ATV's

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Buena Vista Township has requested the State Police to enforce our local ordinance and the rules that are established for your safety and the safety of others.

Seventy mayors and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance are supporting a proposal to toughens regulations and penalties for the all-terrain vehicle community.

Rough going for state-planned ATV park 12/16/07

Rough going for state-planned ATV park

Environmentalists and others oppose the Monroe Twp. site. Enthusiasts say they deserve legal space.

In the spring, the meadow where Fred Akers was standing will fill up with a few feet of water and play host to a threatened species of Pine Barrens tree frog.

But in December, this seasonal pond in Gloucester County is nearly dry and frozen, and Akers could point out the tire tracks disappearing into one of the remaining patches of water.

"As cool as this is - and as sensitive as I think it is - there are the ATV tracks. They were out here doing doughnuts and driving around while I was surveying," said Akers, a local environmentalist. "This is like driving through wetlands."

If New Jersey gets its way, this land in Monroe Township will become a permanent playground for all-terrain vehicles, with a track and miles of trails winding through 224 Pinelands acres.

But that won't happen without a fight from environmentalists and neighbors, who don't want to have to listen to engines revving through the woods.

"We hear them over there now, riding illegally, and it's loud," said Joan Stahl, who lives across from the entrance to the property, a former sand mine. "They come in at dawn, and they stay until dark. The noise, the dust, and we're so close."

In a heavily developed state, this fight pits environmentalists who want to preserve the precious remaining green space against outdoor enthusiasts who say they deserve some room.

The state said opening an ATV park at the former Sahara Sands mine was the best compromise for everyone.

Thousands of ATV riders are illegally using state land, and officials hope opening parks will stop most of that riding.

"A lot of it is that they just don't understand the impact on the environment," said John S. Watson, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection. "Our interests are to protect the natural resources of the state as a whole, and we feel we have to do something."

ATV enthusiasts - supporters put their numbers close to one million in New Jersey - describe themselves as environmentalists as well, and they reject claims that their machines have dirty, polluting engines.

Dale Freitas, president of the New Jersey Off-Highway Vehicle Association, said illegal riding happened because the state had not fulfilled a 2003 promise to provide land.

"They know this is a valid user group, and if they're going to stop this problem . . . you have to have options for them," he said.

One current option, the New Jersey Off Road Vehicle Park in Chatsworth, Burlington County, was a former strip mine polluted with burned-out cars and trash. The riders, using volunteer labor, helped clean up the site and plant trees. But in 2008, the park will close, and the land will revert to a state forest.

The state Pinelands Commission and the DEP promised to find three new sites for riders by then. One, proposed for somewhere east of the Garden State Parkway, has received a $338,000 federal grant.

Another, for now, is proposed for Sahara Sands, which is 60 percent mined and 40 percent forest, the DEP's Watson said.

Said Freitas: "If the owner wanted to go back in there and mine again . . . he could bulldoze and grade and do anything he wanted in that pit. But as soon as you mention an [ATV] park, they throw up their hands and say it's a habitat for threatened and endangered species."

The state bought the Sahara Sands site in 2005, using $1.2 million in Green Acres funding. Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club of New Jersey, said spending that money on an ATV park would be a "diversion" from the fund's mission and require approval from a body known as the State House Commission.

"I think DEP's got its head up a tailpipe," Tittel said. "Look, I'm a skier. Is the state going to go buy me a ski area?"

He said his group could sue to stop the park.

But Watson said the Green Acres funding was not a diversion.

"The Green Acres program is for recreation, and this is certainly recreation," he said. "This is no different than a public marina - and we fund public marinas."

Watson said the DEP planned to outline all the pros and cons of the Monroe park in a public document by spring. The agency then would name a nonprofit group to run the park.

That nonprofit, Watson said, would be responsible for getting approvals from the Pinelands Commission and possibly the two townships bordering the park - Monroe and Buena Vista, Atlantic County.

