Sandee McCullen
03-29-2005, 01:17 PM
Fellow 4-Wheelers.........
Below is direct copy recently received from the State Land Dept. (less pictures of outright distruction of our lands......... mud bogs mostly......
The OHV Task Force Team is trying very hard to implement a fair OHV Sticker (equiv. to the Calif. Green Sticker) to help defray some of the costs of our sport. This kind of misuse is killing us all. If I can find a way to inset the pictures I will do that but the bottom line is OUR MISUSE must stop. If the State Land Dept. closes the State Trust lands to OHV recreation use we lose almost all our access for motorized recreation since most of the BLM public lands are lost behind Az Trust Lands......... All we'll be left with is FS and the new regs are going to be very tight. State Trust lands are 9.5 million acres of land in Ariz.
Your "OHV Teams" are trying very hard to help save our access........ we NEED HELP. Any ideas of how we can reach the yahoos out there please join the fight!! We're LOSING................ FAST!
Sandee
Summary
Recreation is causing damage to State Trust Lands (STL). As the population increases, so does the severity of the damage. As a fiduciary, the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD) cannot continue to let that damage go on without a response. That response is partially in the hands of the OHV group contemplating the division of the Copper Sticker funds. Give ASLD the money to manage the problem, or face a real possibility of closure of urban lands to motorized activity.
1 Taken from an OHV enthusiast website.
A Statement of Facts
The total land covered by the proposed Copper Sticker program (BLM, USFS, and STL) is 32,564,847 acres. Of that amount, 23,503,200 acres are PUBLIC Lands (BLM &USFS). They are mandated by their mission to manage this land as public land. The remaining 9,061,647 acres are STL. This land is NOT public land but treated more like private lands. Trust land is not mandated or funded to provide recreation opportunities.
Arizona State Land Department has a fiduciary responsibility to the State Trust. This fiduciary responsibility is special in that the laws governing Trust Lands include Federal legislation, which the State has no authority to tamper with, the State Constitution which is difficult to tamper with unless the citizens decide to act, and by State legislation.
Furthermore, ASLD does not have the means to properly manage recreation of its land.
State Trust Land Urban Holdings.
Current urban holdings of large tracks of land are largely held by only one entity in this State. That entity is the State Trust, managed by the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD)
Figure 2Valley of the Sun, ASLD PALMS Public Lands Theme
Figure 3 High OHV impact areas in Valley. Red is STL Purple is BLM, and Blue is USFS
As one can see, the closer the land to the urban center, the more likely the land belongs to the State Trust. A conclusion that might be drawn is the Trust gets a higher impact from short turn around OHV visitation than public lands are.
This coupled with the majority of the number of Department’s OHV-citizen driven complaints are concerning urban areas. This supports the contention that a real concern is OHV operation in the urban areas.
According to the Arizona State Parks’ Economic Importance of Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation to Arizona, report, Maricopa County has the highest number of OHV recreation days of 2,086,893. The next closest county is Coconino with 1,974,295 days.
Complaints from Citizens
Currently ASLD fields many Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) complaints. These range from noise, environmental damage, to dust complaints. Each complainant feels that their concern is a legitimate grievance and should be taken as such by ASLD. It is difficult, under present circumstances, to address these complaints without adequate tools to ameliorate the roots of the complaints.
Currently, ASLD has no mandate to provide recreation opportunities on Trust Land. Many officials within that Department feel that ASLD shouldn’t even be in the recreation business. In other words, the ASLD should stop selling recreation permits, and anyone on STL without a legitimate written permission is trespassing. This would be easier for law enforcement officers because if there is an OHV on STL then more than likely it is a trespass situation.
Complaints from Federal Agencies and County Departments
Through the Federal Clear Air Act, the urban counties have been charged with limitation of certain air pollutants, including dust particulates. Violations of this act can be very expensive. Fines can run more than $25,000 per occurrence, per day. The recipients of these fines are always the land owner. In the case of State Trust land, that would be the State Land Department. Therefore, the State Land Department must react in a responsible manner when it comes to controlling fugitive dust from the lands owned by the Trust.
4 Take from an OHV enthusiast’s website
In the past, options were available to keep the land open to OHV, but most at a great expense. Due to of lack to funding to control, mitigate, and ameliorate OHV soil damage, the only reasonable response ASLD can economically is to close the land to motorized use. To prevent action against the Trust and ASLD, the Department began to close lands that were subject to violation of the counties’ rules for fugitive dust.
If ASLD is asked to shoulder the majority of the burden to allow use of STL urban land, and expose the State to a risk of high penalties for fugitive dust, then ASLD and the Trust should be compensated with more then $1.00 from the Copper Sticker fund.
Since 1999, over 51,000 acres of STL have been closed in the Phoenix-Metropolitan area alone. These areas include metropolitan Maricopa and Pinal counties (Apache Junction area). A quick examination of closures below should enlighten one about the size of land involved.
