Submit Comments, PLS HELP!

Discussion in 'General Subaru Discussion' started by morganm, Oct 26, 2004.

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  1. morganm
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    morganm New Member

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    Swift action on this is critical. Please do not delay as public comment hearings will be closed next month for these state forests.

    Right now the DNR is reviewing all state forests and either marking them 'managed' or 'closed'. All forests labled closed will be completly closed. All forests labled maanged will have designated areas of use. You will only be able to go where you see a sign that says you are allowed there. Basicly if we don't stand up and say what we want now we wont get it!

    Please help out by submiting comments to the below addresses. Put the points listed into your own words. Add anything you feel would help promote fair use for moterized vehicles. Written comments will be taken more seriously. Email comments are fine also.

    I'm going up to Cloquet today for a public hearing with the DNR on Fon du lac and White Face River. This is how seriously I take the sport of offroading. I'm taking half of my day off at work to drive 4 hours to a public hearing about forests I'll prolly never offroad in. The point is to save public accessible roads and trails in state forests; not just to save spots *I* want to offroad at. We need more legal places to go!

    I appriciate any help you may provide here, thank you!

    =================================================================
    SEND PUBLIC COMMENTS FOR FOND DU LAC AND WHITEFACE RIVER STATE FORESTS TO:
    [email protected]
    OR
    Jim Weseloh,
    1201 East Highway 2,
    Grand Rapids, MN 55744
    -----------
    Whiteface River State Forest: should not be closed, it should be classified as limited to maintain the consistency of land management policies between state forest and the county land that completely surrounds it.
    -----------
    In Fond du Lac State Forest: there are several trails that should be designated for trucks:
    loop #1: trail segments 173, 136, 126, 119, 114, 109, 86, 16, 14, 11, 12, road segments 29, 28, 68, 98, 113, 122, 150, 151, 167.
    loop #2: trail segments 359, 377, 378, 360, 325, 301, 298, 288, 284, 283, 309, 312, 327, 330, 331, 341, 342, 316.
    loop #3: trail segments 289, 264, 255, 251, 243, 212, 221, 236, 250, 252, 268, 271, 277.
    loop #4: road segments 249, 216, trail segments 218, 253, 273, 318, 324.
    loop #5: trail segments 191, 207, 222, 226, 217, 208, 200, 190, 181, 176 (if segment 176 is a no go because of the tribal land complete the loop with segment 206 after 208 instead)
    Trail segment 229 could be looped back to trail segment 253 with no problem or wetland.
    The wet end of trail segment 185 can be cut off and instead looped back to the start of trail segment 229 with no problem or wetland.

    ==================================================================


    SEND PUBLIC COMMENTS FOR SOLANA AND WEALTHWOOD STATE FORESTS TO:
    [email protected]
    OR
    Jack Olson,
    1601 Minnesota Drive,
    Brainerd, MN 56401
    ---------
    Wealthwood State Forest: should be CLOSED. the entire area is wetland and we should not be offroading there.
    ---------
    Solana State Forest: there are a few trails that should be designated for trucks:
    loop #1: trail segments 60 and 58
    loop #2: trail segments 399, 117, 78, 54, 124, 97, 435, 97, and back on 124.
    just past trail segment 51 trail segments 124, 433, 122, 155, and 158 would also make a great truck trail for non-fullsized trucks.
    trail segment 270 is a fine trail for trucks, and it gets back to what looks like a nice duck/goose hunting spot too.
     
  2. zapman
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    zapman Well-Known Member

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    boy those tax cuts were really worth it. I'm glad our government can agrue all day about gay rights and abortion, but they don't bother saving our natural resources. wtf, seriously.
     
  3. morganm
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    morganm New Member

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    Well at this meeting lastnight there were prolly 50 people INCLUDING the 25 DNR staff members there.

    Had it been a meeting about abortion I bet there would be twice to three tims as many people there.

    Maybe thats why they spend more time on those issues :mad:
     
  4. Chux
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    Chux Well-Known Member

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    sorry I couldn't make it! I totally could have gotten there too! grrrrrrrr..........

    anyway, how'd it go, did they shoot you guys down, or was there a little success?
     
  5. EchoWrx
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    EchoWrx New Member

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    I need more info to make an informed decision. :cool:

    Example:

    I use to be into ridin trails and trail jumpin on my bmx and Mt.Bike. I rode motorcycles but didn't like the damage done to trails because some idiots would go off trail on to the horse trail and wreck it for thoes people. :mad:

    Twice I ended up in court back in the early 1990's for Mt.Biking or BMXing on some trail that was clearly marked for riders. Once in Savage County and the other in Hennepin County.

    The Police person or DNR person both times were wrong in their attempts to sanction me because of their ignorance of the area. Also I went back and videoed taped the trail I was on, so I had video proof. Both times the judges agreed with me so I won each case. :D

    3 years later each offroad trail that I had loved and worked on (My buddies and I would ride miles with shovels, saws, and mini wood ramps we had built and placed them on trail crossings. The water or bog crossings we would use wind storm felled trees and place them along the mudded trails. We did this because we got so connected to the areas . Also we did this because we wanted our biking expiditions to be most memorable and AWESOME!!! :mrgreen: )... anyway... these trails were eventualy paved over by the DNR and state in an effort to make the out doors more accessible (ie..LAME!!!) :(!

