Groups go to court over use of public lands
Copyright 2000 Associated Press
December 18, 2000
LAS CRUCES, N.M. - The battle between off-road vehicle users and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over public lands may have to be settled in court.
The Southwest Four Wheel Drive Association and the Las Cruces Four Wheel Drive Club filed a lawsuit last summer against the BLM over road closures in the Robledo Mountains of southern New Mexico.
The Wilderness Alliance and the national Wilderness Society recently sided with the BLM in the lawsuit.
"The primary reason that the lawsuit was filed is we feel a government agency has inappropriately and illegally closed land to public access," said Homer Van Zandt, president of the Southwest Four Wheel Drive Association.
Environmentalists say the fragile ecosystem is damaged by dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles.
"It's quickly becoming the No. 1 threat to wild land throughout the West," said Edward Sullivan, executive director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.
The problems in the Robledo Mountains began when the BLM closed some trails in a section set aside as a possible wilderness area.
"I found that there were increased levels of impact to the wilderness values and the scenic values of the Robledo Mountains," said Mark Hakkila, natural resources specialist in the BLM's Las Cruces office.
At the same time the closures were enacted, Hakkila said he worked with the off-roaders to open new and challenging trails.
"I planned them to be in the canyon bottoms," he said. "They're pretty much hidden down there."
Even though the off-roaders like the canyon trails, they sued in June because they didn't think the BLM should have limited their access to other trails.
Greg Magee, a Las Cruces landscape architect, regularly hikes in the Robledos.
"What I've seen blows me away," Magee said referring to tire tracks going up and over a 4-foot-high rock ledge and damage to vegetation.
The popularity growth of off-roading is also evident in the Santa Fe National Forest near Abiquiu.
Sullivan of the Wilderness Alliance visited a section of the Santa Fe National Forest earlier this year.
"This is unbelievable," he said as he looked up at a series of seven tracks going up a hillside too steep to hike. "You can see how after continued use, the ruts become really deep and those are automatic channels for runoff," Sullivan said.
The Forest Service and the BLM have spent much of this year grappling with how to manage off-road vehicle use.
Off-roading is allowed on Forest Service land, but only on trails that are not marked with closed signs.
"The signs are often purposefully taken down because many people know that with the 'open unless marked closed' law, no sign means no ticket if they get caught," Sullivan said. "The law is almost an incentive to tear down the signs."
Environmentalists say people go out and create new roads all the time, but "in reality, I don't think that happens very much," said Mark Werkmeister of New Mexico 4-Wheelers.
He also denied the charge that people are taking down signs.
"We're environmentalists, too. We're conservationists. The reason we do what we do is because the outdoors is beautiful and we want to enjoy it," he said.