Tahoe DEIS Letter Generator is UP!!!

[Bebe]

Can you please make this a sticky?

Please see my sig.....

[MT4Runner]

done.

I am a member of the Big Sky Four Wheelers Club, Montana 4x4 Association, Blue Ribbon Coalition, and United Four Wheel Drive Association. My family and I treasure the opportunities we have for off-highway vehicle recreation. It enables me to share my love of the outdoors with my small children who cannot cover the ground I can on foot or bike.

I am extremely concerned about the possibility of closure of all off-highway routes in the Tahoe National Forest during all four winter months. Snow wheeling is a great way for me and my family to get out in the winter months--and is a lot cheaper than buying lift tickets for four people. When we air our tires down to a few psi (single digits pounds-per-square inch) the tires float incredibly well on the snow. When tires are aired down this low, the ground pressure is as low as tire pressure--even hikers can't tread this lightly!!

I am opposed to the formal closure of mining trails and user-created routes. Some user-created routes may risk resource damage, and should individually be considered for closure. The vast majority are on rock, and their value for access to old mining sites, dispersed camping areas, scenic pull-outs, and picnic sites. They SHOULD NOT be closed due to concerns about maintenance funding shortfalls. They SHOULD remain open due to their recreation value, and public-private partnerships should be pursued to handle maintenance.

Please cite peer-reviewed research showing that winter wheeled motorized use has any adverse affect on deer herds on Buckeye Road.

Thank you for considering my opinions.

[Kurtuleas]

Originally Posted by Bebe

Can you please make this a sticky?

Done.


PLEASE pass this info on to as many people as possible!

Write several letters.

Have your wife, kids, parents, step kids, neighbors, and dog write a letter too!

[Bebe]

We have 17 letters Woo Hoo!!! Thank you to all who have taken the time!

We need a few (like 5000K) more please

We could use some LU Leader help, like posting on all sites/forums, emailing the link to your email lists etc.

Thank you.

Bebe
_____

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by MT4Runner

done.

Awesome letter! Thank you!

[microtus]

I just wrote 2, and both were kicked back as undeliverable

This is the Postfix program at host mail.sharetrails.org.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.

For further assistance, please send mail to

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the message returned below.

The Postfix program

: mail for
starsttream.net.sharetrails.org loops back to myself
Reporting-MTA: dns; mail.sharetrails.org
Arrival-Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 09:06:05 -0700 (MST)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; theisen@starsttream.net.sharetrails.org
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; mail for starsttream.net.sharetrails.org loops back
to myself

[ChevyGal]

Originally Posted by microtus

I just wrote 2, and both were kicked back as undeliverable

I just wrote one and got the same thing? Is there another way to go about it?

[Kurtuleas]

The starstream addy is Bebe's for copies of the letter..

I WAS fixed by my IT guy...

I can't check with him until tomorrow about it..


As long as you do not get a bounce from the FS addy, the comments went thru to them...

[Bebe]

I've been getting them all day....hmm. I have yours too Robert....

I know the FS is getting them.

Chevy Gal, can you PM me what you got back? Please.

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by Kurtuleas

The starstream addy is Bebe's for copies of the letter..

I WAS fixed by my IT guy...

I can't check with him until tomorrow about it..


As long as you do not get a bounce from the FS addy, the comments went thru to them...

YOUR - IT guy and I fixed it again this morning :-)

[Slapahoe]

sent!

[Tom Boyd]

This is what I plan on sending. Please give me your input. Thanks.

"Dear Sir or Ma'am,

I am writing to express my concern with the possibility of a complete winter closure of the Tahoe National Forest to OHV enthusiasts as a means of environmental preservation.

I have been an avid year round visitor to this area for more than 15 years. As California has changed during this time period, there are fewer and fewer rural options for families to enjoy our beautiful landscape.

The vast majority of OHV enthusiasts are great protectors of the environment, as we don’t just speak of it as many do, we immerse ourselves in it. I have taken part in various environmental clean-ups in the region including Fordyce and Rubicon trails in which upwards of 100 people helped rid the area of trash, recyclables and human fecal matter. During each trip to the region, we always practice the “Pack out more than you pack in” motto.

We have worked for many years to reduce the environmental impact of human use to this area, and plan to increase our efforts. With so few areas available, please do not further prevent us from continuing our traditions and teaching the next generation of outdoorsmen to be good stewards of our public lands.

Thank you for your time in considering another point of view.

Sincerely,

Tom Boyd"

Am I missing anything? Cheers

Edit: I guess I should change my sig sold.

[Bebe]

Excellent Tom, fire away!

[Tom Boyd]

Your Letter Has Been Sent!
Thank you for taking the time to complete your letter. Your participation is critical to our mission of perserving recreational access to public and private lands.

[Bebe]

Here are 3 sample letters:

Dear Supervisor Quinn,

Keep Fordyce open year-round:

Many 4 wheel drive vehicles traverse the trail during the summer months, however, year round access is very important to me. There are many people that use the trail year round.

