Tellico Offroad Areas Closed

[Dave]

Trout Unlimited, to which I also belong, reports this news:

<SNIP>
Asheville, NC - Conservation groups, concerned about the ongoing pollution of the Tellico watershed in national forests in two states from heavy off-road vehicle (ORV) use, expressed cautious optimism at steps announced today by the U.S. Forest Service to address the problem. The agency said it will close all ORV trails in the Tellico area for the winter ? when wet weather exacerbates muddy runoff into streams, and will close for a year four trail segments that are especially eroded
</SNIP>

Before you sling any arrows, remember I'm just the messenger here.

This isn't exactly what TU stands for, so don't get the wrong idea. The root problem there is irresponsible use, not ORV areas in general.

The  story is at http://www.tu.org/press-room/tu-in-the-news-archive/roadless/usfs-closes-tellico-orv-trails but you'll have to do some digging to find the whole story.

Dave

[Fred]

That is a rather old article. The forrestry serveice closed portions for a "year long evaluation" and the rest 4 months out of the year. Well this was done on a trial basis, 2 years I htink. After the trial the Forrestry service came back and decided the impact was enough to warrent closing 100% of the Teelico Trails 100% of the time

Tellico Is in fact CLOSED

[Fred]

http://www.cs.unca.edu/nfsnc/press/tellico_decision_news_release.pdf