I’d like to thank the co-chairs and members of the Joint Natural Resources and Agriculture Committee for the opportunity to testify today.

I am the Director of Conservation Programs for the Appalachian Mountain Club, and here today representing the more than 29,000 members who live in Massachusetts. Our members are avid hikers, backpackers, canoeists, kayakers, backcountry skiers, rock and ice climbers, and bicyclists (both mountain and road bikes) – and a few have also been known to enjoy taking motorized bikes and jeeps off road.

We want to register with the Committee our strong opposition to S. 1031, which would essentially cancel the Department of Environmental Management’s (DEM) policy managing the recreational use of motorized off-road vehicles (ORVs) on state forest and park lands.

AMC members have been on the receiving end of imperfect natural resource management policies enough times to know that there is a rare policy that can’t be improved. But we followed closely the DEM development of this policy and believe it to be, on the whole, a reasonable, carefully crafted attempt to responsibly redress a serious resource degradation problem.

With all due respect, approval of S. 1031 would abdicate this committee’s responsibility to ensure the responsible and effective stewardship of our state’s public lands. S. 1031 would dismiss years of DEM’s extensive outreach to many stakeholders across the state and the input and deliberation that followed in shaping this policy – including 13 public hearings, thousands of written public comments and unanimous support from the Board of Environmental Management. The bill would apply a sledgehammer to DEM’s policy when what may be called for – if anything – is the skillful use of a scalpel.

AMC’s members can relate to the concerns of off-road vehicle enthusiasts when it comes to the problem of decreasing access. We too have seen the loss of hiking trailheads and corridors and canoe put-ins and take-outs as increasing private development is crowding out recreational opportunity. But the issues here go beyond access, to the problems of serious ecological damage in our state forests and parks and unhappy conflicts with non-motorized recreationists on the trails.

ORV use has caused extensive soil erosion, damage to trailside vegetation and wetlands, trail widening, drainage problems, trenches and mud holes in our public conservation land. Illegal trails are often cut. Unchecked trail damage leads to even greater soil and vegetation loss, and in many instances, no amount of effort can restore these trails too a healthy condition. Conflicts with hikers and other non-motorized recreationists are a severe problem, as the threat of collision leading to physical injury and piercing noise ruins the outdoor experience for many.

The title of S.1031 presumes that all recreational users deserve equal access to our state forest and park trails. But the harmful impacts on these natural resources of all users are not equal. The damage caused by ORVs is several orders of magnitude greater than that caused by hikers, and restricted and managed use is highly appropriate.

The DEM’s policy sought to address all three problems – access, environmental damage and user conflict – in a reasonable and inclusive way. Many states allow no motorized use (e.g. Rhode Island, New York and Vermont) on public lands while Connecticut permits access on one short trail only and New Hampshire has limited mileage in six designated riding areas.

DEM took the more moderate course of maintaining access to more than 200 miles of designated trails (more miles than all of our neighboring states combined) in eight state forests. DEM showed responsiveness to the ORV community when produced a final policy that was less restrictive than its original proposal. Within each of the eight forests, the decisions about which trails are open to ORVs was based on comprehensive Trail Location Criteria evaluations.

The policy also seeks to engage ORV users in trail maintenance through local or regional trail user organizations, a model that rightly assumes that those users who contribute to degradation of a resource should also contribute to its restoration and maintenance. This model has worked very well with the hiking community. On the Mount Greylock State Reservation, for example, AMC organizes week-long volunteer trail crews all summer to repair erosion or re-route trails, build water bars, bog bridges and steps, clean drainages, mark trails with paint blazes or signs, remove blowdowns and clip brush. Frankly, given the extent of damage that ORV use can cause on trails, the obligation for such stewardship is even more critical.

Today, under this policy, more than 200 miles of designated ORV trails are provided to motorized recreationists. DEM’s review of the policy has revealed that trail user conflicts over the first two years of the policy have been reduced, ORV clubs are engaged in quality trail maintenance efforts and the six-month riding season has limited the damage to trails during mud season. The policy’s results are a dramatic improvement over the earlier status quo, and ought not to be undercut.

I’d like to close by sharing the essential components that we believe that any successful ORV management policy should contain:

1. Concentrate on-going ORV use in those state forests which are the most suitable sites for ORV use and disallow us in all other forests and parks. Forests with an extensive and stable network of dirt logging roads may be most able to sustain the corrosive impacts of ORV use than a forest or park with significant wetlands, key plant or animal species, shallow topsoils or sandy soils, or high concentrations of non-motorized recreation.
2. Provide the latitude (and encouragement) for supervisors to close certain trails to ORVs in those forests in which ORV use is permitted -- especially popular hiking trails, nature trails and historical trails. That same latitude should be permit forest supervisors to establish ORV-only trails.
3. Prohibit all high-impact recreational activity – such as ORVs, mountain bikes, and horseback riding – during the spring mud season. In Massachusetts, the mud season typically runs from the last snow thaws in March through May 15. We can’t stress how critical this restriction is. The extensive damage caused by riding during this season is virtually impossible to repair during the ensuing summer.
4. Involve ORV organizations in conducting trail restoration and maintenance on the trails they use on public lands. Organizations such as the Appalachian Mountain Club, New England Mountain Bike Association and others have decades of experience in designing and implementing trail construction, maintenance and training programs, and could be a resource to the ORV community.
5. Expect ORV organizations to educate their members about the DEM policy, and encourage their members to adhere to the policy and get involved in trail stewardship.
6. Ensure increased funds for adequate DEM enforcement of these rules. If there’s inadequate enforcement presence in the field then the damage to the trails will go unchecked and the conflicts among trail users will only intensify.
7. Prohibit all ORV use on the Appalachian Trail in Massachusetts, consistent with the National Park Service regulation. An additional step to prohibit ORV use on all spur trails within one-half mile of the Appalachian Trail would create a welcome noise buffer around this historic foot trail.

Thank you again for hearing us out. We’d be happy to assist the committee as it considers the best policy for managing trail use in our state forests and parks.

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