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[QUOTE="2001yz250, post: 360466, member: 29185"] Here is the email reply I got back from the Colville Ranger District: Hi, My name is Rhonda Hoener. I own and operate the concessionaire permit on the Colville Ranger District as well as the Sullivan Lake Ranger District permit. The contract administrator approached me with your concerns and I felt like you needed to know what has transpired over the last three years within the campgrounds on the Colville Ranger District. NRM was awarded the permit in 1998. At that time the forest service did not enforce the 36CFR regulations concerning orv's operating within campground boundaries. There was a person hired in the forest service to deal with all of the concerns relating to the trails, orv's, motorcycles. She worked every Friday, Saturday, and sometimes Sundays writing notice of violation tickets to the offenders of the 36CFR regulations. The persons choosing not to purchase the required sticker for their orv was not allowed to take it off of the trailer. The folks who chose to purchase the sticker could ride safely in and out of the campground to access the motorcycle trail nearby. We did have many problems with some of the motorcycles and orv's but most were camped at the Beaver Resort or in a dispersed area near the campgrounds. What happened is the hiking trail (trailhead for the Springboard hiking trail) became the main entry onto the motorcycle trail not only for the campground occupants but for hundreds of motorcycles and orv's camped in areas covering over a seven square mile area or more. This made for an unsafe situation for the campground occupants, hikers, bicyclist, etc...and there was no accountability when some of the riders choose to run. We had some of them try to run over our employees, some shooting high powered rifles into the campground after midnight, many close calls with smaller children walking or on bikes, much resource damage in the campgrounds and on hiking trails, and an impossible situation for our company to remedy. To make matters worse, cutbacks in the forest service was forced to eliminate the only person that helped deal with these issues. The first Memorial day after this person was eliminated the company lossed control of the hundreds of orv's choosing to use the hiking trail for access to the orv trail. Many campers complained to the forest service about not only the noise that was at unacceptable levels in a campground and questioned why this was the only campground that did not enforce the push-it regulation that exists in all other forest service campgrounds. Somebody was going to get seriously hurt or killed on the county road because the Sheriff chose not to enforce the country regulations that state that all vehicles using roadways are licensed. I wrote a letter to the head of enforcement on the Colville and requested a solution to the problem or I would be eliminating orv's all together from the campgrounds. The response was great from the acting supervisor. When the situation was explained we worked together on a solution. The solution was to enforce the CFR that says that no motorized vehicles will access the hiking trails and signs,barriers etc... would be placed to inform all orv'ers of the changes. The second change was that they would be enforcing the CFR regulation that says all state regulations apply to forest service roadways including the vehicle licensing rule. This means that we cannot allow any vehicle that is not licensed to oerate on forest service campground roadways. They can however push or trailer them until they reach an area in which unlicensed activities are allowed. I really wish it were just a few select orv'ers that choose not to obey the regulations because that would make the job a whole lot easier for my employees. It was many, many violators that forced us to make this change. Gillette Lake Campground is a campground not a motorcycle raceway. People go to enjoy the sound of the birds, frogs, loons, ducks, osprey and many of the other wildlife existing here. Most of the orv'ers in the campgrounds are curtious, kind and compliant. This does not change the CFR regulations that exist. These are in the permit that I signed with the forest service and my duty to enforce all of these regulations. The goal is to see that each visitor group is satisfied. If you are not, I challange you to find one single other forest service campground in the United States that allows entry and exit of orv's. You will not find one because all of them enforce the CFR regulations. Why the Colville Ranger District did not for so many years is something I will never understand but that is in the past and we are moving on and keeping in compliance with all other forest service facilities. I might suggest that you could camp at facilities constructed for your type of use such as Pend Orielle Lakes trailhead located less that one mile from Gillette campground, or Batey Bould trailhead campground. These areas allow the type of use you are looking for. You can enter and leave your campsite without offending anybody with the noise, in fact you can make as much noise as you want because it is not with in a structured forest service campground. If you should choose not to come to Gillette campground again I will understand. But we will not change all of the regulations to accomodate your needs because what we have now works. We get little help from the forest service to control the use from orv's and we need to do what is needed to keep all user groups satisfied. Some orv users are satisfied to trailer or push their cycles out/in and have no problem with that and understand why we had to do what we had to do. After speaking with the host and two other employees of mine who witnessed what went on with orv's in that campground (going off of the parking spurs, exceeding the number of persons per site limit, paying for extra vehilces etc...) I feel they did the best they could under the circumstances. I did speak to him about the history that he did not understand (my fault) and fully appologize if he was less that kind about what he had to deal with this weekend. He now understands that we need to treat all people the same and will do better next time. He worked in another forest service campground for me last year and we do not have any orv violations occurring there. If you have any problems or concerns please call and we can talk about them. You can send me an e-mail and I will do my best to reply. Rhonda Hoener Northwest Recreation Management [/QUOTE]
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