Arches National Park is currently full.
When I saw this tweet just now, I was immediately reminded that former Arches National Park Ranger Edward Abbey saw this all coming way back in 1985. Back in 2012, we posted the never-aired Edward Abbey movie-essay. But please watch it again, and see how prophetically – and wryly – Abbey talks about the future of our National Parks: https://vimeo.com/49544042
It should also be mentioned that the “Arches National Park is currently full” announcement comes directly on the heels of the Trump administration opening up all the National Parks in Utah to ATVs, a decision that as made with zero NEPA and zero public notice or input.
As the Salt Lake Tribune reported last month:
The roar of ATVs could be coming to a Utah national park backcountry road near you under a major policy shift initiated by the National Park Service without public input.
Across the country, off-road vehicles like ATVs and UTVs are generally barred from national parks. For Utah’s famed parks, however, that all changes starting Nov. 1, when these vehicles may be allowed on both main access roads and back roads like Canyonlands National Park’s White Rim and Arches’ entry points from Salt Valley and Willow Springs….
Under the rule change, off-highway vehicles could roam Canyonlands’ Maze District and Arches’ Klondike Buffs — as long as they remain on designated routes. In general, ATVs would be allowed to travel roads that are open to trucks and cars.
The directive, which applies only to Utah parks, triggered an immediate backlash from conservation groups, which predicted the move will result in a “management nightmare” for parks already struggling with traffic jams and parking clutter.
Now the park service is inviting a whole new category of vehicle onto park roads, establishing new uses that will disrupt wildlife and other visitors’ enjoyment, warned Kristen Brengel, the National Parks Conservation Association’s vice president of government affairs.
[The directive was issued] after off-highway groups and Utah lawmakers led by Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, pressured the Interior Department to lift the prohibition….
Lyman is the former San Juan County commissioner who became a political celebrity after organizing an off-road vehicle protest ride though Recapture Canyon, which resulted in misdemeanor convictions, 10 days in jail and a reputation as a public lands warrior.
Adding pressure were UTV Utah and Utah OHV Advocates. According to the groups, Utah is home to 202,000 registered OHVs, or off-highway vehicles, the broad category that includes UTVs and ATVs.
“Despite being one of the largest groups of public land users, and even though the economic benefit of our community dwarfs most other recreational users combined, we often find ourselves discriminated against by decision-makers that head public land agencies,” the groups’ presidents, Bud Bruening and Brett Stewart, wrote in a joint July 29 letter to Bernhardt. “In Utah, this discrimination is particularly acute when it comes to the National Park Service.”
Sorry, Phil Lyman, but you actually don’t “find ourselves discriminated against.” You are not your ATV. Also, I’m willing to bet that every single person in Utah who owns an ATV, OHV or UTV also owns an automobile.
Thanks for sharing the Abbey piece. Extremely well done, especially considering the available technology in 1985 and of course Abbey spoke well. That he was ever considered an “environmental terrorist” shows just how much he threatened corporate America, which has found a way to slander all environmentalists at every opportunity. It’s important to share our national treasures but to find a way to do it that preserves these places and the wild experience as it should be. Trump’s ATV ruling like most of his other policy and all of his environmental policy is horrid. If they stopped the Sage Grouse plans, they may have more solid ground to stop the ATVs as well. I hope when the trump administration is out, there will be a closer look at how our public lands agencies operate. NPS currently cuts staff to save money and by doing so leave the gates unattended losing millions in revenues that could help with maintenance. Kind of self defeating, no? It’s like there has been no administration in place at all the last four years, but bureaucracy itself is a problem. Where are the checks and balances or at least logic in these kinds of moves? Where is the planning for future generations to preserve and maintain these places?
I am not sure I understand why this is so bad. If I am driving on a road in a National Park, it doesn’t make any difference to me if there are bikes, motorbikes, ATV’s or Jeeps (which some ATV’s now kind of look like). I am driving and having fun, they are driving and having fun. It seems to me that this is totally different from allowing them on hiking trails or biking trails. Am I missing something?
Matthew’s argument that people also own cars could be taken the other way.. if they are substituting OHV’s for cars (say two people in a car) they would take up less road space, not more.
As an observer, I don’t actually see the argument other than “they could go off-road” which Jeeps and other vehicles could also do and I have seen them doing. I don’t agree that it is necessarily discrimination- but I think there is a bias against them. The question is whether the bias is rational and is in the open.
Note: According to the Moab newspaper “The page on the National Park Service website containing the full text of the determination may currently be unavailable. Google has cached the webpage here as it appeared on Oct. 10.
Printed below is the entire ATV Determination, as it appeared on October 10, 2019. As you can see, National Park Service Superintendent Kate Cannon brings up plenty of examples of how/why OHV’s are different than vehicles. So, to address Sharon’s “Am I missing something?” Yes, I think you are Sharon.
See also, this article from the Moab newspaper on October 18, 2019.