Then there are the neighbors.

Stahl, who works for Buena Vista's mayor, an opponent of the park, gathered 370 signatures on a petition to block its creation.

"We're not going to just sit there and not do anything," she said. "We save all our money to have a nice place, and they can just come in and destroy it."

Akers, the administrator of the Great Egg Harbor Watershed Association, said he objected to the characterization of the Monroe site as a "barren moonscape."

He said the state's own data, which he consulted, showed the existence of threatened species there, such as the barred owl and the tree frog, which he heard on the land.

"They're pretty loud, and they honk like a goose, so you can't mistake them for another species," he said.

Watson said threatened and endangered species were all over the state, including in areas where illegal riding was happening.

"We selected this site because it's a former mine," he said. "It's a disturbed site. It's not a pristine site."

Akers and other opponents said that opening a park in Monroe wouldn't stop illegal riding because people would tire of paying fees and waiting in line.

They said the state needed strong enforcement to register ATVs and discourage illegal riding - a position the DEP also takes.

Freitas said his group also supported more registration and licensing of ATVs and safety and environmental training for riders.

But he said the only law proposed on the matter would carry draconian penalties for illegal riding and didn't address the need for legal parks.

"The problems are only being compounded right now," Freitas said. "The whole purpose of this legislation is to scare people into not buying an ATV or dirt bike."

If given a choice, he said, most enthusiasts would ride legally.

Akers just doesn't think that will happen in Monroe, given the species on that site.

"It's going to be an uphill fight, and it's going to require the DEP and the Pinelands Commission to bend the crap out of their own rules," he said.

The Township has revised their municipal ordinance regulating off-road vehicles to allow state police to impound ATVs in some cases.

A revised ATV ordinance now gives the authorities more control to impound a vehicle.

The Environmental Protection Department has spent $1.2 million to buy the 224-acre tract in Gloucester County. The state plans to turn this former sand and gravel strip into a all-terrain vehicle park.

The Pinelands Preservation Alliance is taking a national survey of off-road vehicles in Southampton.

Along the back roads of southern New Jersey, it's often unclear where the streets end and the trails begin. It was on one lonely stretch of road in Estell Manor that 16-year-old Matthew Abdilla lost control of the all-terrain vehicle he was riding on Labor Day. His death, one of several recently involving ATVs, comes as lawmakers seek to tighten the already restrictive rules governing off-road vehicles.

Mayor Chuck Chiarello is still concerned with all-terrain vehicles riding throughout the township. A bill introduced in May 2006 went into committee just before they took the summer off, they are hoping it will come back into the consideration during the fall.

A group of 70 mayors are working with the Pinelands Preservation Alliance and conservation organizations to ask for special legislation to crack down on illegal use of all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes and other vehicles used in rural areas.

It's not like the state of New Jersey to miss an opportunity to bring in some extra cash. But it has fallen to little old Buena Vista Township to lead a call for what should be a no-brainer — a requirement that all-terrain vehicles be registered with the state.

Mayor Chuck Chiarello says a $50 registration fee along with a requirement for license plates for ATVs would help his rural township, where the illegal riding of ATVs has become increasingly popular and increasingly destructive to fragile trails in the Pine Barrens.

These powerful machines destroy vegetation and tear up trail beds. And riders are hard to catch. Neither muncipalities, the State Police nor the state Department of Environmental Protection have the manpower to police the woods. Buena Vista Township recently increased fines for illegal ATV riding to $1,000 for the first offense and $2,000 for subsequent offenses (another good idea). But little seems to deter ATV enthusiasts.

At least if ATVs were registered and had license plates, it would be easier to track down illegal riders. There are believed to be approximately 250,000 ATVs in the state — but, of course, without a registration requirement, no one knows for sure. “It's like walking in and buying a lawnmower,” Chiarello has said.

Buena Vista Township, along with several environmental groups, wants local lawmakers to sponsor a bill requiring ATV registration. They also want surrounding municipalities to increase their fines for illegal riding. Both moves should help.