5 If you don't want to see more of this on STL ...
CLOSURES
Since January of 1999, 51,392 acres of Trust land have been closed due to dust violations, or threatened dust violations. The numbers of closures are currently at 18. Over the six years of dust related closures, the closures averages 8,565 acres a year.
With the growing OHV population, the ever sprawling valley and its surrounding areas, and increased vigilance for air quality by the federal and county governments, the increase in annual acreage closed will promise to climb. Using the current data, by the year 2010, there may be as much as 102,000 urban acres closed to motorized travel.
To head off this trend of closures, ASLD needs a variety of tools to combat this trend. Those tools are an increase of law enforcement, better education, and a variety of legitimate alternatives to recreation opportunities on STL and commercial recreation ventures on private lands. The Department also has the need to hire additional land maintenance individuals to build and mend fences, execute dust control projects, and clean up litter left by recreating public.
In an Arizona Republic article, the author reports in a two year period there has been a six fold increase of OHV units sold in Maricopa County alone . This should also be a consideration that complaints will continue to mount against OHV activity on Trust land.
Liability Issue
In the early nineties, the recreationist on STL was more likely to be a trespasser than not. The Trust and ASLD had little responsibility for the safety of the trespasser, should they injure themselves while playing on STL.
With the introduction of the recreation permit, ASLD established a new category for users. They became an invitee. With that, there came an increase of responsibility for their protection. Again the Trust is asked to bear the burden of liability without any real benefit.
Subsequent to Early March 2005 Meeting
After the March 4, 2005 OHV laws committee meeting the group making the recommendations on how the fund should be divided up. I put forth that the $1.00 per permit, going to ASLD, was and is inadequate. The group asked that I take the proposal to the State Land Commissioner to see if he would agree to it.
Discussions Within ASLD
I began that process by going to the Natural Resource Division Director, Bill Dowdle. Mr. Dowdle said that he will not take the idea of $1.00 from a permit to the Commissioner. The discussion was that the trust owns close to a 1/3 the land in discussion here, and if we can't afford to mitigate the damage from recreation impact, maybe we should eliminate that threat to the land.
We also discussed the lack of dollars going to the Trust. If the Trust gets nothing, then why should the Trust risk the land and liability damage?
Quick and Simple Survey
At an OHV event on Sunday March 20, 2005, I took it upon myself to question the OHVers about what they thought would be a fair amount to charge for a “Copper Sticker” Program. The answers were totally unexpected by myself. Several responses were over $75.00. One person moaned and said we didn’t want to pay anything.
After running the answer through a statistical analysis spread sheet, I examined the central tendencies. I found that the average was $45.00, per OHV unit. The respondents were made aware that the charge would be for each of their OHVs. They stood by the $45.00 amount.
I also asked some mountain bikers if they would participate in a sticker program and if so how much would they be willing to pay for each bike. The mean was $50.00
Highlights
• STL is not Public Land
• Urban areas are more heavily used than non urban areas
• Large portion of urban land to be used is managed by ASLD
o ASLD is burdened with larger possibility for environmental fines without adequate compensation from the user.
o Urban land, because of a concentration of users, is subject to more physical damage than non urban land is.
o As a recreationist’s right to be on STL increases, so do the ASLD responsibility for their protection increases.
• Urban Closures will continue to climb without some form of direct contribution for hiring land maintenance workers.
• The committee’s request to take this to the Commissioner will not be made until a serious amount of compensation been extended to the Trust and ASLD.
• All but one of the OHV event attendees interviewed are for a “Copper Sticker” program, and are willing to foot the bill to increase recreation opportunities.
If I might be so bold to ask that this division be considered.
$30.00 permit
Amount To Whom Purpose
$10.00
Counties For Law Enforcement, Search & Rescue, Land Restoration, &
Facilities Construction
$8.00 Grants Land Maintenance & New Opportunities
$4.00 Admin Copper Sticker Program
$5.00 ASLD Land Maintenance & Extra Urban Law Enforcement
$3.00 Trust Beneficiaries Compensation
$30.00 Total All
Other Issues That We Should Considered.
• Most citations/Complaints issued by Law Enforcement officer when adjudicated the individual receive a fine. In addition to the fine, they are accessed additional surcharges. These include monies for training law enforcement, for emergency medical response, for training judges. If we write a surcharge for search and rescue, and damage mitigation, the only people who would pay are the ones that need to pay, the violators.
• Put in a yield law “Who yields to whom?” e.g.…motorcycle yields to Bikes and horses and hikers, Bikes to horses etc….
