From: Donald C. Amador, 112531,1311
TO: "Amador", INTERNET:brdon_a@sharetrails.org
DATE: 1/8/02 4:13 PM

RE: Copy of: Feds Say CA Greensticker has too much redtape

This is an interesting article and pretty well sums up the fact that too
much redtape
is currently involved with the FS and BLM applying for OHV grants. I told
this reporter
last week when he called that the grants used to be 5-20 pages in length
and took
fed staff about 1-2 weeks to prepare. Now, the grants are up to 1,000
pages and
fed staff can spend up to 6 months trying to meet the new paperwork requir.
at
state parks. I feel that fed staff should be out on the ground taking care
of
campgrounds and trails and serving the public rather than spending months
behind a desk. I hope a happy balance can be reached.

Don Amador, BRC
__________________________________________________ _________________________
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http://www.theunion.com/news/N8Febaat60065.html

GRASS VALLEY UNION
Feds balk at state's red tape
State, feds hash out OHV permits
By Tim Omarzu - Tue, Jan 8, 2002
If you're a snowmobile rider who likes playing on the Tahoe National
Forest's 234 miles of groomed trails, heads up:

TNF officials say the state grant program that pays about $620,000 annually
for snowmobile trails (and off-highway vehicle trails) has gotten so
complicated over the past couple years and requires so much paperwork,
that's it's almost not worth the effort.

"This process has become an extremely onerous task, barely within the
organizational limits of our ability to accomplish," wrote TNF Supervisor
Steve Eubanks in a November letter.

"It is ambiguous, unnecessarily complex, confusing and time-consuming. The
schedules ... are often impossible to meet," said Eubanks' letter to the
Forest Service's Region 5 Office, which oversees Sierra Nevada forests.

The paperwork got more difficult in 1999, after environmentalists sued the
state over its Off Highway Vehicle Grant program.

More commonly known as the "Green Sticker" program, it uses OHV
registration fees and gas taxes to fund OHV trail maintenance and
construction. More than $275 million has been spent since 1975.

A coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the
California Wilderness Coalition, alleged numerous problems with the program
in a 1999 report titled "California Off-Highway Vehicles: In the Money and
Out of Control."

Among the report's recommendations, which the state adopted after
environmentalists sued in 1999, were:

-- Federal agencies receiving state grants be held to the same
environmental standards that apply to state lands. In other words, the
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management would be required to comply
with the California Environmental Quality Act.

-- That federal agencies getting OHV grants prepare monitoring reports for
wildlife and soil erosion.

Karen Schambach, who wrote the report, said those are things that, by law,
should have been required of federal agencies all along.

"They've gotten the money all these years without having to meet their
responsibilities," she said. "The Forest Service has an obligation to
manage off-road vehicles in an environmentally sensitive way."

But TNF officials complain that the wildlife monitoring the state
recommended doesn't prove anything. For example, the state has TNF
officials setting out pieces of chicken near snowmobile routes that trigger
a camera when grabbed by an animal, such as a pine marten.

"It just proves that if you put out chicken wings and a camera, you can
probably get pictures of a marten," said Judy Tartaglia, TNF deputy
supervisor.

Paul Spitler, an environmentalist who sits on the state OHV Commission,
said the state never required the TNF to do such monitoring, only suggested
it.

"If the Tahoe National Forest has a better protocol for monitoring, they
should use it," he said.

However, Spitler and Schambach agreed the new requirement could use some
fine-tuning.

Jerry Johnson, assistant deputy director of the state OHV grant program,
said his office is taking steps to simplify things. The OHV program held a
multi-day training session for grant applicants in November. Johnson's
office also is preparing a sample application to which applicants can
refer.

Eubanks thinks the "Forest Service and state can sit down and work through
this."




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