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Background

Despite over thirty years of off-highway vehicle use in Minnesota, the state has yet to come up with a comprehensive off-highway vehicle plan that rigorously, clearly and neutrally establishes a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable scale of use. While roads and other valuable programs remain unfunded or underfunded, motorized route development continues to expand beyond what the state and its citizens can afford. Tell your legislators that it is simply unacceptable to continue to expand route mileages for all-terrain vehicles, dirt bike motorcycles, and off-road four-wheel drive trucks without a clear plan developed openly with the citizens of Minnesota.

The St. Louis County Board of Commissioners, at its Tuesday, March 20 meeting in Duluth, voted to send the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ plan for designating ATV routes in the Cloquet Valley State Forest forward to the public review phase. Although it was not publicized as such, this vote was a "yes" vote indicating our county's approval of the plan, which provides over 800 miles of open routes for ATVs, dirt bike motorcycles, and off-road four-wheel drive trucks. The county and the state are under no obligation to alter the Cloquet Valley State Forest plan based on input received in the public hearings, and past state forest plans have been largely unchanged by "public input." The Cloquet Valley State Forest is unique in that about 85% of the land within its boundaries is administered by the county: this means that your commissioners have the power to change this plan. Hold them accountable for doing it right: once this plan is finalized it will be very difficult to change. A 2001 Saint Louis County Outdoor Recreation Participation Survey indicated that the vast majority of Saint Louis County citizens value non-motorized recreation in untrammelled settings. Hold your commissioners accountable for the views of all their constituents, not just a vocal minority.

MRR seeks middle ground in the designation of routes for ATVs in the Cloquet Valley and other Minnesota state forests.  MRR supports plans that address and implement each of the below Five Standards for Protecting Minnesota  and calls on the St. Louis County Board of Commissioners to implement these standards as they consider ATV routes for the Cloquet Valley State Forest. Unfortunately, the current proposal fails to meet these standards as outlined below.

MRR has e-mailed a memo to St. Louis County Commissioners calling on them to implement the below Five Standards for Protecting Minnesota . They want and need to hear from their constituents. Please contact them with your concerns.

Additional background on the DNR's ATV plan for the Cloquet Valley State Forest.

Current Cloquet Valley State Forest Proposal Fails to Meet Five Standards for Protecting Minnesota:

1.  Public and environmental review - i.e. the completion of Environmental Assessment Worksheets (EAWs) - to select routes.  An EAW is a three-page, thirty question worksheet that requires proposers of ATV routes to examine and address potential unwanted ATV effects on soils, vegetation, wetlands, water quality, air quality, fisheries, wildlife and adjacent recreation activities.  Completion of EAWs on proposed ATV routes is the number one recommendation of the 2003 Legislative Auditor’s Report.  While public hearings may be held, only the EAW process allows concerned citizens to hold proposers accountable in addressing potential unwanted effects.

• Your commissioners have the power to send this plan back to the drawing board. They also have the power to require EAW's on off-highway vehicle route designations on county-administered lands.

• Without an EAW on file, citizens have little legal recourse to challenge unacceptable development plans.

• The current proposal was developed using a Rapid Environmental Assessment Checklist that simply does not provide sufficient review of the diverse environmental effects of proposed routes.

• DNR spent many months developing this proposal. Citizens have two months to respond to a very complex plan and set of issues.

 

 2.  Designated routes only policy requiring machines to stay on selected routes.  ATV use must be limited to selected routes to protect natural resources, enhance enforcement, and decrease conflict with other recreationists. ATVs should travel only on routes posted “Open” to such use.

• The current proposal calls for a "managed" classification for the Cloquet Valley State Forest. This means that all forest roads and "forest trails" are open to off-highway vehicle use unless specifically posted closed. This classification encourages off-trail use and legitimizes unplanned user-created routes that will be a maintenance and enforcement burden on county and state taxpayers.

• Because open routes in a "managed" forest are not necessarily designated, official routes, the state and county are not accountable for their maintenance or sustainability.

