Proposal restricts off-road use

The Forest Service will propose restricting many off-road vehicles to designated roads and trails in national forests and grasslands in an effort to curb environmental damage and ease conflict between visitors.

Under the proposal, which Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth is to announce today, all 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands would work with the public to identify routes, trails and other areas suitable for off-road vehicles.

An environmental analysis would be required on each site to determine potential environmental effects.

The plan is intended to halt the proliferation of roads and trails — many of them illegal — that have sprouted in public forests nationwide.

In Washington state, the changes could prompt restrictions in areas where their use is now sanctioned.

For example, the Wenatchee National Forest could reverse a policy that allows off-road vehicles everywhere except areas where they are specifically restricted, said Jonathan Guzzo of the Washington Trails Association, a hiking organization that has pushed for control of off-road vehicles.

In that forest, vehicles have turned fragile meadows into big mud bogs, Guzzo said. Elsewhere in the state, vehicles have created de facto trails by riding off designated trails, he said.

"There have been some serious issues with off trail use," Guzzo said. "So the idea that we would have designated routes for ORVs instead of rampant off-trail use is great."

Elton Thomas, acting deputy supervisor of the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, said it wasn't yet clear exactly what the regulations will be; they're to be released today. They would likely become part of larger forest-management plans currently being written.

Bosworth calls unmanaged recreation one of the four major threats facing the Forest Service, along with wildfires, invasive species and loss of open space.

The new national policy, several years in the making, would restrict all-terrain vehicles, motorized trail bikes and other off-road motor vehicles to designated roads and trails on nearly 193 million acres of public land.

The plan, which is similar to a draft released last year, comes as the number of off-road-vehicle users has increased sevenfold in three decades to about 36 million, causing conflicts with hikers, horseback riders and people who live near national forests.

Environmentalists and hunting and recreation groups called the draft proposal a good start but said the final plan should include more effective enforcement and money to pay for it.

Unmanaged recreation is an agency problem as well as a user problem, said Don Amador of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, an Idaho-based group that advocates motorized recreation.

Amador said most off-roaders are responsible and have been singled out unfairly by officials.

Amador's group wants to ensure that trails and open areas now used by all-terrain vehicles remain accessible to riders.