Most only travel as far as we can get in half a day, leaving the remainder of the day for the return trip. Sometimes we organize weekend trips, in which we prepare for an overnight stay camping in the snow. This requires a fair amount of preparation and expenditure, which many of the local businesses in Nevada and Placer Counties depend on.

There are 4 wheel drive enthusiasts that spend a great deal of time and money preparing their rigs for the winter. Bead-lock wheels are the most expensive equipment used. The wheels lock the bead of the tire to the wheel, so when the tire is aired down and left with 2-3 lbs of air, the tire will stay on the wheel. The purpose of this is to create a wide footprint which greatly enhances traction in the snow by allowing the vehicle to “float” on top of the snow. It prevents the tires from “digging” into the snow, and also helps prevent tread damage to roads that may have 24-36” of snow pack. The trick to staying on top of the snow is slow steady throttle, which much like the nature of rock crawling reduces the risk of resource damage. Many purchase wider tires as well to aid in deep snow travel.

The property owner at Cisco Grove Campground will be adversely impacted financially, over 3500 OHV users will be adversely impacted by the enforcement of the current designation of Highway Legal Vehicles only on Rattlesnake Road.

Currently the Highway Legal Vehicle only designation is not and has not been enforced. Therefore traffic use and knowledge have governed the use of this road for many years.

It will eliminate the only secure entrance to the Fordyce Trail for Green-sticker vehicles. It is also the only secure parking area available. The Eagle Lakes OHV staging area has vehicle break in and vandalism EVERY weekend. This road is used everyday by OHV's. There is just no substitute for this road. It must be designated as multi-use.

Thank for your time.

Sincerley
Name
Address
City, State

email
phone

Greenhorn:

Dear Supervisor Quinn,

Greenhorn OHV area has been used by all types of vehicles for nearly as long as vehicles have been around. Many families ride in the Greenhorn area. It provides a safe, contained, multi use day area for ATV's, 4 wheel drives, and the new utility vehicles.

This makes an ideal setting for OHV use. Traditionally local residents have used it for teaching young or new enthusiasts how to ride, drive, and have fun. It is the ONLY open OHV area that includes 4 Wheel Drive use. The majority of creek bed users are 4 Wheel Drive enthusiasts. It has many different levels of challenging terrain, and obstacles. Real Estate Agents sell Greenhorn properties touting recreational OHV use.

Because of the history of Greenhorn Creek and a Hydraulic mining area, much of the soils have been washed downstream leaving a very large wide open creek bed consisting mostly of river rock. Very little vegetation exists, and very little wildlife traverses the area.

We want Greenhorn to stay open year round. It is generally below the snow line. When most of the forest will be closed during the snow and wet season, when the deep snow makes many forest roads impassable, Greenhorn offers a safe, fun place to recreate on rainy weekends. It would be a great place to continue to offer use where little damage to trails and roadbeds can occur. It's all rock!

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement only includes a portion of the traditional/original Greenhorn OHV use area, and again only a portion of the Tahoe National Forests portion of Greenhorn OHV.

The Greenhorn OHV area as described in the Draft, highlights the creek bed from Buckeye Road and South. Users also travel from the Buckeye Road entrance North, and continue until the canyon becomes too narrow to travel. This also should also be included in the Greenhorn OHV area, as another 40+ acres of exactly the same terrain, and rock creek bed exist there as well.

This area is completely owned by the Public and managed by the Tahoe National Forest. It would not produce any private ownership conflicts. This area needs to be designated in THIS process.

Closing Buckeye Road for the Winter Deer herd is not prudent. It is one of many roads available to the public in a condensed area, and has never been closed for this purpose before. There are several studies that prove the Deer are not affected by OHV's, and in fact their numbers are increasing and show no evidence of their habitat being degraded.

Please Designate the Greenhorn OHV area in the final decision, and keep it open for year-round use.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely

Name
address
city, state

email
phone

Route closures

Dear Supervisor Quinn

Tahoe National Forest is closing nearly ALL “user created routes”, giving us back only 30-70 miles out of 2500. Many of these routes were built by the Forest Service, and have been being used by OHV's for as as many as 30 years. Some of these routes are old mining roads that OHV'ers have adopted and prescriptively used as destination trails. These mining routes, in many cases, predate the existence of the Forest Service, and we contend that the Forest Service has no right to close the original mining trails that have been used by the public, uninterrupted for 130 years (in some cases).

They lead to vistas, scenic byways, secluded lakes, creeks and primitive camping. We contend that all of these routes are valuable, as they are being used to access some type of needed or wanted resource. These trails have not been proven to affect water quality, habitats, or plants. What they are is a road that the forest service cannot afford to manage. Management is not closure. These roads all need to be analyzed individually for their value, and included into the Forest System until this has been accomplished.

