by T.W. Budig
ECM capitol reporter

An ability to read a map and locate an extra $15 are two aspects of an off-highway vehicle (OHV) bill passed by a Senate committee on Tuesday (March 6).

"I think we have a really good start," said Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, chair of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee and OHV bill author, at the completion of a three hour hearing.

Chaudhary's bill would increase the OHV registration fee by $15 — the additional $1.6 million generated a year going to enforcement, trail grants, other areas.

Additionally, the bill places an emphasis on map reading.

Chaudhary proposes to ban OHV use on state land that are not mapped for the type of OHV.

The focus on maps, he argues, could serve to close a loophole in state law some OHV users are driving through in state forests.

The problem, explained Chaudhary, is that one OHV users will illegally leave the trail, the vehicle making another trail in the forest.

The next OHV users, seeing the new trail, will follow it.

"‘It's a trail. It's not closed,'" Chaudhary said of their reasoning.

Chaudhary proposes maps could be supplied at state forests for OHV riders, and also placed on-line.

The senator proposes the map law take effect on Jan. 1, 2008.

Currently, the Department of Natural Resources is evaluating the state's 58 state forests for OHV use.

Seventeen of the forests have been appraised, six of them being closed to OHV use.

But none of the state forests north of Highway 2 have been completed.

But a DNR official indicated that Beltrami Island State Forest and others will likely be designated "managed" forest for OHV use.

In managed forest, trails are open for OHV use unless posted close. In limited-use forest, trails are open only when posted open. The DNR is expected to complete its appraisals by the end of 2008.

But probably the two most controversial features of Chaudhary's bill wasn't the fee increase nor maps but the concept of "traditional areas" in state forest and proposed changes to the Ambassador program.

As proposed, traditional areas — areas dedicated to logging, hunting, fishing, bird watching, berry picking, others — would be designated in each state forest.

These areas would be closed to OHV use.

"We don't want any part of traditional forests — none," Koochiching County Commissioner Mike Hanson told the committee.

But Mark Peterson, executive director of Audubon Minnesota, argued state forest are too open to OHV use.

Some 65 of 97 bird species struggling to survive in Minnesota are found at or near Beltrami Island State Forest, he said.

Chaudhary's bill specifies no percentage of forest in the traditional area provision.

But Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, is offering a bill where at least 50 percent of each state forest must be designated traditional areas.

The Ambassador program, a program that places OHV club members on the trails, serving as ambassadors of responsible driving, would be opened to all groups to participate under Chaudhary's bill.

"We're very leery of letting non-OHV people get involved in the program," said Ray Bohn, a lobbyist for the Minnesota All-Terrain Vehicle Association.

Chaudhary, for his part, said he liked the idea of OHV and environmentalist mixing on the trails.

Chaudhary's bill was voted out of committee on a unanimous vote and refereed to the Senate Finance Committee.

The senator views his bill as a vehicle bill for OHV legislation in the Senate.

Chaudhary said the bill had been "scrubbed" during the hearing, and reminded stakeholders the debate wasn't over.