Silent Sports Sounds Off

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