    Now dont get me wrong I have seen areas of the forest where there are no reason for a Bmx/Mt.Bike or Motorized Vehicle (ie. Snowmobile's, Motorcycles, ATV's ect...) or Equestrians to be on. Reasons are several land damage, erosion, littering and whatever comes with human habitation. Now those places we can protect!, but at the same time please give us an alternitave NOT TICKETS:?:!!!

    <font color="red"> IF PEOPLE HAVE A FEW PLACES TO RACE, COMPETE, OFFROAD, AND HAVE FUN I KNOW IT WOULD BE FOR THE BETTER!!! ;) </font id="red">
     
  6. morganm
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    morganm New Member

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    <blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Chux

    sorry I couldn't make it! I totally could have gotten there too! grrrrrrrr..........

    anyway, how'd it go, did they shoot you guys down, or was there a little success?
    <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

    I would say it went well. They were at least interested in hearing our comments. Some are very anti moterized but a lot of them were reasonable people willing to hear reasonable points we wanted to make.

    I think we have a good chance a getting a few miles of trails in Fon Du Lac. We had a very well thought out purposal with valid points. Hopefully they will take it to consideration and revise their draft plan.

    When submiting comments please try to be as specific as possible. Reword those points listed to give specific comments on specific forests and specific trails in those forests if possible. Simply saying "hey we want more trails!" will yield nothing. A better way to put that point would be "When comparing the amount of trails designated for ATV use to trails designated ORV use why do ATVs get drasticly more miles than ORVs?". Another example of a good comment would be "Please reconsider Trail segment 229 to be looped back to trail segment 253 with no problems or impact on wetlands."

    Thanks!
     
  7. morganm
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    morganm New Member

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    More points and arguments for making a case for the Fond du Lac trails as per last
    night's public meeting:

    At last night's meeting the main message was they felt that there were other
    opportunities for trails for trucks in other forests, the draft plan mentions the
    Pine Co. forests as a place to go to recreate, in our comments we need to mention
    that trucks did not get any trails in the Pine Co. forests so that is not an option
    for us.

    Then they said we will see more trails in the more northern forests alluding to no
    need for trails in Fond du Lac, we need to let them know that since the population
    is mostly from the Twin Cities that we need opportunities closer to us than Gilbert
    and closer to us than the northern forests.

    A big point to make, each of the first ten forests whose plans have gone public so
    far has used the rationale that trucks don't need trails in their forest because
    trucks will get trails in other forests, yet in forest after forest we keep getting
    no trails, these project teams need to understand this, if every forest says you'll
    get trails in another forest, by the end of the process trucks will have zero
    trails.

    They need to understand we can share trails with ATVs, that if they can
    maintain/mitigate a trail for ATVs they can maintain a trail for truck use
    especially given the lower volume of truck traffic compared to ATV traffic.

    Mention that the trail segment that heads into forest from the fire tower is just
    like Leaf Loop at Gilbert and if Leaf Loop is maintainable for trucks and acceptable
    in terms of rutting and pooling water then it should be maintainable and acceptable
    on the trail by the fire tower.

    Mention that the MN4WDA has a history of volunteerism and that they can count on
    people from the association to help if the DNR asks in terms of maintenance. Remind
    them that we are very good at following spring closures and we have mechanisms for
    spreading the news about spring closures to our membership.

    Also mention that forest maps need to be made more available way earlier on in the
    game if they want anyone to be able to give them input, this would be really helpful
    for both sides.

    And a big thanks seven people who showed up to the meeting, the numebrs made an
    impact, you could see it in the surprise on the faces of the area team. We are now
    trying to arrange a date to get this area team out on the trails we want between now
    and 11/6, this will also help us when it comes time for this area team to do the
    next forests, Emily, Cloquet Valley (a great one for us), and Sturgeon River....

    quick important note, all of our comments (Solana and Fond du Lac) are due by 4PM on
    Friday Nov. 12th, so you only have two weeks!

    now, from last night's Solana meeting, this is what seemed to be up, we appear to
    have been left out of Solana for a few reasons:
    1.) the original directive in this process before the June 8th memo telling them it
    was imperative to find trucks opportunities was to not include trucks. Solana's
    plan was done before the June 8th memo came out.
    2.) no truck people came forward during the process to say they what they wanted or
    that they wanted anything at all.
    3.) they felt that the northern Aitkin Co. forests (Savana and Hill River) had
    more, better, and funner terrain/trails to offer us anyway (which is true, but
    there's no reason we can't be in Solana too)

    also learned that these guys are not just designating currently existing trails,
    their maps shows trails that they want to and are planning to build, which is cool
    of them.

    SO, what i think should be added to our Solana comments is that we want in on the
    loop that they are creating for ATVs with proposed newly constructed trail segments,
    the loop that they had little insets cut out and on display of, it is the loop that
    will branch off with trail segment 297 to the left off of the forest road number
    418, this whole loop will be just SE of the Soo Line

    maps for Fond du Lac and Solana can be seen at
    http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/input/mgmtplans/ohv/designation/status.html
     
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