Group proposes ban on off-road vehicles on federal lands

Thursday, May 25, 2000 | 9:50 a.m.

Motorized adventurers are going deep into forests and wild places, and the Wilderness Society says it's time Congress stops them.

The society's fourth annual list kicked off a national campaign calling for protection of federal lands from destruction caused by off-road vehicles.

The society placed the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the Grand Canyon high on its most endangered wildlands list today, but if the group gets Congress to impose stricter measures, Mount Charleston and Lake Mead could be affected by restrictions on off-road vehicles and outboard boat engines.

"Many outdoor vacations this Memorial Day weekend and throughout the summer will be less enjoyable because of the pollution, noise and destruction caused by dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles," said William H. Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society.

Meadows said the society hails recent action by the National Park Service for recommending bans on snowmobiles and motorized boats in most national parks. Older outboard motors have been banned from Lake Tahoe.

The House and Senate was expected to hear today a Park Service recommendation to ban snowmobiles and personal motorized watercraft in most national parks.

Effects on Southern Nevada range from the Spring Mountains west of Las Vegas to Lake Mead east of the valley. The Park Service has already started to educate the public about damage to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, biologist Bill Burke said.

"We definitely encourage people to buy the cleanest technology possible," Burke said of millions of boaters who visit the lake each year, "so that we are not polluting our water and our air with the dirtier technology.

"Lake Tahoe already bans two-stroke engines that create pollution," Burke said. "If you are thinking about buying a new boat, make it a four-stroke engine."

Nevada is quite different when it comes to enforcing bans on specific activities in wild areas because Las Vegas is the fastest growing urban area in the nation, county officials said. Cooperation between off-road users and federal officials managing the wild lands has worked.

After Clark County faced economic disaster when the Mojave Desert tortoise was listed as an endangered species and threatened to stop Southern Nevada's growth, county officials took a multi-species approach to environmental protection, said Cindy Truelove, the county's coordinator for the plan.

When the work began, everyone from off-road groups to forest managers came to the table and opened a channel for communicating among the diverse groups, Truelove said.

"With a forum for dialogue, in each case we have reached a negotiated solution," she said, especially on the use of the alpine environment at Mount Charleston.

The county also learned that organized recreation groups and off-roaders were not the problem, Kristine Bunnell, the county's trail coordinator, said.

"Off-roaders want to protect the resource, too," she said, explaining that individuals and not organized groups more often stray from designated trails or leave trash behind.

Bunnell is concerned about restrictions placed on certain groups and not others.

"Pretty soon they will try to ban mountain bikes, even people in wheelchairs," Bunnell said.