Do you think it's right that the Chippewa National Forest last year closed to ATVs the 100-year-old Woodtick Trail and hundreds of miles of low-traveled roads? Do you think it's OK that right now the forest is proposing to close another 27 miles of roads "to all vehicles" in the Remer area? Do you think it's acceptable that the proposal to close those roads was not publicized and that the public was given just 30 days to comment?
I don't.
On Jan. 20, the Chippewa National Forest listed on its Web site a proposal to close or "obliterate" (the forest's word) 27 miles of roads near Remer. These are unelected officials, closing roads, with no publicity in local newspapers, with a month's notice to comment, and in winter when many home and cabin owners aren't around.
Robert Harper, the forest supervisor for Chippewa National, needs to create greater transparency and public notice as he continues to close roads that hunters, hikers, anglers and trail riders have been using for decades.
Recently, the forest's public liaison told our ATV club to think of Chippewa National Forest employees as "the landowners of the national forest." Wrong. They are the caretakers of the national forest. We, the people, are the landowners. And we deserve to be treated as such.
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Information and maps related to the latest unpublicized road closing are posted under "Moon Resource Management Project" at the Chippewa National Forest Web site, fs.fed.us/r9/forests/chippewa/. Comments must be in by Feb. 19. Before they close any more roads, forest officials should ask us landowners if it's OK.
David Halsey
Maple Grove, Minn.
The writer is an outdoors writer, hunter and president of the Woodtick Wheelers ATV/OHM Club.