• A "limited" classification restricts off-highway vehicle use to designated roads and routes. Under this classification, all roads and routes must be designated to allow off-highway vehicle use. Designation makes the state and county accountable for proposed routes.

 

3.  Adequate enforcement to keep riders on selected routes.  While over 600 state troopers patrol Minnesota highways, fewer than 150 Conservation Officers exist to patrol Minnesota’s public lands.  An adequate enforcement plan is essential to restricting operators of ATVs to selected routes.

• MRR public data requests to the state and county have revealed that DNR and Saint Louis County have no specific and clear enforcement budgets or plans for enforcement of this proposal. Enforcement is an integral part of any sustainable motorized recreation plan. Why is it being overlooked?

• Fast, versatile off-highway vehicles pose enforcement challenges: adequate enforcement requires specialized vehicles, education, and training and is very expensive. Who is going to pay for it?

• DNR enforcement officers familiar with the proposed plan describe the "managed" classification as confusing to users and "unenforceable" in the Cloquet Valley State Forest. A "limited" classification provides users and enforcement officers alike with clear direction on where it is legal and illegal to ride.

• Signage is an expensive part of forest classification under any scenario. The "limited" classification involves posting "open" signs. The "managed" classification involves posting "closed" signs. DNR, county, and other personnel familiar with motorized recreation issues have observed that "closed" signs have increased mortality and disappearance rates compared to their "open" cousins, further inflating costs to taxpayers under a "managed" classification.

 

4.  Adequate funds used to repair accumulating damage.  Extensive documentation exists that ATVs have caused significant damage to Minnesota’s public land.  Even once ATV use has been restricted to designated routes, areas in which vegetation is gone and soil is compacted and running off into streams must be repaired.  MRR’s Cost of Restoration Analysis of damaged areas indicates that significant funds and a planned effort will be required to restore these areas.

•Due to longer, warmer and wetter operating seasons than snowmobiles, and the power, weight, and characteristic footprint of these machines, off-highway vehicle routes are simply more expensive to build and maintain than snowmobile routes. Who is going to pay for it?

• The current proposal legitimizes a large number of unplanned, user-created routes that do not benefit from solid engineering or design and will be unnecessarily expensive to maintain. A smaller number of well-planned, well-designed routes will better serve the interests of all outdoor recreationists and Saint Louis County citizens and be much less expensive to maintain in the long run. Saturation of this public forest with low-quality off-highway vehicle routes is simply going to cause unneeded social, economic and environmental damage.

• MRR's 2005-2006 assessment of two City of Duluth areas totalling less than 10,000 acres found over $100,000 in off-highway vehicle damage. Off-highway vehicle damage to Minnesota streams, including prime trout spawning habitat, is demonstrably significant but remains unassessed. Use of off-highway vehicles is illegal in Duluth, yet damage continues to accumulate. The Cloquet Valley State Forest is roughly 327,000 acres in size. What will the price tag be for damage repair under a forest plan that provides 800 miles of legitimized use under a "managed" classification with insufficient enforcement? Who's going to pay it? What is the cost to our streams, waters, and other resources of ignoring it?

• Off-highway vehicles (as well as roads and routes of all kinds) are known to facilitate the spread of invasive plants such as spotted knapweed. These plants are a threat to native species including some that are economically significant such as red pine. There is already a 12-mile long patch of spotted knapweed along a corridor in the state forest. What is the county's plan for limiting invasives along proposed route corridors? How much more is this going to cost? How much is ignoring it going to cost?

 

5.  Oversight and accountability to achieve above objectives.  MRR understands that St. Louis County will provide public funds to local ATV clubs to maintain ATV routes in the Cloquet Valley State Forest.  A MRR audit, soon to be released, of Saint Louis County’s public funding of snowmobile routes has revealed the county currently fails to meet basic legal and contractual requirements in the administration of these public funds. MRR recommends that the County appropriate funds from trail grants to provide oversight and comply with state grant agreements and local, state and federal laws. (See MRR's Reforming or Abolishing Public Funding of Motorized Recreation.)