It is true, as ATV enthusiasts like to point out, that there is almost no place in New Jersey where it is legal to ride these dirt bikes and similar machines. It's illegal to ride them on public lands. It's illegal to ride them on private lands without permission.

But if you ask us, this is an argument for not buying an ATV in the first place, not an excuse for trespassing and damaging public and private property.

There is an 80-acre ATV park in Chatsworth and one or two other smaller approved facilities. But the Chatsworth facility is set to close in September 2008 when the lease expires. The DEP has recently purchased a site in Monroe Township, on the border of Buena Vista, for a possible ATV park. It's no secret that the possibility of a nearby ATV facility has raised concerns for Chiarello and others.

We suppose that if the state is collecting registration fees for ATVs, it has some obligation to provide a legal place to ride them.

But whether that park is built or not, the registration of ATVs is a sound idea. It will generate some money that could be used for enforcement and it will deter illegal riding.

MAURICE RIVER TOWNSHIP — The township's new master plan revisions call for the potential creation of an ATV park on a former sand mine and preservation of the river and bayside economy and ecology.

A public hearing will be held at 7 p.m. July 19 in the municipal building so the township's more than 3,000 residents can comment on changes to the 10-page plan.

The master plan remains mostly the same, with several key changes.

Among them are the hope for a recreation area for all-terrain vehicles. ATV use is huge in Cumberland County, but there are essentially very few legal places for people to enjoy it. The result is that a large proportion of State Police calls are in response to ATV riding.

In the past 10 years, there have been four accidents involving ATVs within the township, two of them fatal.

Township residents and officials pushed for state blessing for an ATV park last year but lost out to Monroe Township, Gloucester County. ATVs are even more popular in Maurice River Township, which has huge swaths of open land and is home to seven-time National Enduro champion Mike Lafferty.

The idea is to turn a closed sand mine into a race park.

“Most of the areas where this could take place are all in Pinelands areas,” said Barbara Sutton, secretary to the town's Land Use Board. That's why the best target would be a reclaimed sand mine, which would have no such restrictions.

The plan's revisions also call for preservation of the river and bay economies along the Maurice River and Delaware Bay. There are several marinas and boatyards along the waterways. Fears arose recently that they might not always be there, with Four Star Marina in the township's Leesburg section up for sale.

“What we're hoping not to see is someone coming in there to buy them for condominiums,” Sutton said.

Beyond that, there are few major changes. The master plan, essentially a vision for the town's future development, still includes provisions for protecting wetlands and open spaces. It directs future residential growth toward existing neighborhoods rather than opening for new developments.

Maurice River is the state's largest municipality geographically, but since most of it is marsh or preserved forest land, the town is sparsely populated outside the small villages of Leesburg, Port Elizabeth, Dorchester and Heislerville. Inmates in two prisons, Southern State Correctional Facility and Bayside State Prison, make up about half the town's population of more than 7,000.

The master plan must go from the Land Use Board to the Township Committee for final approval.

To e-mail Daniel Walsh at The Press:

The state Department of Environmental Protection's push to open an off-road vehicle park here near the Buena Vista border has cooled since last month's change in leadership, prompting some opponents to try to scuttle the proposal now while it's weak.

The state Department of Environmental Protection's push to open an off-road vehicle park here has cooled since last month's change in commissioners, prompting some opponents to try to scuttle the proposal now while it's weak.

Acting Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson has replaced former DEP chief Bradley Campbell, who issued a policy directive in 2002 to build two all-terrain vehicle parks by 2005 to curb illegal riding. The DEP targeted a 213-acre abandoned sand mine off Jackson Road as a possible site.

"We're in the middle of changing administrations so we don't want to move forward too aggressively," said John Watson, assistant DEP commissioner for natural and historic resources.

