Rule-making for system of trails to begin

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer | Thursday, September 21, 2006

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

Public workshops in October and November will lay the foundation for a profound change in off-roading rules in Black Hills National Forest.

“We’re taking this to the ground now,” U.S. Forest Service travel-management planner Tom Willem said Wednesday.

A workshop in Rapid City from Oct. 12-15 is being organized by national off-roading groups. The Forest Service will hold its own workshops Nov. 13-16 throughout the Black Hills. (See the box on Page A2.)

The new rules, due in September 2009, will be a mirror image of the current regulations.

Today, off-road vehicles — from dirt bikes to Hummers — can go anywhere in Black Hills National Forest except where they are not expressly prohibited. The new rules will establish a system of designated trails and areas where off-roading is allowed. Everywhere else, motorized vehicles will be banned.

The new rule will follow a nationwide mandate from Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth to limit off-roading to designated trails.

Off-roading groups, conservation groups and local and state officials already are working with the Forest Service to hammer out trail systems in a number of national forests, including the Black Hills.

The South Dakota Off Highway Vehicle Coalition, for example, has turned in 300 miles of suggested off-roading trails, mapped precisely with global-positioning system devices. All but 30 miles, Willem said, are already on the official Forest Service system.

The Norbeck Society, mainly hikers and conservationists, on Wednesday submitted a map with dozens of areas the group recommends as off-limits to off-roaders. Society spokesman Colin Paterson said the group’s recommendations included many areas where motorized vehicles already were prohibited. “This is just a draft,” he added.

Willem said designing a trail system for the Black Hills would take time. There are 5,000 miles of official “system” roads and trails in the Black Hills, he said, and the total mileage, including unofficial, user-created trails, would total 9,000 miles.

Preparations for the rule changes here began last year with a series of public meetings organized by the Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board — a federally chartered board of volunteers representing more than a dozen interest groups.

The advisory board’s off-roading subcommittee already has submitted its recommendations for the new rules, which have been passed on to the governors of South Dakota and Wyoming.

Willem told the advisory board Wednesday that the state of South Dakota had approved $212,000 in grants — from federal highway funds — to fence and sign sensitive areas where off-roading is already banned in the Black Hills, to repair damage already done and to create education programs.

Advisory board member Jim Scherrer of Hill City said the Forest Service grant writers and the state of South Dakota should get credit for taking an essential step toward a trail system — finding cash. “This is the potential difference between this thing happening now and happening five years from now,” Scherrer said.

Early next year, the Forest Service will begin the long, formal process of creating a trail system, under the guidelines of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. There will be public hearings, a lengthy analysis and a decision-making process that will take all of two years.

Before that starts, however, there will be workshops that Willem said would include “people standing around tables drawing lines on maps.”

The four-day October workshop, Willem said, would be a “how to” primer on making a rule that complies with the Forest Service’s new national rule.

The “OHV Route Designation Workshop” is being organized by the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council. Gregg Mumm of Rapid City, who directs the Idaho-based BlueRibbon Coalition — a group that represents tens of thousands of off-roaders — said the sessions were being held throughout the country. “This is an important workshop that all the major national recreation groups collaborated on to develop,” he said. It includes sessions on how enthusiasts can “influence route designation” and communicate with agencies.

But Willem said organizers modified the workshop in Rapid City and agreed to open it to anyone and any group. “We told them that’s the way we do it in the Black Hills,” he said.

The Thursday and Friday sessions are mainly for Forest Service personnel and professionals in other agencies. The sessions Saturday and Sunday are aimed at off-roading enthusiasts. But anyone can attend any session.

The four Forest Service workshops in November, Willem said, will get down to specifics, “with people standing around tables drawing lines on maps.”

Information and suggestions developed in October and November, Willem said, would be put through a NEPA filter next year.

The Forest Service also has invited Gov. Mike Rounds to help form a joint task force to develop trails in partnership, similar to the way the state runs snowmobile trails in Black Hills National Forest. The partnership also could include licensing and fees for off-road vehicles, shared law enforcement and designation of gateway communities to the trail system.

The result, expected in about three years, would be a system of mapped and marked trails for off-roading.

“The Forest Service is taking the baton, and we’re off and running,” Willem said.

Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com