The forest service published their prefered option for maintaining the Tellico OHV area out side Murphy. Their Option 3 is to CLOSE the area. When they publish a list of options and indicate their prefered option its pretty much the same as saying they've made their decision and just want to see how much cr@p they're going to catch. Say good bye to seeing the motels across from Walmart filled with 4x4 tourists, resturants having more customers, taxes collected from gas purchases, cabin rentals, auto parts sales, real estate sales, etc. The Forest service estimates the impact of the off road vehicle users is only about $4.6(?) mil a year to the local economy. The numbers in their papers are funny. It seems like it costs $230,000 a year to keep the OHV area open but will still cost $220,000 to close it and convert a few of the trails into forest service roads...I dont know why though...I dont know who would drive all the way up there to drive a few short gravel loops. SELC says that there are 2500 vehicles a month in the Tellico OHV area. That would be $25,000 a month in Forest Service receipts of user fees. $250,000+ each year. If you trust the TU/SELC numbers. Trout Unlimited and the Southern Evironmental Legal Center brought the heat on the forest service. I'm frustrated. I moved up here and built my business here because of the Tellico OHV area. I'm friends with other business owners who made the same commitments to the area. The FS, in their numbers, doesnt take in to account what the business that make some or most of their money via Tellico tourists, have invested in the area too. The forest service says that by closing tellico it will only cost 54 jobs in the local economy due to the 4x4 tourists not coming in. The impact is "small" to them. More reading.

http://www.jcrpics.com/misc/TellicoEAsummary.pdf

JcrOffroad, Inc.

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A bad day off road is better than a good day at work.

beautiful!! just add this to the growing list of our freedoms being taken away from us. that list has grown rapidly in just the last few months. who the heck bought and owns the national forest, wildlife areas, etc. anyway. oh yea thats right us the taxpayers. 4X4 im with you ( pissed )its about time to bring out the knuckles, knives and guns and fight this rapent disreguard of our rights. i know to some this action may be small in respect to some of the issues out there today, but where does it stop. damnit just leave us alone. hopefully you and the others affected directly will be able to roll with another punch in the gut.

Not unlike California being 41B in the hole, and sitting on 50B in gas reserves. Kinda like the old joke about the girl sitting on a gold mine . . .

They officially announced a 2 year closure while they perform more studies. They did the same thing with the Anderson Creek OHV area by Ellijay in 04 if I recall and then perm closed it in 08. One of the funny things is that they claim that in closing the area it will still cost $230,000 a year to maintain...about $12k less than what it cost to keep it open. Go figure. An environmental engineering firm did a parallel study to the forest services study and came up with different results.

I dont think the suit by TU/SELC will stand up in court, they are trying to apply the NC sediment control act and the clean water act to OHV trails when the acts were designed for developments, municipalities, etc. and its a shame that the four wheel drive association will have to cost the tax payers money by suing the FS for access to public land. But thats what will have to happen. With Rich Mtn, Anderson Creek, and now Tellico on the chopping block the OHV community is going to have to take a stand. The Forest Service state that OHV use is acceptable on public land.

So if anyone knows someone with 1000-10,000 acres of rocky hilly land that wants to capitalize on the FS mistakes we can start getting the OHV's back into the area and take the $4.8-$8.2 million per year the the 4x4 tourists were spending in Murphy and the surrounding area. The southern four wheel drive association spent many hours every year (valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars) with their own heavy equipment maintaining the Tellico OHV area for the Forest Service and they would be glad to build a planned, ecologically low impact, water friendly trail system.

A really funny thing is that the 4x4 groups have started producing environmenalist type attack propaganda

http://www.kurtuleas.com/torture.ppt

http://www.nc4wda.org/EthnicCleansing.ppt

http://www.nc4wda.org/FishingforProfit.ppt

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A bad day off road is better than a good day at work.