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October 1, 2003 Via Facsimile

Gregg Downing

Environmental Quality Board

300 Centennial Building

658 Cedar Street

St. Paul, MN 55155

Dear Mr. Dowing;

Please accept the following as public comment on your Request for Comments on EQB’s Possible Adoption of Mandatory Environmental Review and Exemption Categories for Recreational Trails on behalf of MRR’s 700 members. Thank you for agreeing to accept these comments via fax and to accept the below mentioned attachments being mailed to you today into the public record.

Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation, MRR, urges the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board (EQB) to adopt rules requiring mandatory review of all all-terrain vehicle (ATV), dirt-bike motorcycle, and four-wheel drive truck routes and use areas. There is substantial evidence regarding the design and use of these off-highway vehicles (OHVs), the political-economic structure of Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources, and the need to preserve the public’s singular legal right to review establishment of such routes and use areas which supports the need to adopt mandatory review.

There is substantial and overwhelming evidence that off-highway vehicles by their design and intended use have the potential for significant environmental effects, warranting mandatory public and environmental review of routes and use areas provided for these machines on public lands and/or with public funds. This evidence is extensively reviewed in the following two documents to be attached to these comments for inclusion in the record: MRR’s 1999 report, Off-Highway Vehicles in Minnesota, and the 2003 Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor’s Program Evaluation Report: State-Funded Trails for Motorized Recreation. Thank you for accepting these "attached" documents, which are being mailed to you today, into the public record.

In brief, ATVs, dirt-bike motorcycles and four-wheel drive trucks are designed to travel great distances across forested lands, streams and wetlands, thus the reference to "off-highway

vehicles". In doing so they have the potential for significant impacts on vegetation, soils, water, wetlands, fish and wildlife, and air quality. These impacts are reviewed on pages 3 – 13 of the attached report, Off-Highway Vehicles in Minnesota. Photographic documentation of these impacts is provided in Appendix B of the report. These machines also have the potential for significant noise impacts which lead to the displacement of those seeking quiet on Minnesota’s public lands, whom, data shows are the vast majority of Minnesotans. A discussion of this data and these impacts is provided on pages 14 – 22 of our report. Please note that prior to publication, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) confirmed the factual accuracy of this report.

Beyond evidence provided in MRR’s report, the need for mandatory environmental review is corroborated in the attached 2003 audit of the DNR’s motorized trail program. On page 30, the report states:

"We believe that OHV trail projects should also be a mandatory category for three reasons. First, many projects in other "linear corridors" such as pipelines, transmission lines, and roads are already mandatory categories. Second, as we discussed earlier in this chapter, in many cases, OHV trails may have the potential for significant environmental impact. Third, OHVs are highly controversial and likely to be then subject of lawsuits as demonstrated by the OHV plans. Minnesota could avoid some future litigation and its associated costs and delays by requiring an EAW up front and making environmental assessment more transparent to the public."

Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources has well-documented history of favoring the development of OHV access to public land and the needs of users of these machines over the need for environmental review and the needs of non-motorized users.

"The DNR’s effort to plan a statewide OHV trail system has been inadequate… The DNR failed to develop its three planning elements. Specifically, the planning effort lacked (1) detailed information about their community’s recreational needs, (2) a thorough examination to protect the environment, and (3) fiscal information about the cost of developing, administering, maintaining, and enforcing the trail system that was proposed" (Program Evaluation Report: State-Funded Trails for Motorized Recreation, page 19).

The audit also finds that the DNR and counties that administer public "grant-in-aid" funds to snowmobile and ATV clubs for trail building, provide little or no oversight as to how these funds are used, often resulting in damage to wetlands and other sensitive areas and encroachment on private property.

"We found 32 cases of trails allegedly being developed or maintained in violation of regulations in the last five years (page 35). …We found that 39 percent of the files for the traditional snowmobile and OHV grants were missing an up-to-date list of landowners. In addition, we found that just over 60 percent of the grant-in-aid files that we reviewed were missing a map of the trail alignment (page 42). ..DNR and the local government trail sponsors have provided little oversight of the grant-in-aid programs, leaving clubs to largely operate on their own (page 40)."

In recommending reform of DNR policies and practices the audit states:

"DNR should set up a schedule of reductions in future grants for violations of program requirements, including not following federal, state, and local regulations (page 58)."

Most important to note is that the DNR’s response to audit findings and recommendations has been to avoid reform by actively working to weaken the rules rather than correct problems to meet the standards already provided. The request to amend the very EQB rules in question by exempting categories of OHV trails was initiated by the DNR’s Deputy Commissioner Holstein in a April 29, 2003 letter to Senator Dallas Sams in order to put the DNR on a fast track of trail development.

