A new group of retired land managers and forest rangers said Thursday that reckless off-road vehicle recreation was the No. 1 threat to public lands in the West.
The 13-member Rangers for Responsible Recreation said it was voicing the concerns of many federal land management employees in the West, including in California, who report that an increasing number of riders and the growing power of the vehicles are endangering natural resources and public safety.
Spokesmen for the group were participating in a teleconference from Tucson that was arranged by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. PEER, which describes itself as an "alliance of local, state and federal resource professionals," helped found the new organization.
Damage from off-road vehicles is worst when riders leave designated routes and head into sensitive areas such as fragile desert and riparian zones, members of the new group said.
Jim Baca, who headed the Bureau of Land Management under President Clinton, said the cumulative effect was serious for watersheds.
Matt Chew, former ecologist with Arizona State Parks, said, "Creeks are often the most drivable places, so they become highways."
Fences and signs are often cut down, group members said.
Agencies have suffered sharp budget and staff cuts in recent years -- especially in the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service -- making it more difficult to police legal trails and close illegal ones, members said.
Illegal trails are blazed regularly, making it difficult for future riders to distinguish legal from illegal routes, they said.
In California, about 45,000 miles of roads and routes are open to off-road vehicles, according to Forest Service officials.
Tom Egan, a former wildlife biologist with the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service in California, said that improper off-roading "causes erosion; contaminates streams; spreads invasive plants; kills, harasses and stresses wildlife; and creates noise in certain environments that are not pleasing to certain individuals like landowners or other recreationists."
Illegal activity is rampant in southeastern California, especially in fast-growing areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties where new neighborhoods consume open space.
Group members said they were not trying to prevent motorized recreation.