• Using the ATV manufacturers recommendations, a law should be written to establish engine size and minimum ages:
• Under 70cc - 6 and older
• 70-90cc - 12 and older
• Over 90cc - 16 and older
Below is direct copy recently received from the State Land Dept. (less pictures of outright distruction of our lands......... mud bogs mostly......
The OHV Task Force Team is trying very hard to implement a fair OHV Sticker (equiv. to the Calif. Green Sticker) to help defray some of the costs of our sport. This kind of misuse is killing us all. If I can find a way to inset the pictures I will do that but the bottom line is OUR MISUSE must stop. If the State Land Dept. closes the State Trust lands to OHV recreation use we lose almost all our access for motorized recreation since most of the BLM public lands are lost behind Az Trust Lands......... All we'll be left with is FS and the new regs are going to be very tight. State Trust lands are 9.5 million acres of land in Ariz.
Your "OHV Teams" are trying very hard to help save our access........ we NEED HELP. Any ideas of how we can reach the yahoos out there please join the fight!! We're LOSING................ FAST!
Sandee
Summary
Recreation is causing damage to State Trust Lands (STL). As the population increases, so does the severity of the damage. As a fiduciary, the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD) cannot continue to let that damage go on without a response. That response is partially in the hands of the OHV group contemplating the division of the Copper Sticker funds. Give ASLD the money to manage the problem, or face a real possibility of closure of urban lands to motorized activity.
1 Taken from an OHV enthusiast website.
A Statement of Facts
The total land covered by the proposed Copper Sticker program (BLM, USFS, and STL) is 32,564,847 acres. Of that amount, 23,503,200 acres are PUBLIC Lands (BLM &USFS). They are mandated by their mission to manage this land as public land. The remaining 9,061,647 acres are STL. This land is NOT public land but treated more like private lands. Trust land is not mandated or funded to provide recreation opportunities.
Arizona State Land Department has a fiduciary responsibility to the State Trust. This fiduciary responsibility is special in that the laws governing Trust Lands include Federal legislation, which the State has no authority to tamper with, the State Constitution which is difficult to tamper with unless the citizens decide to act, and by State legislation.
Furthermore, ASLD does not have the means to properly manage recreation of its land.
State Trust Land Urban Holdings.
Current urban holdings of large tracks of land are largely held by only one entity in this State. That entity is the State Trust, managed by the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD)
Figure 2Valley of the Sun, ASLD PALMS Public Lands Theme
Figure 3 High OHV impact areas in Valley. Red is STL Purple is BLM, and Blue is USFS
As one can see, the closer the land to the urban center, the more likely the land belongs to the State Trust. A conclusion that might be drawn is the Trust gets a higher impact from short turn around OHV visitation than public lands are.
This coupled with the majority of the number of Department’s OHV-citizen driven complaints are concerning urban areas. This supports the contention that a real concern is OHV operation in the urban areas.
According to the Arizona State Parks’ Economic Importance of Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation to Arizona, report, Maricopa County has the highest number of OHV recreation days of 2,086,893. The next closest county is Coconino with 1,974,295 days.
Complaints from Citizens
Currently ASLD fields many Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) complaints. These range from noise, environmental damage, to dust complaints. Each complainant feels that their concern is a legitimate grievance and should be taken as such by ASLD. It is difficult, under present circumstances, to address these complaints without adequate tools to ameliorate the roots of the complaints.
Currently, ASLD has no mandate to provide recreation opportunities on Trust Land. Many officials within that Department feel that ASLD shouldn’t even be in the recreation business. In other words, the ASLD should stop selling recreation permits, and anyone on STL without a legitimate written permission is trespassing. This would be easier for law enforcement officers because if there is an OHV on STL then more than likely it is a trespass situation.
Complaints from Federal Agencies and County Departments
Through the Federal Clear Air Act, the urban counties have been charged with limitation of certain air pollutants, including dust particulates. Violations of this act can be very expensive. Fines can run more than $25,000 per occurrence, per day. The recipients of these fines are always the land owner. In the case of State Trust land, that would be the State Land Department. Therefore, the State Land Department must react in a responsible manner when it comes to controlling fugitive dust from the lands owned by the Trust.
4 Take from an OHV enthusiast’s website
In the past, options were available to keep the land open to OHV, but most at a great expense. Due to of lack to funding to control, mitigate, and ameliorate OHV soil damage, the only reasonable response ASLD can economically is to close the land to motorized use. To prevent action against the Trust and ASLD, the Department began to close lands that were subject to violation of the counties’ rules for fugitive dust.
If ASLD is asked to shoulder the majority of the burden to allow use of STL urban land, and expose the State to a risk of high penalties for fugitive dust, then ASLD and the Trust should be compensated with more then $1.00 from the Copper Sticker fund.
Since 1999, over 51,000 acres of STL have been closed in the Phoenix-Metropolitan area alone. These areas include metropolitan Maricopa and Pinal counties (Apache Junction area). A quick examination of closures below should enlighten one about the size of land involved.
