Groups Want SUVs, Off-Road Vehicles Banned from National Parks
12/28/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Groups want sport-utilities, off-road vehicles banned from
national parks
Source: The Detroit Free Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 28, 1999
Byline: Janet Fix
Sport-utility and all-terrain vehicles might be added to the list of
endangered species in the nation's national parks in 2000.
If environmental groups get their way, the hot-selling vehicles would
be banned from off-road, back-country areas - and even from dirt
trails or unpaved roads in many national parks, such as Michigan's
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Snowmobiles and personal
watercraft would be banned from national parks entirely.
Earlier this month, the Bluewater Network and 67 other environmental
groups urged the National Park Service to prohibit recreational use
of off-road vehicles in 23 of the national parks where they are
allowed. They also want tougher enforcement in 40 national parks,
including Pictured Rocks, where restrictions on off-road vehicles are
in force.
In a separate petition, the Wilderness Society and 100 other groups
asked the U.S. Forest Service to ban all-terrain vehicles in 64
million acres of roadless territory in the 192-million-acre national
forest system.
The groups want to stop hot-dogging off-roaders - like the owner of a
new sport-utility caught this month mired in sand at Pictured Rocks -
from destroying dunes, polluting the air, disturbing natural habitats
and killing wildlife.
"He told us he'd seen an ad on TV that showed a sport-utility going
downhill, and he wanted to try it," said Pictured Rocks Chief Ranger
Larry Hach. "He got down OK, but he couldn't get back up."
The adventure cost the vehicle owner a $100 fine and a tow bill.
While this sort of off-road travel is banned in Pictured Rocks, park
rangers have ticketed more than 15 violators in the last five years.
Environmentalists cite this as one of many reasons the National Park
Service needs to keep all vehicles on paved or gravel roads and adopt
tougher rules on off-road travel. Environmentalists say off-road
vehicles crush plants, harm wildlife and disrupt the calm and quiet
of nature.
"Public lands have become sacrifice zones for motorized cowboys to
get their kicks," said Russell Long, executive director of the
Bluewater Network, a San Francisco-based group. "Our national parks
were never intended to be amusement parks for motorized vehicles."
Bluewater identified 19 parks as sites of extensive off-road vehicle
use - and 23 other parks, including Pictured Rocks, as having less
but unacceptable off-road use.
Bluewater defines off-road vehicles as sport-utilities, jeeps and
such all-terrain vehicles as dune, dirt and swamp buggies. Two-wheel
dirt bikes are not on the list, because the group has not fully
studied their impact, Long said.
The Wilderness Society petition does not specifically target sport-
utility vehicles.
There are 379 national parks, lake shores and cultural sites under
the National Park Service. Of those, 55, including California's
Yosemite, are national parks.
In Michigan, there are four national parks: Pictured Rocks National
Lakeshore, Isle Royal National Park, Sleeping Bear Dunes National
Lakeshore and Keweenaw National Historical Park.
(Congress recently designated Michigan as the National Automotive
Heritage Site, one of a dozen heritage sites under National Park
Service control.)
Currently the rules on off-road use vary, depending on the park or
lakeshore.
And that, environmentalists contend, is the problem. "The rules need
to be uniform," Long said.
Generally, off-road vehicles can travel on any paved or gravel road
or any unpaved dirt road or trail - unless posted as off-limits,
National Park Service spokesman Dave Barna said. During winter, off-
roaders may use any road traveled by two-wheel-drive vehicles in
summer.
Snowmobiling is allowed on a groomed road system in 33 national
parks, including Yellowstone, which straddles Wyoming, Montana and
Utah.
The Park Service has not ruled on a petition Bluewater and other
groups filed in January seeking to ban snowmobiling on all national
park land, Barna said.
In Michigan, where there are 295,000 registered snowmobiles, the
vehicles can travel from Dec. 31 to March 31 on 6,000 miles of
groomed trails, said John Griffin, president of the Michigan
Snowmobile Association, a Grand Rapids-based group with 22,000
members. Half of those miles are on state and federal lands, he said.
A key route runs from Grand Marais to Munising and through the
boundaries of Pictured Rocks, so any ban on snowmobiles in national
parks is a "really important issue to all Michigan snowmobilers,"
Griffin said.
Barna said the Park Service acknowledges that there is a place in
some national parks for off-road-type vehicles, but the service
believes that not all vehicles should be in all parks.
For example, he said, personal watercraft are acceptable on manmade
lakes in recreation areas designed for such purposes, Barna said. The
Park Service has proposed a ban in 55 national parks, including
Yellowstone and Yosemite, as early as next summer.
"It's a matter of looking at what is appropriate before somebody
backs a trailer hitch up to the Lincoln Memorial and drops off
something," Barna said.
The Park Service would not ban sport-utility vehicles from paved or
gravel roads, because "most people obey the rules," Barna said, or
simply leave their vehicles parked at a trailhead or in a parking
lot. But there are enough sport-utility vehicles now that the Park
Service is concerned about their impact when driven off designated
roads.
"They've become very popular, and advertisements show them driven
rapidly down wilderness roads, so people seem to think that's part of
the experience of owning one," Barna said. "We are concerned, so we
are looking at what we can do."
Potential bans on snowmobiles and sport-utility vehicles pose a
double threat for Michigan snowmobilers, many of whom haul
snowmobiles behind sport-utility vehicles. They argue that current
rules protect the nation's parks and forests. They note this is just
the latest assault by environmentalists on motorized vehicles.
"We've been fighting them for 30 years," said Chris Jourdain,
executive director of the American Council of Snowmobile
Associations, which is based in East Lansing and represents 27 state
associations with 1.5 million members nationwide.
"They're not just after snowmobiles. They want to keep all motorized
vehicles out of national parks and forests," she said. "There are
limitations and bans in lots of parks already. It's sad they now want
to ban us completely."
Indeed, the Park Service is looking at reducing the overall number of
cars and trucks at the largest parks by providing mass transit.
"Radical environmentalists are trying to lock up the national forests
and national parks from all user groups, even people on foot,"
Griffin said. "We want to conserve what we have for our children and
our grandchildren, too. But excluding groups from parks is not
conserving them. It's limiting their use."
Where they are legal
National parks where recreational off-road vehicle use is allowed,
according to the Bluewater Network:
Assateague Island National Seashore, Virginia
Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Alaska
Big Bend National Park, Texas
Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida
Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona
Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts
Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina
Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina
Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
Death Valley National Park, California
Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska
Dinosaur National Monument, Utah and Colorado
Fire Island National Seashore, New York
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona
Great Smoky National Park, Tennessee
Joshua Tree National Park, California
Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada
Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, Texas
Little River Canyon National Preserve, Alabama
Mojave National Preserve, California