A little update on what backpackers wanted in Yellowstone in 2016:
https://missoulian.com/outdoors/modern-backpackers-in-yellowstone-want-pit-toilets-and-solitude-survey/article_e23a4238-ee09-51ba-971f-4de9d886816d.html
Which takes us back to some earlier discussions of poop, like here: https://forestpolicypub.com/2019/01/02/poop-in-national-parks-ap-and-wapo-weigh-in/
And wilderness trammeling: https://forestpolicypub.com/2019/09/30/wilderness-trails-and-trammeling-cindy-chojnacky/
Would it be so bad to have toilets in the backcountry, and user fees to pay for not having to endure the previous campers’ crap? Of course that might be expensive (and impactful) hauling it out of wilderness. And this:
https://missoulian.com/outdoors/the-trouble-with-backcountry-toilets-more-people-are-taking-dumps/article_f865e07b-1fc8-5d98-97d0-5ed36aa8ebeb.html
Thanks for finding this, Matthew! My problem is that you could make the same argument for automobiles
“The use of ATV, OHV, and similar vehicles does not require a park setting. Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, and State of Utah lands are currently open to ATV/OHV use on and off roads. Therefore, the opportunity for this recreational use is available on hundreds and thousands of acres statewide. There has been virtually no public demand for ATV/OHV use within Southeast Utah Group parks and monuments.”
Also, if there is “virtually no public demand” why would anyone want to change the policy?
Is a street motorcycle OK- they are pretty noisy also. Emissions come from all gasoline powered cars including hybrids- should they only allow EV’s?
It is peculiar indeed, as I don’t know why an ATVer would want to ride on the roads in the crowded NP’s around there when there appears to be plenty of BLM and FS. Maybe there is more to this story?
I always find it sort of curious when you don’t support federal public lands managers, Sharon. Seems like you typically support federal public lands managers when they support more logging or resource extraction and damage….and you typically oppose their decisions, if those decisions mean less logging or resource extraction and damage.
Regarding your point: “My problem is that you could make the same argument for automobiles.”
I think NPS Supervisor Kate Cannon makes a number of very solid examples of where you cannot, in fact, make “the same argument for automobiles.”
EXAMPLES:
“Off-road vehicles are as much as 50 percent noisier than other motor vehicles entering parks. The CFR 36 Section 2.12, Audio Disturbances, limits noise generated by vehicles and equipment to 60 decibels at a distance of 50 feet. Production ORVs typically produce 90 decibels at a distance of 50 feet.”
“In Utah, ORVs are exempt from emissions testing. Therefore, without manufacturer or other state or federal documentation to the contrary, the Southeast Utah Group must assume that emissions from ORVs are greater than federal emissions guidelines for passenger vehicles and light trucks. Increased emissions relative to other vehicles entering parks have the potential to adversely affect the health of park visitors, park wildlife, and park vegetation because of increased atmospheric hydrocarbon concentrations and resultant increased ozone formation.”
“Use of ORVs on non-paved roads will significantly increase dust emissions, which in turn will have short- and long-term consequences on air quality. Dust emissions will increase because ORV users target unpaved roads, and because the design of these conveyances increases dust emissions by 1) knobby aggressive tire design, 2) small-diameter wheels (less than 14 inches) that degrade road surfaces faster than the larger diameter of 4-wheel drive vehicles, and 3) greater speed compared to 4-wheel drive vehicles.”
“Increased soil erosion from unpaved roads is closely related to increased dust emissions; however, it is also an effect distinct from dust formation. Tire tread, wheel diameter, and speed of ORVs substantially increases soil erosion.”
“All of the roads in Arches NP, Canyonlands NP, Natural Bridges NM, and Hovenweep NM are heavily used multiple-use routes of transportation. UTVs are designed to travel over rough backcountry roads much faster than conventional vehicles. By human nature and vehicle capability, the speed at which OHVs will be operated at pose a significantly higher risk to hikers and bicylists than do conventional motor vehicles.”
Feds shift gears, now say ORVs won’t be allowed in Utah’s national parks
https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2019/10/25/feds-shift-gears-now-say/
SNIP:
“Superintendent Kate Cannon, who oversees Canyonlands and Arches National parks in southeastern Utah, had pushed back against the now-scrapped directive, in essence reaffirming her parks’ ORV bans. She responded to it with an eight-page memo detailing the potential damage ORVs can cause to dirt roads and fragile desert soils if they travel illegally off road, as well as their potential to disrupt the park experience and clog traffic for other visitors.
Cannon’s resistance won the support of the Grand County, Moab and Castle Valley councils, which passed a joint resolution against lifting the ORV ban in national park units absent a robust public process and environmental review….
Cannon’s memo argued that ORVs are specifically designed to travel off road, which would have remained strictly forbidden in national parks. Allowing them onto remote backroads would create huge enforcement challenges, she warned, adding that thousands of miles of routes already are open to ORVs on public lands surrounding Arches and Canyonlands.”