Ed Knorr, a local environmental activist, and Chuck Chiarello, the mayor of neighboring Buena Vista Township, are seizing the opportunity to criticize the proposal as unsuitable and potentially disastrous.

Knorr is asking township council to write an ordinance to ban ATV parks from all areas of the 46.5-mile township. Chiarello has already personally presented Jackson with his written opposition to the ATV park.

"We don't want the problem the state has with illegal ATV riders to be dropped on Monroe Township," said Knorr, who heads the Green Action Alliance.

In a letter to the council, Knorr said his request wasn't intended "to deem ATVs or their riders as social outcasts, but to stay consistent with the health and protection of our environment . . . ATVs can produce smog clouds, dust and debris, trash, a threat to our water, destruction of woodlands and wildlife and the list can go on."

Council President Marvin Dilks said the governing body will consider Knorr's proposal while it waits for a response from the DEP on the project's status.

The DEP used $1.2 million from the Green Acres program to buy the Sahara Sand Inc. property in Monroe in May 2005. In an early January letter sent to a homeowner living near the mine, Campbell wrote that the state acquired the land with the intent of building an ATV park there. But he noted the DEP hadn't made a final determination.

The DEP is, by no means, giving up on the proposal, Watson said, noting it's been regularly consulting with the Division of Fish and Wildlife and the Pinelands Commission.

"It won't take us long to put forward a plan if that's the direction we decide to take," Watson said.

Chiarello, who met with Campbell and Watson late last year to express his concerns, said neither he nor a coalition of environmental groups from around the state will support an off-road vehicle park until the state Legislature requires registration and licensing of ATVs; strengthens the state's enforcement authority against ATV use on public and private property; and creates an education and training program for riders.

The DEP is pursuing such legislation in tandem with its ATV park efforts, Watson said.

Joan Stahl, who lives about 90 feet from the sand mine's entrance, worries the DEP will try to sneak something past residents when they're not expecting it. After all, she said, the DEP never notified her it was buying the property with the intent to put an ATV park there even though she lives across the street from the site.

Tom Pannone worries that the park won't get built, forcing ATV enthusiasts to either go to other states or ride illegally in New Jersey.

"The state said there would be legal ride parks by the end of 2005. That's come and gone," said Pannone, who owns Goodfellows Motor Sports, an off-road vehicle dealer in Monroe. "The state is dragging their feet, I do believe. Now, there's a new administration and we're at the bottom of the list . . . That past directive was basically just a lie."

The land directly behind John DiThomas' home could be anything.

It was a sand mine, until it was sold five months ago. Now it could be the home for wildlife game, which he wouldn't mind. Or it could be an all-terrain vehicle park, which he and more than 250 other neighbors would resist.

Residents who live in the southwestern corner of Monroe Township, Gloucester County, which borders Buena Vista and Franklin townships, said they found out by word of mouth that the Department of Environmental Protection bought the Sahara Sand mine for $1.2 million and was thinking of turning it into an ATV park.

Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello said the township was never formally notified.

Resident Joan Stahl, who lives on Jackson Road near what could be the entrance to the park, said the neighbors will make their intentions known.

More than 250 people signed a petition to keep the park out of their community, which consists of dirt roads and homes built deep into the woods for privacy. They plan on presenting the names and speaking against the park at the Monroe Township Committee meeting on Nov. 22.

"I'd be a fool not to go," said DiThomas, who bought his home in July. What bothers him and many other neighbors is the questions that surround how the park will be used. Some people heard it could be used for hunting, others for off-road vehicles.

Calls to the state Environmental Protection Agency, the mayor of Monroe Township and the City Council president on Tuesday were not returned.

The resident's concerns span from traffic to dust problems and from noise to policing issues.

Supporters of the park said it would keep ATV riders from destroying environmentally sensitive areas, which are abundant in Pinelands communities.

Both Stahl and DiThomas said they made significant investments in their homes, upgrading utilities where necessary and in some instances adding rooms.