The Tahoe National Forest has decided not to designate routes leading to private property, traversing private property, or exiting private property. Tahoe National Forest has also stated that the burden of permitted access to these types of trails will be on the user. We as users will not have the ability to gain permission to cross private property if there are no trails designated to private property. These trails need to be designated until access or easement has been denied by private property owners.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely
Name
Address
City State
Email
Phone

[rockwrangler]

To: The Tahoe National Forest (DEIS comments)


My name is Jerry Sparkman and I’m writing to comment on the TNF DEIS. My family, friends and OHV club members spend 4+ weekends a year in the Tahoe National Forest and access the forest thru the responsible use of OHV’s. I am a active member of the following: Four Dice 4x4 club out of San Jose ,Ca., Mother Load Rock crawlers 4x4 club out of Jackson, Ca. Friends of Fordyce trail, Friends of the Rubicon trail, Friends of Eldorado National Forest, Friends of Greenhorn, Blue Ribbon coalition, Cal4-wheel drive clubs and United four wheel drive clubs.
My family has been coming to and driving the trails, logging roads and old mine roads of the Tahoe National Forest since the late 1970's. My Mother and Father started our family out exploring these roads in a home built street legal 4 seat Volkswagen dune buggy and 3 Honda 125 dirt bikes. Through out the years we returned to the Tahoe Forest to fish, hike, hunt, ride bicycles, relax and explore the trails and roads in/on our OHV vehicles. My Mother and Father instilled in me, respect for the forest since I was a young kid. Out of the 4+ weekends my family spends in the Tahoe National Forest 1 or 2 of the weekends are spent doing OHV trail clean up’s or trail repairs with several different Clubs.

My reason for writing this letter is to comment on Rattle Snake road and the need to make this road open to all vehicles.

Note: I am aware that there are safety concerns with opening Rattle Snake Road to all vehicles, due to several blind corners along the roadway. I have driven Rattle Snake road hundreds of times over the years and have shared the road with all types of vehicles and hikers with no problems. I believe that the safety concerns on the blind corners and any other issue can be reduced or eliminated by some tree trimming and some type of warning and speed limit signs along the road way.

1) The Major reason to open Rattle Snake Road to all vehicles is it’s the only road that provides direct access to several trails and is the mid point access to the Fordyce trail from Highway 80 and the Cisco Grove exit. Also having Rattle Snake road open to all vehicles from the Cisco Grove Camp grounds to the trails, reduces the number of vehicles and trailers parked along the roadside on Rattle Snake road where off the roadway parking areas are limited. Also by making Rattle Snake road open to all vehicles from Cisco Grove Camp Ground you will have the option to park tow vehicles and trailers in a more secure location and off the roadway.
Another problem is towing a green sticker jeep, buggy, 4x4 loaded on a car trailer up and down rattle Snake road to the Fordyce lake access road before it can be legally loaded or unloaded where parking a tow rig and trailer is limited. Also there are few places where you can turn a tow rig and 20' trailer around on Rattle Snake road if people are using the spots to park tow rigs and trailers.

2) With the Fordyce trail open to both Street legal and green sticker vehicles, it would not make sense to limit Rattle Snake Road to Street Legal only vehicles. The Fordyce trail is a extreme OHV trail and vehicle breakage is not uncommon while on the trail. Once past the First river crossing or winch hill 1 the best option, a broke down vehicle that cannot be repaired has. Is to be towed to the mid point access (Committee crossing) and taken off of the Fordyce trail by Fordyce lake and out to Rattle Snake road and back to highway 80. If Rattle Snake road is only open to street legal vehicles the removal of a green stickered vehicle is more complicated.





In closing I want to thank you for hard work and hope my comments will be considered and hope we can keep as may trails open as possible.

[chexmix]

I got the email and took the time to comment also. Site didn't seem to work in Safari but it works fine in FireFox. Thanx for the hard work everyone!

[Graywolf]

Letter Sent.

[lttlbddy]

3 letter so far today:

1) Winter Closures
2) Dispersed Camping
3) Rattlesnake Road

more to come . . .

[Ruffian]

My letter has been sent.

Bebe, it's Melinda. I've sent you a PM.

[speedy]

Comment letters are now over 7000!!!!
Last weekend Bebe printed 10 different pre made comment letters for a total of 600 to take to Dennis Mayers celebration of life.

Today I hand delivered approximately 500 of those signed letters to David Arrasmith. He stated that this would put the number of combined comments to over 7000.

I asked him what the bias was, he said he had about 3000 identical form letters from the environmentalist.He also said there are a lot of comments on seasonal closures and mixed use.

Get those letters in we are almost out of time.7 days and counting

[BLINGN]

OK I hit the preview and send button and then I got a blank screen. Did I do something wrong?

[Duffil]

sent mine in.

[speedy]

Originally Posted by BLINGN

OK I hit the preview and send button and then I got a blank screen. Did I do something wrong?

PM Bebe your name and she will check for you

Thanks for the letters keep them coming

[BLINGN]

pm sent