A-S Travel Management

[hikeaz]

Thank your friendly neighborhood SxS owner/driver..

After 20 years of 'pondering', the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest has released its preferred plan to control motorized vehicles in the 2-million-acre forest.

The Apache-Sitgreaves is one of just two national forests in the country that has not yet adopted a final travel management plan to ban cross-country travel in most of the forest.

A rush of off-road vehicles has caused escalating damage to streams, critical riparian areas, ranchers’ fencing, endangered species, archeological sites and other resources in the past 30 years. During that time, the Apache-Sitgreaves has been commissioning studies and seeking comments on what roads to leave open and how to accommodate things like big game retrieval and dispersed camping.

Apache-Sitgreaves ecosystems staff officer Scott Grunder briefed the Eastern Arizona Counties Association last week on the proposed plan.

The preferred alternative would include:

Reduce the number of open roads by 16%, but also increase the number of open motorized trails by 68%.
Include 2,881 miles of motorized roads open to the public.
Include 2,241 miles of roads open to both highway-legal and off-road-vehicles.
Designate 197 miles of motorized trails, including 68 miles open only to vehicles less than 68 inches wide.
Allow people to camp within 300 feet of any of the 970 miles of designated open road for dispersed camping. Most of those camping areas will lie at the end of short spur tracks off the designated road.
Allow hunters to drive cross-country to retrieve elk or bear they have shot within one mile of a designated road. That includes about 1.2 million acres. Hunters could not drive off-road, even in that area, to retrieve any other game.
Prevent off-roaders from simply driving through most streams.
Create a 17-acre open area where ORVs can still travel off-road in what amounts to a giant off-roader play area, with the resulting acceptance of the environmental damage.

The Forest Service has discarded nine other alternatives over the years. The last alternative plan standing would designate 2,201 miles of roads for motor vehicle use instead of 2,881, a roughly 24% decrease from the preferred plan. This alternative would have included only 79 miles of open road for dispersed camping instead of 970 miles.
The preferred alternative would leave almost every place in the forest within half a mile of an open road, with the exception of designated wilderness areas, according to the environmental impact study.

The EIS noted that the increase in off-road travel has caused stream-clogging erosion, killed wildlife, altered wildlife behavior, damaged critical habitat for threatened and endangered species, damaged trails, damaged many of the more than 7,000 known archeological sites in the forest, increased erosion and damaged infrastructure of both the Forest Service and ranchers with grazing leases on federal land.

However, the plan would reduce the damage by barring cross-country travel and closing poorly engineered, user-created trails across the forest.

“Use is increasing every year,” said Grunder. “You cannot believe the number of people out there who will just drive across streams. We’re seeing ongoing resource damage. The number of ORV permits Game and Fish has issued has just skyrocketed in the past 15 years. Increasingly, we can’t even clear camps ahead of wildfires because it’s just more difficult to find people.”

[Jim]

I favor increased road closures and large/larger non-wilderness roadless areas.

[chumley]

the plan would reduce the damage

The plan will change absolutely nothing. There is no enforcement of current travel regulations, and I don't expect any changes after implementing "the plan" either. The evidence is clear from other forests in Arizona where the travel management plans have been implemented. People will do what they want, and as long as there are no consequences, really, what is the point of the whole thing?