"It was my dream home," said Stahl, who has lived in her house for eight years with her two teenage children and husband. "We just put in a pool. We would feed the deer at night. It seems almost impossible to enjoy those things with the noise those motors are going to make."

Chiarello said there's already little law enforcement can do about ATV riders that zip though township roads. He's worried that people waiting to get in to the park may simply take to the nearby terrain. A similar park in Chatsworth, Burlington County, only allows 300 riders in at a time, forming lines outside the entrance for hours.

Rebecca Lindstrom, who has lived in her house on Dutch Mill Road for 45 years, said that although she and her husband aren't against an ATV park, they don't understand the logic of having one in the area.

"It's hard enough to get a home built in the Pinelands," said Bob Lindstrom, referring to strict environmental restrictions in the area. "But they can decide to have a park here that quickly?"

To e-mail Tom Namako at The Press:

TNamako@pressofac.com

The state purchased the Sahara Sand Inc. property off Jackson Road in Monroe Township quietly for $1.2 million. Buena Vista Township officials fear it would bring noise, traffic and ecological damage.

Concerned citizens are circulating several petitions to protest this ATV park from coming to Jackson Road.

MONROE
The state has quietly purchased a sand mine off Jackson Road, hoping to open an off-road vehicle park and reduce damage that all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes are doing to ecologically sensitive land across South Jersey.

But the plan, resulting from the state's purchase of the Sahara Sand Inc. property five months ago, could become a major environmental battle, pitting those who enjoy the outdoors by jumping sand moguls against those who prefer nature as seen through a pair of binoculars.

Environmentalists argue dirt bikes and ATVs will damage an area that mining operations inadvertently turned into relatively unique wildlife habitats on the edge of the Pinelands National Reserve.

Moreover, they insist they won't support the plan without tougher measures to register and issue license plates for ATVs to help law enforcement officers catch illegal riders.

But off-road vehicle enthusiasts argue a park is desperately needed because of a lack of places to ride legally. Without one, they say, more riders will take to the woods and do more damage.

Tom Pannone Sr. is owner of Goodfellows Motor Sports, a Black Horse Pike off-road vehicle dealer. He said he believes a park will relieve damage to other state lands while cutting down on injuries and fatalities from uncontrolled riding.

"It's a much safer environment for people to have a place to go to and ride, rather than the renegade way," said Pannone, who alerted state officials to the availability of the Sahara Sand property.

The Department of Environmental Protection acquired the sand mine in May for $1.2 million, using funds from the Green Acres program.

The 213-acre property includes a large sandy area surrounding a deep lake formed by mining operations. Pannone compares the area to dunes and deserts of Southern California that are popular with ATV riders.

But residents have a different view. Ed Caffee, who lives on Jackson Road, across from the sand mine's lake, worries about noise.

"I don't like the sneaky way they're doing this," the 74-year-old retired police lieutenant said of the state's handling of the purchase. "It's like they don't want people screaming and hollering about it."

Jay Watson, an assistant DEP commissioner, said the department will hold public hearings once park plans are further along. But he could not explain why the DEP did not formally announce the acquisition other than to say "we buy a lot of land all the time and this probably didn't rise to the level of putting out a news release."

The property encompasses forests of young pine trees, grasslands and wetlands that likely provide habitat for pine snakes, rattlesnakes, Pine Barrens tree frogs and grassland bird species, environmentalists say.

"This would be a great habitat restoration project," Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey Sierra Club said of the Sahara Sand property.

He argues that attempts to control riding have backfired in California, where ATV riders leave designated riding areas and have scarred delicate desert habitats.

Tittel further argues that state money should not be used to fund a private interest.

"I'm a skier," he said. "Does that mean the state should build me a ski slope in the Highlands?"

Watson said the state is trying to make the best of a bad situation. The DEP hopes to keep riders out of state forests, parks and wildlife management areas.

"They're wreaking havoc on all the places we're trying to protect," Watson said.

