Forest Service Rules to Address ATV Disputes

June 23, 2004 -- Gerald Winer knows how he'd like to handle the all-terrain riders who transform his grated road and woods into a quagmire of muddy ruts and ridges.

He'd take a sledgehammer to their machines.

That's what he did when he got a call from a neighbor eight years ago letting him know that his teenage son had done donuts on the neighbor's field and ruined some crops.

Winer says his punishment taught his son a lesson. But now he feels powerless against the groups of ATV riders who roar through his 53 acres in Dunbarton, N.H.

"They've run my dog off the road, my wife off the road. They're cutting trees, starting fires, leaving trash," he said. "I have 53 acres that was once pristine, now it's ruined."

Dealing with trespassing and damage on private lands is up to landowners and local governments to handle. But when it comes to public lands, the U.S. Forest Service is now devising rules to manage the impact that off-road vehicles are having on the some 190 million acres of public forest in the country.

Some time this summer, the Service is expected to release a new set of regulations for off-road vehicles that they hope will offer a truce between those who like their nature quiet and those who enjoy experiencing the outdoors on four wheels.

"This is not an easy issue to tackle, but if we wait a day, a week or even a year, the impact on the lands and the issues surrounding the problem will become even harder to deal with," U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said last year. Forest Service official Joe Walsh said the new rules "are still in the making" but are expected soon.

The regulations, which may designate some areas of forest trail for off-road vehicles, while banning the vehicles from other regions and cross country travel, are in the works at a time of heightened tension between environmentalists, landowners and off-road vehicle riders.