The off road vehicle problem: Since the 1970’s, off-road vehicle (ORV – machines like ATVs, dirt bikes, and jeeps) use has been an increasing problem on our public lands. Along with the environmental degradation comes user conflicts. The noise, dust, and fumes of ORVs are inherently at odds with quiet recreationists and local private landowners. Litter is more abundant where ORVs travel. ORVs also endanger other public land users. In response to the abuses and excess of ORVs, the Forest Service put forth the Travel Management Rule (TMR). The TMR requires each National Forest to designate which roads, trails, and areas will be open to motor vehicle use. Route designations will be identified on motor vehicle use map and use off the designated system will be prohibited.

Reining in Off-Road Vehicle Abuse

• Check Out Our Comprehensive Off-Road Vehicle Report
• Read A Press Release On Rangers For Responsible Recreation

ATVOff-road vehicles (ORVs – ATVs, dirt bikes, jeeps, etc.) have become a public lands nuisance of epidemic proportions. The scale of the problem is only beginning to be understood. Some ORV problems are obvious – the visual blight on a scarred hillside, the endless noise that ruins the experience of quiet recreationists, or the litter that proliferates wherever ORVs are common. Some are less obvious – the invasive weeds spreading along ORV trails or the increased erosion of sediments into streams. Studies are showing that ORVs can affect wildlife in many ways, including disruption to breeding patterns.

All this is hitting at a time when our public lands agencies are strapped for cash and can barely keep up with their existing workloads. Law enforcement has been especially hard hit and ORV users are emboldened by the knowledge that the chances of being caught are low. Compounding the problem is the fact (confirmed by surveys from Colorado, Utah, Montana, and Nevada) that as many as half of all ORV riders ride off trail even when they know it is illegal. http://extension.usu.edu/iort/files/uploads/pdfs/revisedOHVreport.pdf

Another tragedy of the ORV epidemic is the toll it’s taking on people’s lives. These machines are dangerous, especially for children. One quarter of all injuries for children 12 years and under are the result of ORV accidents (http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/news/children-atv-injuries.html). Here in New Mexico in 2005, ATV injuries cost $2.4 million. Since 25% of the state is uninsured, it is estimated that taxpayers paid $600,000 of this cost (http://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org/spotlight_state/show.asp?spotID=3). There are clearly better uses for this money.

The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance is working to halt the ORV menace. As always, we are working to have areas designated Wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act. This clearly makes an area off-limits to ORVs. We are also working in partnership with other conservation organizations on other aspects of the problem. As the Forest Service and BLM update their Resource Management Plans, we are pushing them to include analyses of where ORV use inappropriate and to lay out maps that clearly recognize this. We are heavily involved with the Forest Service Travel Management Rule which directs each National Forest to designate where motorized travel can occur. And we are reaching out to our members and other concerned about wildlife and wild places. The message is clear that the best way to rein in ORV abuses and excesses is to get involved. By writing letters and showing up to meetings, you really can make a difference.

If you have questions or would like to get involved, please call our office at 505-843-8696 and talk to Craig Chapman. You can email him at craig@nmwild.org. May your next outing to the wilds of New Mexico be a quiet one!

- UPDATES COMING SOON -

Overwhelming Benefits

• Source of recreation for nature lovers and sportsmen
• Important for critical habitat for fish and wildlife, including more than 1600 threatened or endangered plants and species
• Clean water. Protects more than 2,000 public watersheds that contribute to public drinking water for 60 million Americans

Outpouring of Public Support

The rule was approved following years of scientific study and more than 600 public meetings across the country. To date the Forest Service has received more than two million comments favoring roadless protection. This outpouring of public response is almost ten times greater than that of any other rule in history.

The Roadless rule was the most inclusive rule in history, it took place in the public eye, and gave voice to millions of Americans who want to protect their last remaining forests.

Balanced Policy

This balanced policy would allow new roads to be constructed in order to fight fires, ensure public safety and allow brush clearing to protect forest health.

A Lasting Forest Legacy

The roadless Rule protects our last wild forests for hikers, hunters, sportsmen and recreationists to enjoy and explore. The magnificence of a pristine forest can never be replicated. If we do not save our lands now, we will have nothing to pass on for future generations.

Saves Tax Payers Money

America’s national forests are already covered with 386,000 miles of roads — enough to circle the earth 15 times, and nationally there is a backlog of road repairs that amounts to $8.4 billion.

