1-3-03

MRR Action Alert!

- Audit of DNR Motorized Trail Program to be Released -

The Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) will release their audit of the DNR’s motorized trail program, requested during the last session by legislators and Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation, this Wednesday, January 8 at 1:00 and 2:00 p.m.. The full report, will be available at 1:00 on the OLA’s website at www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us and in printed form at the OLA office in Room 140 of the Centennial Building, 658 Cedar Street, St. Paul. At 2:00 the Legislative Audit Commission will release the report in a hearing in Room 15, Capital Building, St. Paul. The DNR will have an opportunity to respond to the audit findings at this time.

Members of Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation worked with legislators during the 2002 session to request this audit after providing evidence that public funds are being illegally disbursed to local snowmobile and ATV clubs who are bulldozing illegal roads on public and private land, and causing extensive environmental damage without accountability. To convince the state to proceed with the audit MRR provided legislators and the OLA with a binder of photographs and pubic documents (available on MRR’s website at www.MnResponsibleRec.org.) MRR recently provided the Lake County District Court with similar evidence in requesting the state complete an Environmental Impact Statement and close high-impact ATV trails in the Findland State Forest, Tettegoche State Park and along the Superior Hiking Trail

Key legislators expected to attend Wednesday’s hearing include Senator Ann Rest, Chair, Leg Audit Commission, Representative Alice Hausman a leader in motorized recreation reform, and the chairs of relevant committees.

Two Actions to take:

1. Attend this Wednesday’s hearing, review the OLA’s report and share your comments to be included in a press statement to be released shortly afterward.

2. Contact your legislators, encourage them to read the OLA’s report and to follow MRR’s analysis. Tell them to support MRR’s bill, HF1551/SF1381, which would prioritize the use of motorized recreation funds for repair and restoration, environmental and public review, and enforcement of motorize recreation laws.

More background information below (same attached).

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The following three copyrighted articles appear in the January, 2003 issue of MRR’s The Voice:

Minnesotans unwittingly pay millions to high-impact motorized recreation while parks and schools are closed: Audit of DNR Motorized Trail Program Due in January by Jeff Brown, Co-Director

(For more background information on the legislative audit of the DNR’s motorized trail program see the Summer, 2002 issue of The Voice and evidence binder at www.MnResponsibleRec.org.)

The truth can be painful. Every time you put gas in your family vehicle a mandated portion of the tax ($.20/gallon) collected on that sale is deposited in "dedicated accounts" in the DNR Trails and Waterways Division to provide motorized recreation access to Minnesota’s public lands and waters. Based on "Use and Consumption Studies" completed in the early 1980s our legislature mandated under Minnesota Statute 29a.18 that the following proportions be dedicated annually to motorized recreation:

Motorboats 1.5 %

Snowmobiles 1.0 %

ATVs .15 of 1%

Dirt-bike Motorcycles .046 of 1%

Four-wheel drive Trucks .164 of 1%

As a result, over $12 million dollars had accumulated in Trails and Waterways Division accounts at the beginning of the fiscal year for the promotion of snowmobiles, ATVs, dirt-bike motorcycles, and four-wheel drive trucks alone ($1,766,272 dedicated in FY 2002).

These public funds are disbursed to local snowmobile and ATV clubs (via counties who act as club’s fiscal agents) by the Trails and Waterways Division to bulldoze trails on public and private land. In the past few years MRR members have documented that disbursement of these funds is causing widespread environmental damage without accountability and without obligation to repair this damage. (See related articles in this issue of The Voice on the DNR’s ATV trail prototype, MRR’s legislation, and the legislative task force on OHVs.)

MRR believes that these dedicated gas-tax funds are literally fueling the irresponsible expansion of motorize recreation in Minnesota. Snowmobilers, who years ago already had more trail miles than Minnesota has highways, now boast 20,000 miles of "dedicated" trails. Off-highway vehicle riders who have nearly absolute access to 95% of our state forest lands are anxious to cash in on the nearly $8 million waiting for them in OHV accounts. As the DNR stated in a recent ATV proposal "the actual effect of [off-highway vehicle trail] designation will be to make [gas-tax] funds available from the DNR…to local club[s].

MRR believes the perpetual funding of motorized recreation in Minnesota has created a "more gas you burn the more trails you earn" attitude. It has also created as sense of obligation among some Trails and Waterways Division staff whose salaries are generated by motorized users of our public lands and a sense of entitlement among these users who have come to view these public funds as their own private accounts. This is unconscionable when the state has a $4.5 billion deficit, social services are being cut and neighbor schools and state park campgrounds are being closed.

For this reason MRR members convinced over 40 legislators in 2002 to request an audit of the DNR Trails and Waterways motorized trail program. That audit is due to be released this January.

The following will be distributed to your legislators in the Minnesota Environmental Partnership Legislative Briefing Book. Watch for announcement of this session’s "MRR Lobby Day" in the mail. Last year’s lobby day was an enormous success with the vote to conduct a legislative audit of the DNR’s motorized trail program.

ATVs, dirt-bike motorcycles, and four-wheel drive trucks are damaging Minnesota’s public lands and waters and displacing Minnesotans who seek quiet, safe, healthy places to live and recreate. The manufacture and marketing by Minnesota corporations of easy to drive all-terrain vehicles and publicly funded open access to state land has led to a proliferation of user created de facto roads and scramble areas throughout Minnesota. Damage to vegetation, soils, water quality, wildlife habitat, and solitude has become commonplace statewide. State forests and parks, wildlife management areas, state trails and other treasured places such as the Superior Hiking Trail, North Country Trail, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and Voyageurs National Park are suffering from the impacts of these machines.

