Harlan: New off-road rules coming

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer | Sunday, December 11, 2005

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Tom Willems of Custer would never admit it, but sometimes, democracy must be a pain in the ... uh, hard on the eyes.

Willems is the “travel management coordinator” for Black Hills National Forest. “Make sure you say INTERIM travel management coordinator,” Willems told me last week.

Willems is a Forest Service archeologist in real life. However, for reasons not entirely clear to me, he volunteered to gather, analyze and summarize public opinions on new off-roading rules being developed for the national forest here.

The Forest Service is collecting opinions, in part, through a two-page survey called the “Travel Management User Needs Assessment.” So far, Willems has received more than 400 completed questionnaires, most of them handwritten. There were 78 surveys in his mailbox on Monday alone. Willems expects to get a lot more this week. (The deadline for submitting them is Thursday, Dec. 15. See box for details.)

Rule changes for off-roading are a hot issue here. Mining and logging have overlaid Black Hills National Forest with a spider web of roads and trails — thousands of miles of them — which is one reason that four-wheeling and dirt biking are so popular here.

According to a Forest Service survey released in June, South Dakota ranks seventh in the nation in off-roading. The study estimates that 27.4 percent of all South Dakotans older than 16 participate in the sport.

West Virginia ranks No. 1 in off-roading, at 34.5 percent, which surprised me.

Wyoming was second, at 33.8 percent, which didn’t surprise me. Last summer when we hiked in the Big Horns, four-wheelers seemed to be everywhere — except, of course, in the Cloud Peak Wilderness area.

The other states ahead of South Dakota in off-roading, in order, were Idaho, Alaska, Utah and Montana.

Clearly the off-roading is best in the West, and the Black Hills are an off-roading paradise, especially under the current rules. You can ride your ATV, dirt bike or Hummer anywhere on the national forest here except where specifically prohibited. It’s also against the law to “damage the resource” while off-roading, but this rule is almost impossible to enforce.

The new rules will reverse the current policy. Motorized off-road vehicles will be allowed only on designated trails or in designated areas.

The “user needs” questionnaire does ask whether there should be a designated trail system for the Black Hills, but I think it’s a rhetorical question. Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth already has directed forests nationwide to begin moving toward designated trail systems.

In any event, Willems said the vast majority of survey respondents favor a designated trail system. Organized off-roading groups in the Black Hills also favor a trail system. The debate in the Black Hills will be about what that system looks like.

The Forest Service survey asks a number of questions about that new trail system, including:

n Where should off-roading trails be located?

n Where should the trailheads be?

n Should there be areas where off-roaders can go cross-country?

n What areas should trails avoid?

There’s a trail behind my house in Black Hawk where I’d suggest a traffic light, but the survey didn’t address that issue.

Willems wasn’t ready last week to release details of the public comments, but he said that a number of general themes have emerged. Many respondents are calling for stricter enforcement of rules, he said, but most respondents also say the best way to achieve that is through public education — in part through better maps and signs.

Willems also is analyzing and summarizing comments from public meetings held by the off-roading subcommittee of the Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board. (The volunteer board represents various interests, including environmentalists, sportsmen, developers, various industries and local and state governments.)

The last of the subcommittee’s four public meetings will be held tomorrow night in Sundance, Wyo. (See the box.)

Willems hopes to distill all of the questionnaires and comments from the public into a database by March. Shortly thereafter, the forest advisory board will make its recommendations to the Forest Service.

Then the Forest Service will begin the long, formal process to change off-roading rules — a process mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

Willems said that next year, the Forest Service will hold pre-NEPA public “scoping” meetings, where more comments will be collected.

There will be more public meetings during the NEPA process itself, and written comments will be solicited — all of which will be synthesized, analyzed and data-based into a document the size of a telephone book.

Willems, whose heart remains in archeology, won’t have to collate NEPA data. Black Hills National Forest is hiring a permanent travel management coordinator. “It should happen soon,” he said.

The rule changes won’t happen soon. Bosworth set a national goal of September 2009 for new off-roading rules on national forests. Given the NEPA process, that doesn’t seem unreasonable.

Meanwhile, the pressure for rule changes mounts. According to the Forest Service, the total number of dirt bikes, ATVs and other off-road vehicles in the U.S increased from 2.9 million in 1993 to more than 8 million in 2003.

Maybe some trails should have passing lanes.

Reporter Bill Harlan’s column runs every other Sunday. Contact him at 394-8424 or at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com