Santa Fe Reporter 10-31-2007
RESPECT THE LAND

In regards to a letter from ORV enthusiast W Perry [Letters, Oct. 17: “Right to Ride”] and “Down and Dirty” [Outtakes, Sept. 26]:

I am sorry, but I have had firsthand experience with ATV riders harassing my livestock, cutting fences and cutting up the ground off of trails and starting erosion and personal harassment while riding young colts.

I have hunted and fished all of my life. Anywhere that is accessible to ATVs keeps wildlife away. I personally know of people chasing coyotes and trying to run them down, tearing up everything in the process.

I am not an extremist. I care about my home and the land we are fortunate enough to enjoy. I don’t oppose to anyone using main thoroughfare roads and respecting the laws that are in place to protect our forests and wildlife. But unfortunately I have witnessed too much abuse too take your letter serious.

RICHARD STUMP
SANTA FE

THE ATV MENACE

I take exception to W Perry’s letter to the editor regarding the “Down and Dirty” battle over ATVs and dirt bikes on Forest Service land. The letter attempts to characterize those who oppose the use of off-road vehicles (ORV) on public lands as “extremists.” The definition of extremist is “one who advocates or resorts to measures beyond the norm.” ORV riders make up only 6 percent of national forest users.

The norm, in this case, is the other 94 percent who use the forest for recreation. The vast majority of the 94 percent experiences ORVs in the national forest as at least a nuisance, if not a menace. ORV use in the forest is largely incompatible with other recreational uses because of the immediate impact ORVs have on the recreational experience. Dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles can be heard for miles as they tear through the woods.

Their exhaust fumes and penchant for speed makes coexisting with them in the forest highly challenging for hikers, campers, equestrians, bicyclists and lovers of nature. ORV users are ruining public lands in both the short- term and the longterm.

I have had several encounters with ORV users where my dogs and I were endangered by their reckless, high-speed driving and by their aggressive behavior. ORVs damage the soil, pollute the water and air, disrupt wildlife and present a fire danger. For examples of the damage they cause, visit www.wswatch.org or better yet, go just about anywhere in the forest and you can see their tracks off the roads (hence the term ORV).

Allowing this small group of recreational riders to ruin the forest at the expense of everyone else is extreme, but trying to limit where they can go in the forest is like allowing a few tables in a restaurant for smokers and expecting that the rest of the patrons will not be adversely affected by their smoke.

Fortunately, the public eventually rallied to ban smoking in nearly all indoor public spaces. We need to do the same in regards to ORVs in our outdoor public spaces.

MARK WINGARD
SANTA FE

PROTECTING FORESTS

The “Right to Ride” letter to the editor you printed is a clear sign that we are working against a group of people that are not open to dialogue. How can dialogue and negotiation happen if they refer to those that are thinking differently as prohibitionists and Nazis? It is sad to hear words like, “If you hear a biker, get off the trail” or someone disregard land as being unimportant.

National forests need to be protected. If we assign land to ATVs, what kind of future are these lands going to have? They will look as wastelands, trashed and destroyed. Is that what we want? I know I don’t. I appreciate you putting this issue in your newspaper and allowing more debates about it. It would be nice to hear more from the less extremist and more articulate readers.

PAMELA YUS
GLORIETA/ROWE MESA

CRIME ON WHEELS

Dear W Perry,

It occurs to me that the vast majority of environmental damage and human tension injected into the national forests thanks to dirt bikes and four wheelers completely escapes you. You obviously have never seen a dazed and disturbed herd of Mule Deer who were rousted out of their bedding areas by such off-road vehicles. Apparently, you have never stopped to notice the stench of oil and gas mixed with clouds of mud in our precious water sources after your pals roar through on their ORVs.

Nor have you ever encountered a group of dirt bikers who, when officially informed they were about to violate a motorized vehicle closure, announced, “WE’RE GONNA RIDE ANYWAY” before they roared off. It is the lawless and irresponsible use of ORVs that has led to the general public’s conclusion that your compadres are an out-of-control pox on the land.

I suspect that to someone who feels that their right to their ride supersedes the rights of everyone and everything else, calling for a moratorium on these vehicles in our woods might seem extreme. Yet to those of us who are traditional forest users, it is the actions of the ORVers that truly represent the extreme, and it is the call of the motorized clubs to open everything to their desires that screams of Nazism.

I’m sure that you are aware of the Forest Services’ Travel Management Plan. If you are not, then allow me to inform you that a large portion of the proposed motorized routes were mapped illegally. In my own area, routes were submitted to the Forest Service that were mapped through criminal trespass, chainsawed into non-motorized areas, layed into endangered species’ habitat and illegally smashed through fence lines and gates by ORV users. Wow, I sure am glad that the off-road vehicle folks are not extremists! Just imagine what your pals would do if they were.

Go ahead and brand folks that demand a return to sanity in our forest with whatever label you wish. I don’t have to invent a label for the dirt bikers and four wheelers, they’ve already arrived at it themselves: criminals.

MICHAEL KADISAK
SANTA FE

ATV QUESTIONS

In response to W Perry and his opinions regarding ATVs and motorcycles in our national forests: I was very glad to read that you antidote your life behind the computer screen with a regular trip into nature. But I wasn’t so happy to read that your trips don’t seem to bring you enough solace to counteract your need to call those of us who are quiet recreationists Nazis, prohibitionists and extremists.

I am personally aware of at least 100 incidents on public lands that concern ATVs and motorbikes conflicting with other users of these lands, and the list grows daily. As for the damage you don’t see, I am baffled and I ask you: Can you meet Mother Nature and the wild areas without ANYONE knowing you are there? Can you leave behind the way you move, the way you think, the way you operate, to become a part of her quiet, her power, her spirit? Can you see her not only as a sanctuary for your tired soul, but also for the animals who call it home, and for other humans craving refuge? Do you realize that the more we invade the wild spaces the less all users and residents, motorized or not, have to enjoy?

I am also very concerned that you think you aren’t hurting anyone just because you ride slowly around cows and mountain bikers. What about the wildlife living in these areas? Do you ever think about how your motorcycle disturbs them and about the way you are disrupting their habitat?

DEE BLANCO
CANADA DE LOS ALAMOS

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