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A meadow no more
Off-road vehicles spelled disaster for a meadow in an important watershed outside Wenatchee, and this is just the story that hit the news. Every year more and more wilderness disappears to illegal, off-trail ORV use. Agencies are hard pressed to enforce existing rules and small special interest groups are pushing for more and more unfettered access to backcountry, even at the protest of local residents. Are our wild places being turned into a motorized free-for-all, who does it benefit, and who pays the price?
Orr Creek Meadow, trashed by ORVs. Off-trail disturbance and destruction of our wild, quiet places by ORV riders that already have plenty of legal access to public lands is on the rise. Photo: WA Dept. Fish & Wildlife
Earlier this month, a half dozen vehicles and their riders opened up underground springs that feed Orr Creek in the Stemilt Basin, rerouting the creek and damaging irrigation culverts and intakes used by the local reclamation district to supply water to Wenatchee orchards. Local wildlife officers called it "the most egregious act of nature destruction" they've ever seen by off-road vehicles. As the Wenatchee World puts it, "One night of destructive fun has altered the course of nature in a peaceful meadow." That behavior doesn't lie near any definition of "fun" I have ever heard.
With their power and speed, off-road vehicles can be wildly destructive to natural areas, especially when riders go off-trail. And riders who blast through meadows to get to off-trail thrills create new in-roads that more conscientious riders inadvertently follow deeper into wilderness. The Blue Ribbon Coalition--a special interest group funded largely by ORV manufacturers--insists that it is only a few bad apples causing the damage. Yet when surveyed by wildlife agencies, 50 percent of dirt bikers and ATV riders said they prefer to ride off established trails or did so on their last outing. As Derrick Knowles said in our latest newsletter, "that's not a few bad apples, that's half the crate." Derrick and David Heflick participate in the Colville National Forest OHV Travel Planning process for our Columbia Highlands Initiative.
Can't believe this