• Off-highway vehicle routes require frequent monitoring to identify and address maintenance and enforcement issues. While monitoring is expensive, not monitoring increases liability to taxpayers for safety hazards and damage to public and private lands, property and resources. The large, disjointed route system proposed by this plan will be expensive to adequately monitor.

• DNR is already failing to provide adequate oversight of its more-than-22,000-mile snowmobile route system. Currently, the Department cannot afford to provide annual, on-the-ground evaluation of existing snowmobile routes. Now off-highway vehicle interests are asking for 22,000 miles of their own. How much is enough? Where is the oversight going to come from? Who gets to pay for it?

• If county and state resources are insufficient to provide oversight of existing routes and grants, why are we adding more?

 

Please Bring Questions and Concerns to the Public Meetings for the Proposed Cloquet Valley State Forest Plan on June 20 and 21:

• Wednesday June 20 at the Cotton Community Center located approximately 30 miles north of Duluth near the intersection of Arkola Road and Highway 53 (west frontage road) in Cotton
• Thursday, June 21 at the Rice Lake Town Hall located at 4107 West Beyer Road in Duluth.  
• Both meetings will run from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. 

The first hour of each meeting will allow people to informally review the plan, maps and other summary materials.  DNR and St. Louis County Land Department representatives will be on hand to answer questions regarding motorized access planning for public forest lands in the county.  During the remainder of the meeting, the DNR will present its proposal and respond to questions and comments.  Written comments will also be accepted.

DNR is accepting written comment on the Cloquet Valley State Forest Plan until noon, Friday, June 29. Please send written comments asking for implementation of MRR's Five Standards for Protecting Minnesota to:

Brian McCann, Planner
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Box 52, 500 Lafayette Road
St. Paul, MN  55155-4052
Phone: (651) 259-5627 or Toll Free 1-888-MINNDNR
E-mail: brian.mccann@dnr.state.mn.us

St. Louis County Commissioners Contact Info - District Map Below

Call or e-mail Commissioners (contact info below) and tell them to implement the following standards as part of any plan to designate ATV routes in the Cloquet Valley State Forest. Tell them that motorized route development in the Cloquet Valley State Forest and elsewhere in the county should be scaled to what the county can afford to properly plan, design, maintain, administer and enforce, and that further development action without a clear, open, and comprehensive motorized recreation plan in place is a breach of ethical and democratic process.

All St. Louis County Commissioner e-mails:
kronb@co.st-louis.mn.us, forsmanm@co.st-louis.mn.us, finkd@co.st-louis.mn.us, oneils@co.st-louis.mn.us, sweeneyp@co.st-louis.mn.us, nelsonk@co.st-louis.mn.us, raukars@co.st-louis.mn.us

3rd District Commissioner Bill Kron, Board Chair Room 208 100 N. 5th Avenue W. Duluth, MN  55802 (218) 726-2562 kronb@co.st-louis.mn.us
4th District Commissioner Mike Forsman, Vice Chair Government Services Center 118 South 4th Avenue East Ely, MN  55731 (218) 365-8200 forsmanm@co.st-louis.mn.us
1st District Commissioner Dennis Fink, Room 208  100 N. 5th Avenue West Duluth, MN  55802 (218) 726-2458 finkd@co.st-louis.mn.us
2nd District Commissioner Steven O'Neil Room 208 100 N. 5th Avenue West Duluth, MN  55802 (218) 726-2359 oneils@co.st-louis.mn.us
5th District Commissioner Peg Sweeney Room 208 100 N. 5th Avenue West Duluth, MN  55802 (218) 726-2450 sweeneyp@co.st-louis.mn.us
6th District Commissioner Keith Nelson, Virginia Courthouse 300 South 5th Avenue Virginia, MN  55792 (218) 749-7100 nelsonk@co.st-louis.mn.us
7th District Commissioner Steve Raukar Hibbing Courthouse 1810 12th Avenue East Hibbing, MN  55746 (218) 262-0201 raukars@co.st-louis.mn.us

 

Contact MRR Program Director, Caleb Wolden to help MRR protect the Cloquet Valley State Forest.