Riders blaze trails through wetlands, tear up boggy areas that provide frog breeding habitat, and chew up mats of rare plants, environmentalists say.

The DEP initiated tougher enforcement in 2002, but Watson concedes enforcement alone is not working. This is why the department also launched a process to identify areas that could become regional off-road vehicle parks, he said.

If the Monroe park clears local and state regulatory hurdles, it could be the first in a state system of regional off-road vehicle parks.

One of the few major parks already existing in the state is the New Jersey Off Road Vehicle Park in eastern Burlington County. The nonprofit New Jersey Off Road Vehicle Park Inc. will lose its lease to the land in 2008.

"You'd have thousands of riders without a place to ride; they're pretty much stuck riding illegally, I guess," the group's president, Kenny Montanaro, said of the prospects of the park closing without a replacement. His group hopes to manage the new park.

A decade ago, the group signed an agreement with the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, which owns the land off Savoy Boulevard in Woodland, to bring control to lawlessness.

Bonfires, shooting of firearms, stripping and torching of stolen cars were common, Mantanaro said.

Things were so bad, the state Pinelands Commission bent its own rules by allowing the park in a core preservation area, said Emile DeVito, science and stewardship manager for the Conservation Foundation.

The park now attracts ATV and dirt bike riders from all over the region, Mantanaro said.

"They're all responsible people. It's not people just ripping it up, drinking. It's a good family atmosphere," he said.

But the Conservation Foundation plans to hand the land over to the state in 2008 as an addition to Brendan Byrne State Forest.

The Sahara Sand property is on the national reserve's edge, which the state considers more compatible for an off-road vehicle park.

"Honestly, we would have preferred the park being outside the Pinelands, but the opportunity availed itself," Watson said.

He insists riding will be focused on the disturbed areas around the lake, and that steps will be taken to control dust and noise.

DeVito believes off-road vehicle riders need a place to call their own. But he said environmentalists initially supported the state's regional park concept with the understanding that the Legislature would enact laws requiring ATV registration and related fees to support more enforcement.

This never happened because of lobbying by companies that manufacture and sell ATVs, he said.

"It's all illegal, but there's no way to catch anyone," DeVito said. "When nobody can catch you or know who you are, you just keep your helmet down and go."

Monroe Administrator Kevin Heydel said it's too early for the township to take a position because the state has not even submitted an application to the planning board. But he said the park could bring economic development to the township.

Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello, however, fears riders will eventually get bored of the park and will spill into woods near residential neighborhoods in his township.

He argues the money spent on buying the sand mine could have been better spent on enforcement.

"We already have a horrible problem with the sand mines," he said. "Hundreds of riders come through with no enforcement of the law."

From 1982 through 2004, at least 48 people died in ATV-related accidents in New Jersey, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Those most likely to be involved are under the age of 16.

It is illegal to ride ATVs anywhere but on privately owned land with the owner's permission. Local fines vary; fines for riding on state-owned land, including state forests and wildlife management areas, can be as high as $1,000. The state issues special permits allowing limited use of state land for motorcycle "enduro' events.

State conservation and parks officers issued 1,613 summonses for illegal off-road vehicle riding between October 2002 and September 2005.

injured so often? * No helmet use. * Carrying one or more passengers. * Lack of mature judgment. * Lack of adequate strength and coordination. * ATV too big for their size/age.

all ATV riders * Do not carry passengers. ATVs are designed for one person. * Wear a helmet with eye protection. * Wear non-skid, closed toe shoes. * Wear long pants and a long-sleeve shirt. * Do not ride on public roads or at night. * Never use a 3-wheeler. They are unsafe and no longer manufactured. * Attend an ATV driver's safety course.

What can happen? The most common injuries associated with ATV crashes are to the head, face and spine -- skull fractures, facial fractures, brain injuries, coma, paralysis and spinal cord injuries. Some kids have short-term disability, some have a lifetime of disability, and some kids die.
-- archildrens.org