Furthermore, it was Commissioner Holstein, according to Representative Alice Hausman, who weakened legislative language to implement the audit recommendation which would hold clubs accountable for their illegal and high-impact trail building. Representative Hausman reports that when, during the final days of the 2003 legislative session, she offered an amendment to the DNR’s finance bill that would have required that "the DNR commissioner must withhold grant-in-aid funds from clubs that violate the terms of their grants or the law", it was Commissioner Holstein, lobbying others in the hallway, that nullified the meaning and purpose of this amendment by changing the word "must" to "may".

That the DNR is compelled to weaken the environmental standards they must follow, and compelled to continue to provide public funds to clubs who violate the terms of their grants and/or the law, is reason alone to preserve the public’s singular right to review and intervene in development of DNR OHV proposals. In the absence of implementation of audit recommendations, mandatory environmental review is irreplaceable.

Not only has the DNR worked to weaken the standards it must follow but it continues to attempt to insulate itself from genuine public review, making preservation of the public’s singular legal right to call for review essential. It is MRR’s experience with the DNR that when "backed into a corner" with evidence of the need for reform, rather that respond proactively, the agency changes the jargon it uses and recreates its format for public participation creating endless confusion for those attempting to de-mystify the OHV planning process. In 2000 the DNR opened over 95% of Minnesota’s state forests to OHV travel making Minnesota a virtual island of unrestricted OHV use among neighboring states. To assuage public concern the agency labeled this forest classification as "managed" and latter added the phrase "managed use on managed trails". That the DNR has managed neither OHV use or trails was made clear in the recent audit.

Furthermore, while the DNR has recently insisted that it is engaged in in-house reform and involving a greater number of stakeholders, and that the public will be invited to comment on future OHV proposals, this is contradicted by the facts. While MRR has made constant requests over the years to be included in DNR mailings and discussions we are continually in the position of having to request such information upon discovery.

A letter sent to the DNR Commissioner on May 16, 2003 expressing concerns over proposed trail construction in the Finland State Forest, did not receive a response until September 27, 2003 declaring "official opening of the ATV trail". While the agency laid out its plans to develop OHV routes in selected state forests at a September 11, 2003 meeting in Virginia, MRR was neither notified of this meeting nor of the DNR’s plans. An August 29, 2003 focus group in which representatives of each of Minnesota’s motorized advocacy groups were invited to express what "has and has not worked well for your group and its constituents, and what kinds of program relationships are important to you" excluded MRR and other critical observers of the DNR. (While the DNR invited token participation from a Minnesota nordic ski group, it did not by any stretch of the imagination, provide balanced representation in these feedback sessions.)

Mandatory public and environmental review of DNR OHV proposals is necessary because the DNR is beholden to the motorized groups it deems as its paying "clients". Motorized recreation in Minnesota is big business. It is a business that is well subsidized by the public and from which a host of motorized users and public employees draw benefit. MRR believes it is the collection of public gas-tax funds to subsidize motorized access to public lands which has such a firm hold on the DNR bureaucracy and specifically the Trails and Waterways Division whose mission is to administer these funds. Millions of dollars in public funds have been deposited in "dedicated accounts" in the Trails and Waterways Division for snowmobiles, ATVs, dirt-bike motorcycles, and four-wheel drive trucks over the past few decades. In 2002, for example approximately a half-million dollars was deposited in a dedicated account for snowmobilers who already enjoyed a 5 million-dollar balance in the Trails and Waterways Division despite the fact that there has been very little snow in recent winters on which to ride a snowmobile. And this while the state was suffering from a $4.5 billion deficit and essential services were being cut.

It was MRR’s interest in "following this money trail" that lead MRR members to call for the 2003 audit of the DNR’s motorized trail program. As witnessed in the recent focus group and throughout the state audit, it is the DNR’s first priority to serve and take comment from those "clients" with the largest "dedicated" accounts. Regarding the sacred cow of motorized recreation in Minnesota and the DNR that milks it, there is no separation of church and state.

A vivid and symbolic example of the DNR’s institutionalized lack of objectivity and separation from motorized groups is the DNR truck in the Tower area carrying a dirt-bike motorcycle with a decal prominently displayed on the rear window declaring the driver’s membership and support for the All-terrain Vehicle Association of Minnesota.

"Off-road vehicles have damaged every kind of ecosystem found in the United States: sand dunes covered with American beach grass on Cape Cod; pine and cypress woodlands in Florida; hardwood forests in Indiana; prairie grasslands in Montana; chaparral and sagebrush hills in Arizona; alpine meadows in Colorado; conifer forests in Washington; arctic tundras in Alaska. In some cases the wound will heal naturally; in others they will not, at least for millennia."

An excerpt from the report Off-road Vehicles on Public Lands, by the While House Council on Environmental Quality

Sincerely,

Jeff Brown,

Executive Director