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Debate Wages Over Impact Of Off-Road Vehicles
By Bill McLaughlin
The popularity of off-road vehicles has soared in the past two decades to the point where the sport is zooming beyond longtime pastimes as a popular diversion for youngsters.
"Kids don't play baseball or football like they used to," said Kenny Dean, president of the Off-Road Vehicle Club of southern New Jersey. "There are a lot more people doing it than you realize."
Kean joined several officials from across the county at this month's Pinelands Municipal Council meeting held at Berkeley town hall on March 9. Hosted by Berkeley Township Planning Board Chairman Anthony Mazzella, who was re-selected secretary of the group last month, the council heard from mayors representing some of the 53 municipalities that form the council to speak frankly about a growing problem.
Some 70 communities statewide have signed a petition asking for relief by the legislature from the plague of reckless inexperienced riders destroying property and going where prohibited. The group said the petition was never formally circulated yet many towns outside the Pinelands have asked to join the list.
About 1,300 summonses were issued throughout the state for ATV trespassing and other off-road violations. Many more scofflaws went unpunished because they couldn't be caught.
There are currently about 200,000 all-terrain vehicles in New Jersey, with between 8,000 and 10,000 units sold annually throughout the state, said Department of Environmental Preservation (DEP) Deputy Commissioner John Watson.
The problem, Watson said, is there are only two places to legally ride off-road vehicles and one of those - at Chatsworth, just west of Manchester Township - is going out of business by 2008. The DEP is hoping to make some concessions with the owners of the property to keep at least a strip of the land open for bikers' use.
An alternate site might be a now-defunct sand pit off Thomas Road in West Creek, Eagleswood Township, which borders Little Egg Harbor. Presently, most riders go on the borders of highways, on undeveloped lands, abandoned plant sites and gravel pits at the risk of losing their rides or getting a hefty fine.
"Off-highway riders are struggling with these concerns," Watson said.
Watson credited Dean's club with being responsible by providing safety instruction and restricting riding to the beaten path.
"We're facing a rapid destruction of our natural resources on public lands," Watson told the commission. "In 2002, the DEP issued a policy that banned ATVs from all state lands."
That hasn't helped much, according to Jaclyn Rhodes of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.
"Farmland is being torn up, they're riding on
private property, on sensitive lands," she said. "We talk about fines and taking vehicles, but right
now it's not required to register, or tag or insure a vehicle."
The DEP has tried to find a compromise. What resulted was an attempt to find one location in the northern end of the Pinelands, and one location down south set aside for ATVs. The southern site would be at the Sahara sand pit in Monroe Township, near Buena Vista.
"The land is 60 percent mined and 40 percent forest with a man-made lake on the property, Watson said. "It's not the ideal spot, but in a denselypopulated state like New Jersey the perfect spot is illusory."
However not everyone is convinced the Sahara sand pit site is ideal.
"I have a problem with the site because of the volume of units, and because it is right on the border with Buena Vista Township," said Chuck Ciarello, chairman of the Pinelands Municipal Council and mayor of Buena Vista.
Ciarello's concerns were shared by Bass River Mayor Richard Bethea, who said, "The vast majority (of riders) are knuckleheads. They jump on their quad with no experience, zip through the woods and ride like crazy."
Bethea, who also serves as the business administrator for the borough of Ship Bottom, and a longtime first aid squad member in Bass River, painted a picture of mayhem in the woods and alongside highways like the Garden State Parkway. He said the police, EMTs and other first responders are tired of "scraping someone off the ground." "A lot of (riders) don't know what they're doing," Bethea said. "A lot of them are too young to be on a motorized vehicle."
Dean countered that officials must recognize that the sport is here to stay and agreed more training and a licensing procedure could only help. His club has two instructors who take beginners through all the steps of the learning experience before they're let loose in the forest.
When Chatsworth becomes a preservation zone next year, the nearest spot to legally ride will be in Millville, Atlantic County, where a private enterprise, for-profit motor sports park will open this year.
Dean said the sport has been damaged by "a few immature punks" who give the law-abiding clubs a bad name.
Ciarello said it's time to go to the source and set up guidelines.
"You can buy an ATV as easily as a lawnmower," he said. "There's no education program by the manufacturer. Oh, they might pay lip service to training but it's not universally done."
He said the next thing is to find locations able and willing to play host to an ATV track. Guidelines would be set up to limit the area where riders can go, especially when populated areas are on the fringe of the park.
"We have had people killed and injured in my town," Ciarello said. "This is something that's awfully difficult to enforce. Maybe we're too densely populated in New Jersey to let this go forward."
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