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Just in case any Massachusetts Ridecamp
subscribers
are also Trail Blazer subscribers, please be aware
that
the article regarding "proposed changes slated
for
Myles Standish State Forest" in the Trail Forum
on
page 16...
...IS TWO YEARS
OUT-OF-DATE!!!
I have managed pleasure rides at Myles
Standish
for Hanson Riding Club for three years and
been
active in the Massachusetts' Department of
Environmental
Management's (DEM) regional trails advisory
committee.
As such, I was chosen as the "equestrian representative"
on the Stakeholders
Committee that DEM formed in
mid-1999 to study re-introducing motorcycles
and ATVs into
Myles Standish, and to make a 10-year
Trails and Resource
Management plan.
I was the "several members" who brought
the
undesireable recommendations in the July,
2000
FIRST DRAFT of the
Trails Plan to the attention
of Bay State Trail Riders President Becky
Kalagher
as part of my effort to get
these unfavorable
draft provisions
overturned.
By working closely with the DEM planners and
my
fellow ORV, hiking, and mountain bike trail
users
on the Stakeholders Committee on a
one-on-one
basis, we finally got the
Massachusetts
DEM to hear us.
The July, 2000, first draft requirement that all
user
groups sign
"Memoranda of Understanding" before
they could use the
trail system was dropped, and
dropped *fast* by mid-2000. (It was never
more
than a trial balloon
sent up by the consulting firm
hired to draft the
report and was punctured
immediately even by
DEM staff.) ORV users are
still the only user group in Massachusetts whose
use of state forests
is predicated on a MOU.
By the second draft report in November, 2000,
DEM
had finally believed us and "got over" their
panic
that horses and motorcycles might actually
occupy
the same surface area. The final draft
of
the report published in March, 2001
permits
equestrian trails and motorcycle trails to
cross
one another. Thus, the homeowners
whose
property abuts the state forest could no longer
use horse trails as a means to "blockade"
motorcycles from coming nearer their homes.
(Which was what was actually happening; it was
like a game of Go!)
So, please DO NOT bombard DEM with
indignant
letters based on the out-of-date
information
reprinted in the June 2002 Trail Blazer.
(For
example, the Richard Thibadeau of the
DEM's
Bureau of Resource Protection to which
the
letter is addressed *retired* in March,
2002!)
This is not to say that the war is won,
however.
Although the first two issues raised in the August,
2000
letter are long
moot, and although the system of
5-10-15 and 20 mile
trail loops that I proposed was
adopted almost
wholesale in the March, 2001
MSSF Trails Plan Final Draft, there are still
serious
issues.
We may still need your help.
If any of you want to know what the final Myles
Standish
State Forest Trails Plan looks like, and what new issues
are just now emerging with it as we move from the
planning to the implementation phase, please send me
an email or phone
me.
I can fill you in on the current state of
affairs at Myles
Standish.
Linda B. Merims
Myles Standish Stakeholders Committee
508-699-8499
Massachusetts, USA
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