A short snowmobile trail to a popular ice fishing lake has become the latest flash point in the ongoing rancor over the use of motors in and near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Residents in the area and the Cook County Board of Commissioners have asked the U.S. Forest Service to build a new trail into South Fowl Lake on the Ontario border to allow for easy access from McFarland Lake at the end of the Arrowhead Trail.
The trail would replace an illegal trail that for years ran, officially unnoticed, just inside the eastern end of the wilderness area, where motors have been banned since 1978.
After Forest Service rangers discovered that the trail ran within the BWCAW and began issuing citations, local snowmobilers demanded a new access to South Fowl.
County commissioners in March asked the Forest Service to permit continued use of the illegal trail until a new trail could be built. They also asked that citations be dismissed against those caught in recent years. And they asked that the agency build a new trail to South Fowl that would run just outside the BWCAW.
That's drawn opposition from environmental groups - including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness and the Izaak Walton League of America - that say neither the Forest Service nor taxpayers should pay to replace an illegal trail.
"I don't think we owe anything to people who cut an illegal trail in a federal wilderness and then complained when they got caught," said Clyde Hanson of the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Dennis Neitzke, Gunflint District Ranger for the Superior National Forest, will decide if and where a new trail should go. He said there does appear to be a need for a trail in the area.
Snowmobiles were banned from the BWCAW in 1978, but some riders continue to flout federal law to reach fishing hot spots or just to prove they can do it. Some of those caught have been treated as local heroes, with community fundraisers to pay for their defense.
Local snowmobilers say their trail was just a few feet inside the BWCAW and wasn't a problem. But opponents say the trail shouldn't be anywhere near the wilderness boundary, even if it's outside the line.
Neitzke will have to decide how close motors can get without violating the letter or the spirit of the BWCAW law.
"There's been a trail in there since at least the 1960s and we only recently found out about it," Neitzke said. "The question is, how can we get them to where they want to be but keep them outside the wilderness boundary?"
Neitzke can't, by law, allow the trail to continue within the wilderness. He has proposed four major alternatives and is taking public comments on the plans for another two weeks. An estimated 25 snow machines would use the trail on winter weekend days.
The option that environmentalists consider the most odious is a trail that would run within 400 feet of the BWCAW line, along a high rock cliff overlooking Royal Lake. The Sierra Club says that trail would cause long-term aesthetic and possible environmental damage.
Environmental groups back a route that follows the Arrowhead Trail - the road that runs from the town of Hovland to McFarland Lake - by widening the road corridor. It would run from McFarland Lake to a seasonal state logging road that runs close to the shore of South Fowl Lake. The plan would require substantial construction work to reach the lake's shore, running down a steep hill from the end of the existing road, Neitzke said. Snowmobilers contend that route is too far out of the way.
Neitzke predicted Friday that he'll choose one of those two alternatives, and that he expects to decide by Christmas.Associated Press via Duluth News Tribune
