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Show Off Road Vehicles Destroy Valuable Land Owners of an estimated 7.5 million off-road vehicles snowmobiles, trail motorcycles, dune buggies, mini-bikes, all-terrain vehicles and hovercraft eagerly attest to the unique pleasures derived from their use. The "ORVs," as these recreational machines are known, enable their owners to "get back to nature." But ironically, some ORV drivers are unwittingly and others willfully destroying the very thing they set out to enjoy the natural world around them. When improperly used, ORVs can inflict irreparable damage on nature's ecosystem. They can destroy wildlife habitat, cause soil erosion, create noise and litter, distrub wildlife, and seriously disrupt other types of recreation. Because of this growing problem, the National Wildlife Federation is pressing the Bureau of Land Management, custodian of 60 per cent of American's public land or more than 20 per cent of the entire U.S. land mass to adopt new regulations that will limit the use of ORVs on public property. As the result of an NWF lawsuit, a federal judge ruled May 2 that the agency's current regulations regarding ORV use are in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and a 1972 Presidential Executive Order. NWF Counsel Oliver A. Houck described the ruling as "one of the most significant environmental rulings in recent years." The land affected by the court decision includes 452 million acres of tundra, deserts, grazing lands, designated wildlife areas, timber lands and mineral-rich properties. While the decision does not ban ORVs outright, it does require BLM to zone or specify areas and trails for ORV use on Its land. BLM now must draw up regulations that will control ORV access to the vast public domain under its control. The ruling is of particular significance to the western states and Alaska, where virtually all BLM land is located. For example, BLM controls 299.3 million acres or more than 81 per cent of the land in Alaska, 48.4 million acres or greater than 69 per cent of Nevada's land, and 22.7 million acres or more than 43 per cent of Utah's land. NWF, the nation's largest conservation organization, undertook its legal action against BLM last August after trying unsuccessfully to persuade BLM and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior, to adopt regulations that would comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and a Presidential Executive Order issued by Richard Nixon in 1972. In his order, Nixon called upon all federal agencies managing public land to establish zones in which ORVs could and could not be used. In response, BLM issued regulations In 1974 that said all public lands under Its control "Shall remain open to off-road vehicle use and are hereby designated as open use areas and trails." At that time, NWF Executive Vice President Thomas L. Kimball argues that the BLM regulations "would turn over more land to motor vehicles than is contained In all of the roads and highways In America" and termed the regulations "no regulations at all." In contrast, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service already had prohibited or placed restrict controls on ORV use on the 60 million acres of public lands in their jurisdictions. This month's court decision by Judge Wiiliam B. Jones of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that BLM had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not considering alternatives to its non-restrictive regulations and not giving adequate consideration to the ORVs "damage to land resources, harrassment of wildlife, and disruption of wildlife habitats." Recent statistics show that motorcycles and snowmobiles are the most popular types of ORVs. There are an estimated 4.5 million motorcycles used off-road In the United States and another 2.6 million snowmobiles. |