© The Umpqua Post.By Alex Powers, Staff Writer
Dunes routes won't be established until 2011
U.S. Forest Service district ranger Pam Gardner announced at a city council meeting last week that off-highway maps for the Siuslaw National Forest will arrive at the beginning of April. The maps were delayed from a January release date, she said, after her office ran into printing problems.
Not much will change for ATV riders on nearby sand dunes when the map is unveiled. It details off-road use in the Siuslaw National Forest, according to forest service staff members.
Officials identified off-highway routes throughout much of the national forest after 2005, when the Forest Service required federal land managers to create travel management plans.
But forest managers will wait until at least 2011 to identify routes in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area as stakeholders continue to discuss the impact of proposed trails.
Sharon Stewart, a dispersed recreation supervisor for the Siuslaw National Forest, said staff for now will try to educate dunes users about the maps and stakeholder process.
“We’re trying to educate people where we’re designating trails,” Stewart said. “We’re not going to fence it closed, but we are going to let people know about the process and what it means.”
The 15-stakeholder group met late last year at the Dunes NRA’s middle riding area near Winches-ter Bay. At that meeting, the group established 16 criteria that will be used to evaluate proposed routes through vegetated areas.
In a 1994 off-highway vehicle management plan, the Siuslaw National Forest staff identified 4,455 acres — about 15 percent of the Dunes NRA — of vegetated areas that contain ATV routes. That land, designated 10C in the forest’s 1994 off-highway vehicle management plan, has long been a focus of contentious debate between stakeholders.
One sticking point in stakeholder discussions is whether non-native plants should be protected from ATV use, said Ross Holloway.
The forest service contracted with Holloway to facilitate public stakeholder meetings for the national forest. He said ATV proponents are concerned vegetation is consuming available riding area.
“A lot of the area that’s open sand has been revegetating,” Holloway said. “That seems to be a real key point of interest.”
Stakeholders at a meeting in Florence earlier this year discussed the effects of European beach grass, regarded as an invasive species by federal agencies.
“You’ve got a lot of forested area that had been European beach grass, then trees grew in,” Holloway said. “They’re plantations, not natural stands.”
Holloway said aerial photos in the forest’s 1994 off-road plan are starkly different from more recent aerial photos.
“It’s pretty dramatic how much more of that has been covered by vegetation,” Holloway said.
Conservationists, however, have long said the forest supports wildlife, Holloway said. At the stakeholder work group’s last meeting, in Florence, John Getz, who represents commercial mushroom pickers, said many of the forest plantations have become economic anchors for people who harvest matsutake mushrooms and other fungi growing in the woods.
Once the group weighs the impact from ATV use in vegetated areas, it should propose by fall how 10C lands will be utilized. Proposals could include anything from completely opening 10C areas to closing them outright.
That proposal will go to forest staff. They will form an internal group to hear public comment and finalize routes in the Oregon Dunes 10C areas.
The identified routes will be recorded in the forest’s federally prescribed travel, which will be updated each year, Stewart said. After that, ATV rider education will become the forest’s largest concern.
Holloway said some riders may be confused by the requirements of the federal travel management plan. Currently, 12,440 acres of the 24,940-acre Dunes NRA is open to unrestricted ATV access, except in areas marked with trails to reduce ATV noise or protect vegetation. Under the new policy, all land is assumed closed unless otherwise specified.
“It reversed everything,” Holloway said.
Stewart said lands other than 10C are unaffected. She also said she believes the stakeholder work group could recommend severe changes, but she doubts it will.
“Are we going to attempt to close the routes that are pre-existing? I would guess not,” she said.
Source:
The Umpqua Post :: Off-highway forest maps arrive soon