Forest service steps up ATV enforcement
By JOHN MONGLE, Staff Writer September 01, 2004
The Clinch Ranger District will be joining Kentucky officials to step up enforcement of all-terrain-vehicle (ATV) rules in Southwest Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. Currently there are no legal ATV trails on the national forest in the Clinch District though there is a great deal of illegal use, according to Doug Jones, district ranger. Jones met with Kentucky wildlife officials and a representative of the Pine Mountain Trail Conference last week to discuss what they consider a mutual problem.
Of particular concern is Pine Mountain, where national forest property adjoins Kentucky's Bad Branch Nature Preserve.
"It pretty much looks like an interstate trail system for ATVs up there," says Kyle Napier, southeast preserves manager for Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission. "People need to become aware of the fact that they are illegally riding on these properties and law enforcement is the best method."
"We're starting to make a unified effort to get a handle on this," says Jones, who is working on mutual assistance agreements with the law enforcement division of Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Resources.
Shad Baker, a Kentucky extension agent working to develop the Pine Mountain Trail, believes this will be an improvement.
"In the past there have not been any enforcement so chances of getting caught were nil," he says.
Illegal use of foot paths and carving of new trails through the forest by ATVs are having a detrimental effect on soil and stream quality.
Jones says that motorized vehicle use of trails requires construction that will withstand the heavier use. Most foot trails lack adequate bridges and culverts to sustain the heavier usage without environmental damage.
Foot trails also tend to be built closer to streams than those designed for off-road vehicles.
In an effort to meet demand in the Clinch District, the Sawmill ATV Trail in Scott County - a part of the revised forest management plan - is expected to be approved by Thanksgiving. That will relieve some of the pressure, but ATV users say that it is not enough to meet the recreational demand.
"The Scott County trail is not going to help us," says Farley Mullins of the Mountain View ATV Club, based in Clintwood. "We've met with them several times trying to get a trail in Dickenson County."
Mullins and his group wanted access to the Pine Mountain Trail, but have not been successful despite his contention that "95 percent of people are for that in this county."
In an effort to ride legal trails, Mountain View has leased some 4,000 acres of coal company land in Wise and Dickenson counties for recreational use.
Mullins says membership in his group has grown from about 150 to over 700 since the lease was acquired illustrating the interest in ATVs and the need for legal trails.
The club charges a $10 membership fee and $25 for a use permit that allows members to ride ATVs, hunt, hike, bike and generally enjoy the outdoors on the leased land that stretches from Virginia City to West Dante.
Jones applauds the club's initiative as a "positive and proactive effort," but Mullins says such private efforts would not be needed if the forest service met the public demand for ATV trails. "They're just slow," Mullins says.
While progress is being made to provide legal trails, Mullins probably won't see legal ATV usage on the Pine Mountain Trail anytime soon.
Baker says ATV use on the mountain is responsible for "wholesale resource destruction." He says the ridge line is not broad enough to sustain an environmentally stable ATV trail.
And, there is a conflict in uses.
"It takes away from the recreational experience of people who want foot travel up there when an ATV goes by," says Jones.
The problem with ATV use on public land is not unique to the Clinch Ranger District. In July, the forest service issued a draft policy to deal with the problem and accommodate the recreational vehicles nationwide.
Part of the problem stems from the increasing popularity of ATVs for recreation and the slowness of the forest service in adopting plans for their use.
Nationally, ATV use has skyrocketed with 5 million in use in 1972 to 36 million in 2000, according to the forest service.
Baker has agreed to use the resources of his group to help develop signage for the national forest marking trails closed to ATV use - especially those that serve as spurs and access routes to the Pine Mountain Trail. Many of the trails used by ATVs have no signs or gates barring such vehicles.
"People may not know it is illegal," says Jones. "We want to educate the public as much as possible."
Both forest service and Kentucky officials looking at the problems say most of the use comes from local residents.
"There aren't a lot of people from outside the area coming in," Napier says. "For the most part you'll see a trail coming up from behind someone's house