1872 Mining Law:
Drowning in the Nineteenth Century

By Nathan Newcomer
Associate Director

It’s hard to imagine what the American landscape would look like today without Stewart Udall, the legendary interior secretary who recently passed away after a lifetime of championing conservation. Well before the modern environmental movement came of age, Udall was responsible for scores of new national parks and wildlife refuges, as well as laws that remain fundamental to public land protection today. Upon his departure from the Cabinet in 1969, Mr. Udall wrote, “After eight years in this office, I have come to the conclusion that the most important piece of unfinished business on the nation’s resource agenda is the complete replacement of the Mining Law of 1872.”

1872 was a time when the country was expanding west. Cattlemen, prospectors, and those seeking to start a new life set out across the vast prairies of the heartland and began settling in the Rocky Mountains. It was a year when President Ulysses S. Grant enacted the General Mining Act of 1872, which encouraged citizens to stake claim to the land and flourish.

May 10 marked the 137-year anniversary of this archaic mining law and the lack of any sensible policy provisions that will ensure the preservation of New Mexico’s wildlands, wildlife, and water quality. Of all the states in the West, New Mexico is one of the most heavily impacted by the 1872 law.

The United States of America is the only country in the  world that does not tax the mining industry a royalty fee for developing our public lands. Taxpayers face a $50 billion cleanup bill from this industry, which releases more toxic pollution than any other. Today global industries reap benefits while paying virtually nothing for what the Congressional Budget Office estimates is $1 billion worth of precious metals taken each year from public lands in the West.

Put plainly—the interests of mining trump those of water, wildlife, and wilderness, and the taxpayer is stuck with footing the bill for cleaning up any messes left behind after the industry has pulled up stake and left town.

It would seem like common sense to reform this Civil War-era law so that it reflects the common concerns of those who live in the American West today. But efforts to drag this nineteenth-century way of thinking into the twenty-first century have often collapsed under the pressure of the mining industry.

Over the past five years, mining claims for uranium, gold, and other  metals on public lands have increased almost 50 percent. Many of these new claims— staked largely by foreign-owned companies—lie near national treasures such as the Grand Canyon, as well as highly populated urban areas and sacred lands like New Mexico’s Mount Taylor.

During the last Congress, updating the measure seemed close at hand when the House passed a bipartisan reform package. Hopes were dimmed, however, when a handful of powerful mining companies derailed it in the Senate. This time around, the heads of both natural resources committees, Senator Jeff  Bingaman (D-NM) and Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV), are trying once more to modernize the law, each with his own proposal to require the industry to pay royalties and address abandoned mine cleanup.

Not surprisingly, the Bingaman bill enjoys the backing of Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Senator Mark Udall (D-CO)—Stewart’s son and nephew, respectively. Yet this may not be enough.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who represents Nevada—home to one of the largest producers of gold in the world—recently said that, while he favors reform, there is not enough time on this year’s congressional calendar for its consideration. The Obama administration, which declared last summer that updating the mining law is one of its top conservation priorities, also appears reluctant to tackle the issue right now.

Almost a quarter of our nation, or some 270 million acres, is open to hard rock mining claims. Public land is in jeopardy as never before, due to soaring mineral prices. In the past six years, gold prices
have doubled, and the global demand for nuclear fuel has spiked the price of uranium ore by a factor of ten.

New Mexico alone has over 21,500 active mining claims, in addition to an estimated  15,000 abandoned mines. Most of these abandoned mines have not been inventoried to document potential threats to water quality caused by toxic leakage, in spite of the fact that 40 percent of  Western watersheds have been contaminated by mining activities.

It is time for New Mexico’s congressional delegation to lead the country on dragging this archaic, Civil War-era law into the twenty-first century, and to bring about real changes that secure our future quality of life. The American West can ill afford another year of the mining industry continuing to take priority over our wildlands, wildlife, and water. Stewart Udall had it right back in 1969, when he said that we need “complete replacement” of the General Mining Act of 1872, and his words still ring just as true today.

LEARN MORE:
(The following documents are in PDF format. Get Adobe Acrobat Reader)

• Background Fact Sheet
• MAP: Mining Claims in New Mexico (Produced by NMWA)
• New Mexico Coalition Letter for Mining Reform
• New Mexico Sportsmen Letter for Mining Reform
• Albuquerque City Council Resolution