MRR and Snowmobiles

Minnesota's DNR Trails and Waterways Division is using general fund revenue in an attempt to purchase permanent snowmobile trail easements across private land! Minnesota property owners are withdrawing temporary easement agreements because they no longer want snowmobiles on their land. Many who provided easements to local clubs years ago for low-level use now find themselves inundated with a barrage of high-performance machines, and accompanying noise, fumes, and out-of-control behavior of operators. DNR's Trails and Waterways Division is seeking permanent right-of-way to hold Minnesota's 18,000 mile snowmobile trail system together. DNR Trails and Waterways Division has initiated its permanent easement pilot program in Hermantown in response to MRR's 1998 success in stopping development of the Duluth Cross-town Snowmobile Trail. Snowmobilers have continued to search for a link between the end of the Munger Trail in West Duluth and the beginning of the North Shore Snowmobile Trail in East Duluth. Though Hermantown snowmobilers have twice lost trail easements because of poor behavior and misrepresentations to the property owners, DNR's Trails and Waterways continues to cajole local property owners to provide permanent easement across their land. Easement Education Campaign MRR has been monitoring DNR's Trails and Waterway's permanent easement pilot program in Hermantown. MRR volunteers attended public meetings, obtained a list of targeted property owners and distributed a letter sharing our concerns regarding permanent snowmobile trail easements to this list. Some property owners have chosen to withdraw their temporary easements and Trails and Waterways Division is currently piecing together an alternative alignment. Trails and Waterways Division will seek additional general fund revenues from the legislature in 2002 to prop up the disintegrating statewide snowmobile trail system.

EASEMENT EDUCATION - Defend your land against "taking" by the DNR and snowmobile and ATV clubs!

Archive

Easement Education

• 4/16/03 Two Bills (SF580 and SF 173) Need Action before Tuesday, April 22

Help MRR Oppose Permanent Snowmobile Trail in Hermantown

• 12/2/03 City of Hermantown front-end loader building snowmobile trail without written permission from property owner near Hermantown and Ugstad Roads
• 4/11/03 MRR Testimony  to the Senate Environment, Agriculture, and Economic Development Budget Division.
• 3/24/03 Action Alert! Call  legislators today! Tell members of the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance Committee "No Public funding for permanent snowmobile trails on private property".  See announcement. 
• 3/24/03 SNOWMOBILES: Some say the state already has squandered too much money on trying to secure property easements. (Duluth News Tribune article by Scott Thistle)          * MRR FILE  
• 3/10/03 Take Action-Letters to the Editor Needed
• 3/10/03 Point of View, Duluth News Tribune
• 3/7/03 Action Alert: Contact Legislators
• Hermantown Easement Education Letter to Property Owners
• 5/22/02 Letter to the Gunflint Ranger Station - 
• Link to Office of Legislative Audit - DNR Trails Program

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