Advocacy Agenda 2010

As Washington Trails Association looks ahead to the challenges and opportunities facing hiking trails in 2010, we have identified four key goals, and the strategies we will employ to help achieve them. These are the areas in which we’ll advance the interests of hikers over the next twelve months.

Restore funding for the Department of Natural Resources and the NOVA Program

Gothic Basin, seen here from the trail to Foggy Lake, is managed by the Department of Natural Resources on a very slim budget. By Charles Ardary

A disaster may be brewing on state public lands this year, one that bodes ill for

iconic Washington landscapes like Mount Si, Taylor Mountain and Gothic Basin—all managed by the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

In unsettled financial times, there are no safe bets.  Last year, the legislature took action that was previously unthinkable.  In order to keep State Parks open, the legislature transferred nearly $10 million in NOVA funds from the pool of potential grant recipients and the state agencies that it directly funds.  This has left DNR reeling as they try to fill an enormous budget gap in their recreation program.  On the federal level, National Forest ranger districts, such as Cle Elum on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest are wrestling with the challenges posed by losing a large and important component of their recreation program funding.

WTA will:

• Lead a coalition of recreation organizations to lobby the legislature to compensate DNR for the remaining year of the biennial NOVA allocation in the 2010 Supplemental Budget,
• Advocate in fiscal committees in the state House and Senate to restore DNR's general fund cuts, and
• Strategize with advocates and agency staff to find innovative new ways to fund DNR's recreation program in accord with the recommendations of the Sustainable Recreation Working Group.

Ten Percent FY 2010 increase in FY 2011 Forest Service Budget

Congress has begun to take recreation seriously.  The Interior Appropriations Committee in the House has presided over two consecutive budgets that increase funding for National Forest Recreation programs.  The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) both contained significant funding for trails.  But a great deal of work remains to be done, both in rolling back decades of neglect and in repairing trails and roads damaged by storms in recent years.

WTA will:

• Lobby Washington’s Congressional delegation to rally support for a 10% increase in the USFS Recreation and Trails budget over FY 2010 levels.
• Lobby for a six-year authorization of the FLAME Act by the Senate, ensuring that recreation program funds will no longer be diverted to fight catastrophic wildfires,
• Ensure that the National Recreation Trails Program, which makes significant grants to trail projects in Washington, is included in the upcoming six-year reauthorization of the transportation budget, and
• Encourage Interior Appropriations budget writers to include funds for enforcement programs on National Forest lands to handle challenges such as illegal target-shooting and the implementation of new federal rules on ORV use.

Stop inappropriate ORV use on National Forests

Several National Forests in Washington are completing plans to determine where they will site motorized trails.  The OHV Rule requires forests to decide specific trails on which ORV use will be legal, and then close off-trail areas to motorized recreation.  On the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, planners have considered substantial increases in motorized routes, some of which are

Two off-road motorcyclists on the Alder Ridge Trail in the Entiat Ranger District. The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest is considering expanding its motorized trail system, and WTA is working to ensure these plans don't happen at the expense of hiking opportunities. Photo by Karl Forsgaard.

alarmingly close to Wilderness and non-motorized opportunities.

WTA will:

• Demonstrate new ways of planning on the Okanogan-Wenatchee that balance the interests of the motorized community with the needs of non-motorized recreation users and the wildlife that depends on intact landscapes,
• Engage hikers local to the National Forests interested in planning so that the interests of on-the-ground hiking communities can be heard, and
• Propose substantive comments to the Forest Service at all levels of planning, both by organizing attendees at public meetings and providing in-depth comments supported by the best and most current research and on-the-ground information.

Ensure the Safety of Hikers

Due to the increase in shooting on public lands, the hiking community has become increasingly concerned about the intersection of hunting and non-motorized recreation.  Additionally, a number of National Forest land managers have begun to raise concerns about the unmanaged and proliferating nature of target shooting on public lands.  While hikers and hunters can easily share the woods given enough information and appropriate precautions, adequate information regarding hunting areas and seasons is challenging to find on agency websites, in their publications, and at the trailhead.

WTA will increase the safety of our trails by:

• Work with representatives in the hunting community to develop signs that would be placed by volunteers at trailheads around the state detailing when and where hikers might encounter hunters and what precautions hikers can take,
• Lobby for funds in this year’s supplemental state budget to make the WDFW’s website easier for hikers to use, and
• Work with our federal elected officials to allocate funds for more law enforcement on National Forests.