Volunteers are Needed Now!
Volunteers are needed to help audit public funding of motorized recreation in St. Louis County and to ground truth 880 mile of proposed ATV, dirt-bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive truck routes for the Cloquet Valley State Forest. Background below.
MRR Seeks to Ground-truth Proposed Route System
Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation (MRR) is currently engaged in a project of immense proportions but immediate relevance: an on-the-ground evaluation of hundreds of miles of all-terrain vehicle (ATV), dirt bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive truck routes currently under proposal in the Cloquet Valley State Forest (CVSF). The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) and St. Louis County are rapidly evaluating over 1100 miles of state forest routes for motorized suitability. While the proposed designation of hundreds of miles of ATV, dirt bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive truck routes in the CVSF is moving ahead at a feverish pace, MRR is encountering resistance in its efforts to gather basic public information concerning these designations. The information provided to the general public on the MN DNR and Saint Louis County websites is woefully lacking in applicability and completeness, considering the scope and potential cost to the public of these decisions. In the past ten weeks, MRR has filed data requests with MN DNR and St. Louis County under the Minnesota Data Practices Act, and communicated with representatives from these bodies in an effort to gather data for this project.
Route Designations Continue Despite Lack of Environmental and Public Review
MRR believes that the simple transparency of public processes is a prerequisite for an effective public dialogue. Number one on MRR’s list of standards for locating and designating ATV, dirt bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive truck routes is thorough and ongoing public and environmental review. As noted in a recent complaint filed by MRR with the Minnesota Data Practices Office, “In our tenth year as an MN DNR watchdog, it is MRR’s experience that the agency systematically withholds public data to prevent public awareness and public participation that would oppose controversial DNR ATV, dirt bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive truck route proposals.” Completion of an Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) is a crucial step in the public and environmental review process, yet in an effort to quickly designate motorized trails statewide, the Minnesota state legislature has suspended EAW requirements on ATV, dirt bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive truck routes.
CVSF Route Designations: Process Rushes Complex Issues
It is difficult to unravel the web of regulations, jurisdictions, and interests framing the CVSF route designation process. In a nutshell, St. Louis County owns approximately 80% of CVSF’s almost 230,000 acres, but MN DNR has a legislative mandate to evaluate all state forests for motorized suitability. In the Cloquet Valley State Forest, many factors complicate these designations: county cabin leases; pieces of private land; wetlands delineations and other ecological concerns; maintenance, signage, and enforcement issues; diverse recreational and resource uses and interests; a lack of clear and public purpose, and others. A CVSF planning team made up of nine members (eight MN DNR and one County Lands Department) has been quietly assessing over 4300 individual inventoried trail sections (comprising about 1100 total miles) in terms of suitability for motorized use. This team will soon present finished recommendations to the MN DNR Northeast Regional Planning Team and the St. Louis County Board of Commissioners. Following these presentations will be another round of public hearings, at which no member of the public can be reasonably expected to advance an informed opinion, and after which MN DNR and St. Louis County are under no real obligation to incorporate public suggestions.
Useful Maps Not Publicly Available
The difficulty, time and cost MRR has incurred—over $200 (fifteen hours of staff time plus travel expense to copy maps data from MN DNR computers, as well as volunteer hours from our GIS wizard)—in simply developing a useful field map delineating these proposed ATV, dirt bike motorcycle, and four-wheel drive truck routes raises questions concerning the timing and purpose of the entire designation process. Developing maps sufficient to simply find these routes on the ground has proved a multi-layered affair. The “open house” map provided on MN DNR’s website lacks adequate features and resolution as well as updated data, and the maps data actually being used by the planning team requires expensive specialized software (ArcView) to read and interpret. The updated maps data with the planning team’s final recommendations is unlikely to be available far enough in advance of scheduled public review to be of any effective use. Of what use are public hearings if no member of the public can, in the time allotted, feasibly gather and interpret the basic data required to locate—let alone evaluate—the routes? MRR and the public should not be required to invest this time and money to obtain public maps data simply in order that we might effectively participate in the public review of the Cloquet Valley State Forest route designations.
Public Data Double Standard
MRR has been charged nearly $200 by Saint Louis County for seven hours of staff time required to respond to our request for County grant-in-aid data. This is the cost associated with simply gathering this data in one place. To the best of our knowledge, the County charges nothing to motorized recreation clubs for time spent as fiscal agent in grant-in-aid funding processes, despite significant time required to review documents and ensure clubs’ compliance with the law.
Preliminary Findings: State Forest Routes to Rely on Grant-In-Aid
Following are some of the findings MRR has gathered from initial requests for data under the Minnesota Data Practices Act and contacts with representatives from MN DNR and St. Louis County:
• Most (if not all) of the CVSF route designation is based on “cursory data” collected from the air. Ground-truthing of aerially-designated routes in Sturgeon River State Forest suggested that up to 40% of the routes were wrongly designated.
• MN DNR simply has no budget for enforcement or maintenance of these designated routes. An MN DNR Enforcement representative on the CVSF planning team describes these designations as “unenforceable.”
• According to personnel on the CVSF route planning team, MN DNR intends to rely on grant-in-aid funding for maintenance of the proposed routes. A 2003 legislative audit of MN DNR’s motorized recreation program requested by MRR found a general lack of oversight and accountability concerning grant-in-aid processes, and uncovered a history of flagrant abuses of the environment, public and private property, and taxpayer dollars. Click here to view MRR’s well-researched case studies of grant-in-aid abuses.
• In response to this information, MRR has filed a comprehensive grant-in-aid data request with St. Louis County, which in turn will require considerable time and effort to process.
• As of October 5, 2006, MRR still has not received data requested on August 16,2006 concerning meeting times and places of the CVSF route planning team.
• In reviewing the papers and internal memos MRR received concerning DNR’s mandates, regulations, and responsibilities in state forest motorized route designations, we found that the data received raises more question than it answers. This complex and delicate process is being rushed along with no real opportunities provided for serious environmental or public review.
• Click here to view a more complete list of findings as they relate to MRR’s standards for ATV, dirt bike motorcycle, and four-wheel drive truck routes.
MRR Moving Ahead With Study and Audit
After over two months of focused data-gathering and review, MRR is moving ahead in its data-based study and evaluation of the proposed ATV, dirt bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive truck route designations in the CVSF, and is developing maps it can use to ground-truth MN DNR’s recommendations. MRR needs volunteers to assist with the ground-truthing and field assessment of these routes. Work will involve travelling these routes collecting written, GPS, and photographic data. Training and equipment will be provided: please contact Caleb Wolden (caleb@mnresponsiblerec.org, 218-740-3175) to express interest or request further information.
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