Some ATV Users Damaging State Forests

[Joe]

Anybody see this last night?

http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=18765@wcco.dayport.com

[JohnWester]

Anybody see this last night?

http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=18765@wcco.dayport.com

damn irresponsible drivers!!
Ban all those atvs...
(that'll get a rise outta people)

[DaveI]

The former DNR employee states "how many opportunities do we provide for non motorized.........."

Answer: MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of acres where motorized vehicles are prohibited! Quite the same act the former DNR employee gave that people have seen for many many years. Nobody's biting on the bait any longer.. 

[Joe]

Dave, I'm sure that you and the folks you know are very responsable riders and I can imagine it was very upsetting when the DNR recently put their foot down, so to speak, but you can't be completely blind to an ever growing problem on our public lands. With the popularity of atvs it's only going to get worse. Prohibited means nothing to the irresponsible rider.
Take a look at a state forest like Nemadji. The DNR has completely lost control up there. It's become more of an ohv park than a state forest. I blame the DNR as much as I do the riders.

[Benny]

The DNR has lost control over almost everything they do, it the voters fault that this has happend too!!

We keep voting in these wannabe legislators who just want to get into politics to make money for them selves.

90% of them don't give a flying leprechaun as to what the DR has for funding to patrol these areas, they would rather give them selves a raise and say look what we did this year than fund the DNR or anything that doesn't fill the coffer with jing!!!

Provide funding and let the DNR enforce the current laws and then the bad apples will be getting their pocket books opened up.

Benny

[Joe]

You may be right Benny, it may all just be funding, but I also think that some of the hostilities we're seeing from both sides could have been avoided if the DNR would of handled the whole situation a little better from the beginning and I think the warning signs were there.

You couldn't of hit the nail more on the head with your statement about enforcing current laws.

I'd like to see a trail system set up thats similar to the snowmobile trail system, and it appears they are headed in that direction. It's just that they had to take such a big step backwards to even get started.

[Benny]

Yes they are trying to get the trails procured and making the existing ones designated one way or the other.

But those green people keep putting up road blocks like enviornmental studies on areas that were already raped by the mining industry.

There is no one going to tell me that there is any fragile rare shrub growing in that reject rock pits that needs any study to prove it can be harmed by an ATV.

If it was ever there before it surely was destroyed by the mine when they dumped that reject rock on it.

There are hundreds of miles of trails already made, the mines and loggers cut them years ago and are now just growing aspen trees.

They could be converted to an ATV trail and nothing would be any more damaged than when the trail was first cut there.

Those old abandoned mine dump sights can also be turned into ATV parks,that irn ore rock is almost impossible to walk on,so the hikers couldn't use it comfortably.
There is little scenery worth looking at besides a hill with a few small trees and shrubs growing out of the sides.

And the ore stains almost everything it gets on, so there really is no other suitable use for that reject rock.

BENNY