcome gift. And the hills on it were not so easily scaled, as some predicted. I had waxed for grip wisely so I was able to stay in the tracks for the most part.

I was practically out of gas by about 30K, though. But at 35K, Adam caught me. That’s the same brother-in-law who, a month earlier, had finished the Noquemanon an hour after me. But having set aside his waxless classics for this, his first Birkie, he pulled me for the next several K. I went out ahead of him after the last feed stop and he fell back. I finally found my stride again on Lake Hayward – “Someone who still has grip!” a spectator observed with as much surprise as I had – and finished just three minutes ahead of Adam.

We were pleased with our sub-five-hour finish. Then we were humbled to learn that John Kotar, 68 – who was about 5K from the finish of his perfect streak of skiing all 35 Birkies when Adam and I passed him – beat us by more than 30 minutes because he started in an earlier wave.

Actually, I was pretty pokey compared to the rest of “Team Silent Sports.” It proved to be a much faster race for columnists Mark Parman and Mitch Mode, who also classic skied the full distance, and Donna Marlor, Tom Kaufman, Bruce Steinberg, Bob Richards and advertising manager Jim Wendt, all of whom skated from start to finish.

Goat Farm proprieter and trail groomer Paul Walker, despite passing away Feb. 12, was still very much present at the race he skied some 25 times. A giant banner reading “We Love You Paul Walker” greeted us at the top of Bitch Hill, and several skiers wore “Team Goat Farm” signs on their backs. Walker’s friend and ours, Phil Van Valkenberg, toasted him at The Moccasin after the race. Written tributes can be found here and in the March issue.

Yes, the 35 anniversary Birkie is another for the history books. I was just thrilled to be a part of it.

– Joel Patenaude

A little more than five months since he was appointed secretary of the Wisconsin DNR, Matt Frank appears unconvinced ATVs ought to be allowed in the state’s largest and most ecologically diverse state forest.

Maybe he’s been convinced by the more than 2,500 public comments overwhelmingly opposed to the development of 60-some miles of ATV trails through the Northern Highland-American Legion (NH-AL) State Forest.

Maybe his own resource managers have impressed upon him the widespread damage ATVs would cause to that unique natural resource.

Or maybe the nearly $13 million price tag of the ATV trails – $110,000 to $179,000 per mile – has soured Frank on the whole idea.

Actually, I’m not certain Frank would come out against one or all three ATV trails proposed for the NH-AL if the Natural Resources Board (NRB) asks him for a recommendation. But in a 4 ½-page memo from Frank to NRB members, dated Feb. 13, he included few unqualified reasons to support ATV traffic anywhere in the 225,000-acre state forest.

In the memo, Frank describes how “extremely challenging” it would be to locate ATV trails where they won’t harm the state forest’s 900 lakes, 300 miles of waterways, 14 threatened or endangered species, 79 rare species or displace the more than two million hikers, campers and bicyclists who visit every year.

“Substantial improvements, with significant costs, would be necessary to avoid, minimize and mitigate environmental and social impacts stemming from summer ATV use,” Frank wrote.

One option is a 49-mile linear ATV trail from Lake Tomahawk in Oneida County to the community of Sayner in Vilas County; a trail that would “dead end” for lack of connections to existing or likely ATV trails outside the state forest.

“Some positive economic impacts to local businesses are expected, but these may come at the expense of displacing other users, which may negatively impact other businesses,” Frank wrote.

This trail would unavoidably conflict with users of a paved bike trail, three campgrounds and the Bittersweet-Prong Recreation area. And although the trail would mostly follow existing forest roads and snowmobile trails, Frank said it would nevertheless cost more than $5.4 million to develop.

There are also two options in Iron County – an 18-mile trail connecting existing town and county ATV trails at a cost of $3.3 million or an 11.6-mile trail that would incorporate 8.1 miles of town roads and snowmobile trails for nearly $4.3 million.

The first of those two trail options would greatly impact a remote campground and paddlers on the Manitowish River. The trail would need to cross the high-quality stream twice and State Highway 51 twice.

The Iron County alternatives would also pose significant law enforcement and maintenance challenges, Frank implied, because the trails would be located more than 23 miles from the nearest DNR facility.

The various ATV trail plans generated more than 2,500 emails and letters, mostly critical. “Local opposition far outweighs local support, and support is generally from statewide ATV users,” Frank wrote.

It has taken three years of study and rancorous public debate to bring the issue of ATVs in the NH-AL before the NRB. Until its agenda was amended last week, the NRB was set to hear one last round of testimony on Feb. 26.

Instead, the board will hear next week only from NH-AL Superintendent Steve Peterson, who will summarize the recently completed NH-AL Trail Feasibility/Suitability Assessment. The board has put off a public hearing and a vote until it meets again March 26 or April 23.

In the mean time, the public can review the trail plans, read a summary of the comments about the plans, the subsequent assessment as well as Frank’s memo. All of that has been posted here.

What is not being released in advance of the March or April NRB meeting is the section of the DNR feasibility study titled “conclusions and recommendations.”

But if Frank’s memo is any indication of what most concerns the DNR, there are numerous reasons for the NRB to keep the gates closed to ATVs altogether.

– Joel Patenaude

A final hearing and decision on whether ATVs should be allowed in Wisconsin’s Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest (NH-AL) will not take place on Feb. 26 as planned.

For reasons not yet clear, the Feb. 26 meeting agenda posted yesterday includes the NH-AL ATV trail plan as an informational item only.

NH-AL Superintendent Steve Petersen will be given 45 minutes to speak on the feasibility and suitability assessment of the plan to develop 60 miles of ATV trails. But the public will not get an opportunity to speak and the NRB will not vote on the issue.

It is now likely the NRB won’t take testimony or discuss the issue until it meets in March or April.

– Joel Patenaude