Fat-Assed ATV Riders Lose in Suit to Destroy Colorado

[JoseCuervo]

It sure seems like that 2% "un-edjumacated" sure must do damage in a lot of places, as they keep getting banned, and those "ATV Clubs" that we hear so much about, keep losing suits to protect the right to destroy Public Lands.

In 1997, the Forest Service amended its 1983 forest plan to further restrict off-road vehicle use in the Routt National Forest of northwest Colorado. The Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition promptly filed a lawsuit to challenge this amendment in hopes of regaining the less restrictive ORV privileges of the original 1983 forest plan. Earthjustice immediately intervened on the side of the USFS and won at district court. The ORVers then appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

During the litigation at the Tenth Circuit, the Forest Service issued a revised Routt Forest Plan as required by the National Forest Management Act. In 1998, the agency codified and finalized the revised plan, which places restrictions on ORV use similar to the 1997 amendment and supercedes the 1997 amendment’s authority. Therefore, because the ORVers’ suit challenged the 1997 amendment and not the 1998 plan, the Tenth Circuit -- responding to arguments advanced by Earthjustice’s Jim Angell -- ruled that their appeal was moot, thus giving the Forest Service and Earthjustice the victory (the Forest Service did not support the mootness argument but benefits anyway). This decision will mean continued restrictions on ORV use on the one million acres of the Routt National Forest.

 

[Ithaca 37]

The BRC better get off their fat asses and get to work if they want to have places to tear up with their ATVs!

 

[Ten Bears]

Interesting loophole.