quote:

Off-road vehicle fight rages over trails, taxes

Mary Jo Pitzl
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 20, 2008 12:00 AM
From the air, the desert around the Estrella Mountains is a tangle of dirt roads, looping around and crossing back on each other haphazardly.

Trails carve up the foothills, scratching through the green flush of springtime growth to expose bare ground.

From an airplane window, state Rep. Jerry Weiers sighed.




"With the city of Buckeye expanding, this area is going to get hammered," said Weiers, a Glendale Republican.

The hammer is coming from off-highway vehicle use, and it's coming down hard.

OHV ownership has skyrocketed in Arizona, and with it has come increasing ridership on lands that weren't necessarily designed for motorized vehicles.

"The problem is they don't have any idea where to go or not go," said Jeff Gursh, a volunteer with the Arizona Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition.

"Rogue trails" have been carved out by people heading out on their OHVs, only to be followed by others, and then others - and before you know it, there's a trail where none was intended.

Weiers looked at this expanding network of trails spun like spiderwebs across desert and mountain.

What he saw was disaster:

Destruction of plant life. Diversion of water flows. A complete closure of trails everywhere.

He has proposed legislation he believes would help reverse some of the negative effects of OHV use while giving these riders legal places for recreation. His House Bill 2573 would charge a license fee to OHV and all-terrain vehicle users and plow 70 percent of the proceeds toward programs that would maintain, build and close trails, as well as boost law enforcement and educate riders about proper trail use,

"If we don't go out and do something about these trails, they will be taken away," Weiers said.

He fears that the agencies that manage these public lands, from the U.S. Forest Service to the State Land Department, will close all trail access if they lack the money to patrol their use.

Weiers repeated that warning Wednesday to a Senate panel. But the members of the Natural Resources and Rural Affairs Committee didn't buy the threat: On a tie vote, they rejected the bill. Supporters say they will try to revive it through another bill.

Sen. Robert Blendu, R-Litchfield Park. led the opposition, questioning why the state needs more money for trail maintenance when it already gets nearly $1 million from an off-road-vehicle gas tax.

"The state is already charging you $1 million for this," Blendu said, referring to trail upkeep. "And you haven't gotten a dime for it."

The panel's chairman, Sen. Jake Flake, disagreed, saying that money has paid for operation of the state Parks Department, not trail construction. Flake was the only Republican on the panel to vote for the bill; Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor, D-Phoenix, was out sick.

Flake agreed with critics that the bill is a tax on OHV users. Plus, there is skepticism that the money it would raise, estimated at $7.3 million, would actually go to trail construction. Flake said he fears it would be poured into law enforcement and educational materials.

Weiers and the numerous supporters he has amassed, from the National Rifle Association to hunters to various off-road groups, were stunned by Wednesday's vote but said they'll keep pushing. The bill has already cleared the House of Representatives.

The effort to try to bring some order to the riot of trails has been around for several years. For Weiers, this is his second go-round. Last year, a similar bill died on the last day in the Senate, failing by one vote.

The bill would require OHV users to buy the equivalent of a license plate, called an "inidica," for an annual fee estimated at $23. Currently, there is no registration fee required of OHVs if they are used primarily off-road; those that are "street worthy" are registered in the same way cars, trucks and motorcycles are.

The money raised by the new fee would be divided among various state agencies, with 42 percent of it going to the state Parks Board. The board would then solicit applications for trail repair and construction and award grants to various groups or agencies that it deems have worthy projects.

Gursh, through the state Parks Department's OHV Ambassador Program, has already participated in various repair projects. He says it's not cheap to repair the damage.

For example, the average cost to repair a mile of trail is $5,000. Even a simple trail sign, which is needed to indicate if a trail is legally open or closed, costs $40, he said.

"And that's not installation, just the materials," Gursh added.

A regular OHV rider, Gursh said the idea is to seek grant funds to make rogue trails legitimate. One-way trails that branch off a Forest Service road, for example, might be connected, reducing the wear and tear on a one-way road by spreading traffic out over a loop. Other trails might be closed down.

Gursh said if trails are properly marked, OHV riders will use them.

The problem is, illegal roads have cropped up with such speed that no one has been able to control them.

OHV sales have zoomed 347 percent in the past 10 years, Gursh said, citing state Motor Vehicle Division statistics. What many land-management agencies thought was a fad has turned into a lifestyle, with baby boomers taking to the pastime in growing numbers.

Weiers, whose wife and daughter each has an OHV, said such use will continue growing precisely because of people like himself: "You hit 50, your knees go, and it's better to ride than hike."

Plus, as more people move into Arizona cities and towns, the search for a place to ride that feels more like rural Arizona than an urban highway pushes more OHV use farther and farther out, Weiers said.

The Sierra Club, which last year remained neutral on the bill, supports it now because of what spokeswoman Sandy Bahr calls protections for sensitive lands.

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