ATV lawlessness exposed in Minnesota
ATV’ers are mucking up a shocking amount of Minnesota’s forests, wetlands and trails and largely getting away with it. That’s abundantly clear from reading The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s three-part investigation – and watching the accompanying video – published September 14-16.
In addition to finding the DNR’s enforcement of ATVs greatly lacking, the Star Tribune caught on hidden camera illegal riding and ineffective self-policing by ATV Trail Ambassadors.
Since Minnesota enacted laws five years ago intended to keep ATV’ers on designated trails, 1,600 riders have been ticketed or issued warnings “but that’s only a fraction of the violators, most of whom are never caught,” the newspaper reported.
According to DNR records, some 825 Minnesota ATV riders a year are cited for damaging land, riding off-road in public parks, preserves and protected wetlands, riding in ditches during bird-nesting seasons, in restricted hunting areas or trespassing on private land. Since 2005, at least 42 people have been charged with careless or reckless behavior but, despite a state law, none have lost their riding privileges.
And the violators are not just youthful yahoos. They include leaders of local and the state ATV organizations. Ken Irish, president of the ATV Association of Minnesota, which lobbies lawmakers for trail funding and against tougher regulation, was himself ticketed in 1999 for riding an unregistered dirt bike and again in 2003 for illegal ATV riding. Irish is now a so-called Trail Ambassador.
See photos of the damage and video shot by the Star Tribune with a hidden, motion-activated video camera in June. It recorded a man and a woman riding ATVs into the mud and getting stuck. And read Part I and Part II of this maddening story.
– Joel Patenaude