5 If you don't want to see more of this on STL ...
CLOSURES
Since January of 1999, 51,392 acres of Trust land have been closed due to dust violations, or threatened dust violations. The numbers of closures are currently at 18. Over the six years of dust related closures, the closures averages 8,565 acres a year.
With the growing OHV population, the ever sprawling valley and its surrounding areas, and increased vigilance for air quality by the federal and county governments, the increase in annual acreage closed will promise to climb. Using the current data, by the year 2010, there may be as much as 102,000 urban acres closed to motorized travel.
To head off this trend of closures, ASLD needs a variety of tools to combat this trend. Those tools are an increase of law enforcement, better education, and a variety of legitimate alternatives to recreation opportunities on STL and commercial recreation ventures on private lands. The Department also has the need to hire additional land maintenance individuals to build and mend fences, execute dust control projects, and clean up litter left by recreating public.
In an Arizona Republic article, the author reports in a two year period there has been a six fold increase of OHV units sold in Maricopa County alone . This should also be a consideration that complaints will continue to mount against OHV activity on Trust land.
Liability Issue
In the early nineties, the recreationist on STL was more likely to be a trespasser than not. The Trust and ASLD had little responsibility for the safety of the trespasser, should they injure themselves while playing on STL.
With the introduction of the recreation permit, ASLD established a new category for users. They became an invitee. With that, there came an increase of responsibility for their protection. Again the Trust is asked to bear the burden of liability without any real benefit.
Subsequent to Early March 2005 Meeting
After the March 4, 2005 OHV laws committee meeting the group making the recommendations on how the fund should be divided up. I put forth that the $1.00 per permit, going to ASLD, was and is inadequate. The group asked that I take the proposal to the State Land Commissioner to see if he would agree to it.
Discussions Within ASLD
I began that process by going to the Natural Resource Division Director, Bill Dowdle. Mr. Dowdle said that he will not take the idea of $1.00 from a permit to the Commissioner. The discussion was that the trust owns close to a 1/3 the land in discussion here, and if we can't afford to mitigate the damage from recreation impact, maybe we should eliminate that threat to the land.
We also discussed the lack of dollars going to the Trust. If the Trust gets nothing, then why should the Trust risk the land and liability damage?
Quick and Simple Survey
At an OHV event on Sunday March 20, 2005, I took it upon myself to question the OHVers about what they thought would be a fair amount to charge for a “Copper Sticker” Program. The answers were totally unexpected by myself. Several responses were over $75.00. One person moaned and said we didn’t want to pay anything.
After running the answer through a statistical analysis spread sheet, I examined the central tendencies. I found that the average was $45.00, per OHV unit. The respondents were made aware that the charge would be for each of their OHVs. They stood by the $45.00 amount.
I also asked some mountain bikers if they would participate in a sticker program and if so how much would they be willing to pay for each bike. The mean was $50.00
Highlights
• STL is not Public Land
• Urban areas are more heavily used than non urban areas
• Large portion of urban land to be used is managed by ASLD
o ASLD is burdened with larger possibility for environmental fines without adequate compensation from the user.
o Urban land, because of a concentration of users, is subject to more physical damage than non urban land is.
o As a recreationist’s right to be on STL increases, so do the ASLD responsibility for their protection increases.
• Urban Closures will continue to climb without some form of direct contribution for hiring land maintenance workers.
• The committee’s request to take this to the Commissioner will not be made until a serious amount of compensation been extended to the Trust and ASLD.
• All but one of the OHV event attendees interviewed are for a “Copper Sticker” program, and are willing to foot the bill to increase recreation opportunities.
If I might be so bold to ask that this division be considered.
$30.00 permit
Amount To Whom Purpose
$10.00
Counties For Law Enforcement, Search & Rescue, Land Restoration, &
Facilities Construction
$8.00 Grants Land Maintenance & New Opportunities
$4.00 Admin Copper Sticker Program
$5.00 ASLD Land Maintenance & Extra Urban Law Enforcement
$3.00 Trust Beneficiaries Compensation
$30.00 Total All
Other Issues That We Should Considered.
• Most citations/Complaints issued by Law Enforcement officer when adjudicated the individual receive a fine. In addition to the fine, they are accessed additional surcharges. These include monies for training law enforcement, for emergency medical response, for training judges. If we write a surcharge for search and rescue, and damage mitigation, the only people who would pay are the ones that need to pay, the violators.
• Put in a yield law “Who yields to whom?” e.g.…motorcycle yields to Bikes and horses and hikers, Bikes to horses etc….
• Using the ATV manufacturers recommendations, a law should be written to establish engine size and minimum ages:
• Under 70cc - 6 and older
• 70-90cc - 12 and older
• Over 90cc - 16 and older