Current River Concerns

[Pat dempsey]

Thats great but these are public lands that need to be for the public not just anglers we float these sections on on regular basis and ride ohvs in these areas as well they are federal government lands and owned by all of us the federal government has given ohv riders almost nothing in Missouri i have ridden on federal lands in Colorado and it seems to work for all activities  so we need tolook for a solution for all not just your particular recreational pastime 

[Al Agnew]

13 minutes ago, Pat dempsey said:

Thats great but these are public lands that need to be for the public not just anglers we float these sections on on regular basis and ride ohvs in these areas as well they are federal government lands and owned by all of us the federal government has given ohv riders almost nothing in Missouri i have ridden on federal lands in Colorado and it seems to work for all activities  so we need tolook for a solution for all not just your particular recreational pastime 

First priority shouldn't be one recreational group or another, it should be the protection of the resource, period.  It's the resource--the river and surrounding lands--that belongs to all of us, and one user group should not be permitted to wreck it for everybody else.  ATVs and horses both do a lot of damage and cause a lot of erosion if not confined to trails that can handle the use.  

So maybe the solution is to provide for trails that CAN handle it.  And that's where the user groups come in.  Hikers do a lot of volunteer trail building work in places like the Buffalo National River; in fact, there would be few hiking trails in that park if not for the volunteer trail building.  So maybe the trail riders, both equestrian and ORV people, should approach the park people with proposals to build and designate trails carefully constructed for their use.

What particularly burns my toast is the amount of illegal ATV use on the upper Jacks Fork, arguably the finest piece of wild floatable stream in Missouri.  That ATVs come down roads and trails that were supposed to be closed off, and then get out onto the gravel bars and go for miles up and down the river, which is illegal, but it's a rather remote area where there are few patrols to catch them.  And yes, that IS harming the resource.  Not only do the old roads and trails erode like crazy with ATV use, but when you run ATVs across gravel bars, it destabilizes the gravel and it moves with the next high water, filling in pools.

So yeah, it belongs to all of us.  But the reason it was made into a National Park was not because it was a good place to ride ATVs.  It was because the Current and Jacks Fork are probably the finest Ozark streams in Missouri, period.  So some uses detract from that value far more than others, and should therefore be more carefully regulated, if not banned.

[joeD]

Our government is incompetent and corrupt because it relies on money. And we are complicit because we accept it, 

 

[tjm]

 I reckon the only way to preserve an area like this is to prohibit all use except barefooted hiking.

Rules are there to protect and manage the resource. It may not clear to  or understood by the general public what the resource is that is being protected or for what purpose it is being managed. 

I certainly don't know the scope of the Current River preservation situation. Does the intended protection include just the water, or the river, or the corridor, or the watershed? Or was it meant to be like Yellowstone and generate tourism?

Obviously if trail riding and ATV are used in the Ozarks the area is not being protected as wilderness, anymore than an Ozark stream allowing use of motors is being protected. I'm not at all sure that given the extreme relief and unstable soils in most of this region it is even possible to preserve an area or a part of an area. In the State CA near me it would require paved trails for either horses or ATVs to prevent erosion damage.  And anyone who has ever been where horses or ATVs were ridden knows that both are impossible to keep on a trail.

[tjm]

1 hour ago, joeD said:

Our government is incompetent and corrupt because it relies on money. And we are complicit because we accept it, 

 

I believe that no government can be more corrupt than the people it governs allow. But are you saying there is specific corruption involved in management of  Ozark National Scenic Riverway ?

[joeD]

Yes. Follow the money. There is a direct correlation between laws and the money behind them.