New Video Warns Against ATV Rogue Riders

By Charlotte Renner on Monday, January 21, 2002.

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All-terrain vehicles are becoming an increasingly familiar sight in Northern New England's rugged landscape, and now that natural gas pipelines are cutting a swath through the inviting terrain, riders are zooming on- and off- those ready-made trails.

But while many ATV's follow safety and environmental rules, rogue riders are giving the sport a black eye.

Charlotte Renner reports.

Wayne Harper, environmental, health and safety manager for the Portland
Natural Gas Transmission System, says the 300 miles of new pipeline
running throughout Maine and New Hampshire have attracted thrill seekers
who remove barriers and disregard signs banning atvs from the trails:

[CLIP]

Department of
Environmental Protection staffer Linda Kokemuller has been walking up and
down two gas pipeline projects, which cross hundreds of wetlands and
bodies of water. She says the ATV's sometimes blast over stream banks and
through shallow waterways, causing erosion and depositing silt that can
spook wildlife and clog up valuable fisheries:

[CLIP]

So Portland Natural Gas Transmisison Company and New Hampshire's Fish and
Wildlife Department have produced a video they hope will be distributed
with new ATV's, and shown at ATV clubs. It tells the fictional story of a
teen-ager who gets caught trespasssing on his ATV, and is sentenced to a
research project investigating the damage the noisy machines can do to
off-road terrain:

sfx video

The teen-ager learns to get permission from private landowners before
revving up, avoid high speeds, and stay on well established trails. But
that's where state regulators and the utiltiy companies have yet to reach
consensus. Brian Bronson, Recreational Vehicle Coordinator for Maine's
Department of Conservation, says if snowmobilers and ATV riders were
granted permission to ride along the pipeline, they could be kept out of
streams and wetlands:

[CLIP]

Wayne Harper, of Portland Natural Gas Transmission, admits that the
company's attempts to keep ATV's off the trail has failed, and that the
time may have come to find a way to manage and regulate the riding, rather
than forbid it. But utiltiies, landowners, and regulators agree that rogue
riders will probably always make mischief unless they can be convinced
to join clubs that set standards for safe and responsible riding, and also
build and maintain trails. Al Langley, of Fairfield, is President of his
regional club, and a representtative to the statewide organization,
ATVMaine:

[CLIP]

Langley says ATV riders need to organize and police themselves, just as
snowmobilers have done. And the producers of the new video hope it will
be shown widely. But they admit that even the best educational materials
can be overshadowed by glitzy television ads for ATV's showing riders
spiralling into the air, and landing in wet, muddy swamps. . .exactly the
places where they are likely to do the most harm to the environment, and
possibly, to themselves. For New Hampshire Public Radio, I'm Charlotte Renner in Windham, Maine