No obligation to repair damage: Grant-in-aid program funds are being used exclusively for motorized trail expansion without obligation to repair resulting motorized recreation damage to private and public property. One landowner in Northern Minnesota incurred $12,000 in damage to his property from a "grant-in-aid program trail". The local club refused to repair this damage. Elsewhere, designated hiking and ski trails have suffered damage resulting from unauthorized off-highway vehicle use. While grant-in-aid funds expand motorized access they are not made available to repair damage that can result.

This Beltrami County Park is home to designated ski, snowmobile, and ATV trails. In the past five years illegal ATV use on hiking and ski trails in this park and another nearby cross-country ski area has caused an estimated accumulated $5000 in damage to these trails, making trail sections in low areas difficult if not impossible to use by cross-country skiers. Seeking assistance from the Trails and Waterway’s Division in repairing this damage, the Bemidji Area Ski Club discovered that ATV grant-in-aid funds are not available. Furthermore, because the county has not sufficiently signed and gated these non-motorized trails, nor have they enforced non-motorized restrictions, damage continues to occur.

Three Island County Park
Click either photo to enlarge.

County Commissioners report that Aitkin County, like other counties and townships, has experienced significant ATV damage to roadway right-of-ways, driveways, and adjacent private property. Because "unrefunded" gas-taxes collected from all-terrain vehicles and other off-highway vehicles goes to "dedicated" motorized trail accounts to fund DNR Trails and Waterways Division programs and not to the local highway authorities, these funds are not available to local units of government to repair damage caused by these non-paying motorized recreationists in their right of ways.

Mn/DOT Seeks Protection of Trunk Highway Right-of-Ways from Non-paying All-terrain Vehicle Users

MN/DOT Legislative Proposal for 2002 Seeking Trunk Highway Protection from ATV damage

Proposal: "Public or private entities may not designate ATV trails to exist on truck highway right of way without demonstrating they will be able to repair damage to said right of way by users."

Background (Why the proposal is needed now):

"Public or private entities are identifying trunk highway right of way as being part of ATV trails systems they are sponsoring. ATV’s are know to cause significant erosion problems. This is in contrast to snowmobile trails where the use is over snow or packed snow which does not, in most cases, lead to subsequent, permanent erosion problems. Erosion causes harm to state waters and erosion repair causes additional maintenance for the trunk highway authority."