Current laws and practices allow and even promote these unwanted impacts. Over 95% of Minnesota’s state forests have been "permanently classified" by the DNR’s Trails and Waterways Division as "open" to off-highway vehicles. No neighboring state allows such open access. Random unwanted impacts inherent to this open access is compounded by the fact that off-highway vehicle enforcement is grossly underfunded. While the state employs 525 state troopers to patrol our highways we employ fewer than 150 conservation officers to patrol our public lands statewide.

Fueling the damage to Minnesota’s public lands are motorized recreation "gas-tax accounts" dedicated for the purpose of promoting motorized access to public and private land. These public funds are disbursed by the Trails and Waterways division to local ATV clubs and individuals to expand access with no obligation to repair damage and enforce existing laws and with little accountability or oversight. This funding system, which largely subsidizes the Trails and Waterways division, has created a culture of entitlement on the part of off-highway vehicle users and a culture of obligation on the part of DNR Trails and Waterways Division staff.

MRR’s bill, HF 1551/SF1381, would protect our public lands by providing the following:

• "Designated routes ONLY" policy for lands on which off-highway vehicle use is to occur
• Environmental and public review of proposed routes to select appropriate routes for designation
• Adequate enforcement to keep riders on these designated routes

• Prioritization of motorized recreation "dedicated gas-tax accounts" to fund environmental review, repair accumulating damage, and hire additional conservation officers

HF 1551/SF1381 would also provide a motorized recreation enforcement hot-line and automobile-size license plates to make it easier for enforcement officials to identify errant riders.

MRR Asks Court for Environmental Impact Statement, Restoration of Wetlands, and Trail Closures on DNR "ATV trail prototype" proposal, by Jeff Brown, Co-Director

In response to MRR’s persistent challenges in the media, courts, and legislature the DNR has unveiled what it is calling its "ATV trail prototype" in Lake County in Northeast Minnesota. Innocuously entitled the "Moosewalk/Mooserun ATV Trail", the DNR is proposing conversion of 35 miles of snowmobile trails and 6.6 miles of state hiking trail to ATV use. On its June, 2002 Finland State Forest ATV Trail map the DNR indicates that these trail proposals are "Phase 2" and "Phase 3" of a forest-wide system that includes longer stretches of the North Shore State Trail, Tettegouche State Park, and Bean Lake on the Superior Hiking Trail.

Last Christmas Eve the DNR issued an Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) on its proposal, giving Minnesotans on holiday 30 days to comment. Inspecting the proposed route local MRR members discovered that much work had already been completed by a local snowmobile/ATV club which bulldozed a swath up to 50’ through wetlands and adjacent to designated trout streams. On one stretch the club had built a road through a standing wetland leaving all the trees and other vegetation on one side dead and dying. In its latent attempt to mitigate this damage the DNR proposes the installation of 30 culverts in this 30 mile loop of "trail", a high-impact activity of its own. The DNR’s EAW reviewed the impacts of these so-called mitigations rather that the inherent impacts of ATVs on the forest.

MRR immediately began a wider investigation of the damage. Through a string of Minnesota Data Practices Act requests MRR discovered that the DNR had illegally disbursed gas-tax funds to the local snowmobile/ATV club without required permits, including public funds for an illegal spur "trail" which was constructed during the environmental review period. Project construction during environmental review is expressly prohibited by the Minnesota Environmental Protection Act. As MRR’s investigation widened it was discovered that additional portions of the North Shore State Trail had effectively been converted to ATV use when the DNR built an ATV route connecting the Moosewalk/Mooserun system with routes in Tettegouche State Park.

MRR members, seeking a higher level of review from the DNR for its plans for the area, included the above information in public comment (See these comments on MRR’s website) in asking the DNR to complete a more thorough Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The DNR denied this request.

Given the accumulated damage to sensitive areas, illegal activity, and the total lack of accountability on the part of the DNR, local club, and county (which acts as the fiscal agent for the club) MRR went before The Honorable Kennith A. Sanvik in Lake County District Court on December 16 and requested that an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be ordered. In a separate but related action, under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA), MRR is also asked the court to order the DNR to repair and restore damaged areas, and to close and reroute high impact ATV trails.

In asking the court to order an EIS MRR will made the following four basic arguments:

• The DNR used the wrong baseline for environmental review, reviewing the impacts of its proposed route construction while not reviewing the impacts of ATVs on unimpaired forests and wetlands
• The DNR record of decision failed to include substantial evidence (provided during the comment period) to support its refusal of an EIS
• Portions of the "Moosewalk/Mooserun ATV Trail" were built during the EAW process in violation of Minnesota law
• The DNR used the EAW, not to review potential impacts, but to justify a predetermined decision.

The court will make its decision, known as "summary judgement", regarding further environmental review based on a review existing records – the DNR’s EAW, public comments, DNR record of decision, evidence of illegality. The MERA claim for "injunctive relief" would be heard in a trial currently scheduled for March 31. The DNR has asked the court to dismiss MRR’s request for reparations and trail closures. The court will have 90 days to decide whether to order the EIS and whether to allow a trial.

To view photographic evidence of OHV damage in the Finland State Forest, MRR’s Memorandums of Law discussing our legal arguments go to MRR’s website.