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Angelina/Sabine National Forests Multi Use Trail System

Teeds

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Joined
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Location
here and there, mostly there
First Name
Tony
Last Name
Eeds
Interested?

There was a small trail system proposed for the Angelina National Forest in the Broaddus Unit that went through the NEPA and EA/EIS process only to be denied at the regional lever because of lack of public input.

This system fell by the wayside because of some other issues as well, but in December 2008, a group began meeting at the Forest Service offices in Lufkin.

Over the last year we have looked at over a dozen units on the maps, narrowing the list to five that met specific criteria relating to topo, flora, services etc.

These five were visited on the ground during the summer and fall of 2009.

We are meeting with the Forest Supervisor in Lufkin soon and will then schedule a public meeting to discuss the five proposed sites. As this point the likely location for the meeting is the Library in Hemphill.

I will update this thread when I have additional information.

Sincerely,
Tony Eeds
President - 2007-2011
Texas Motorized Trails Coalition.
 
We got the green light from the Forest Supervisor to have our first public meeting on the new trail system.

There are five areas that floated to the top of the discussions during the meetings. After identifying the five, cut from twelve that appeared to be workable in the beginning, we spent the late summer and fall visiting the various units.

They are
  • North Toledo
  • Boles Field
  • Red Hills Lake
  • Trail between the Lakes
  • Broaddus

These five will be presented at a public meeting to be held in Hemphill. The date is still in the air, but we are shooting for the last week of March. We have to check for available locations.

This will be the first public meeting and there will be other initial meetings scheduled if needed.

This only begins the process as the end result of this exercise will be a decision by the committee as to which unit to select for the multi-use trail system

Following selection the real work begins ... the NEPA has to be completed on the selected unit.

This process will probably take a minimum of 6 months to complete with the decision/approval process taking a similar amount of time.

We still have miles to travel, but the road is clear.
 
Wish I had some good news, but the project was dropped because of the lack of funding necessary to complete the project.

There was an initial grant received that funded about 50% of the overall cost of construction. The Forest Service did not want to proceed with the project without 100% of the funding in place owing to the current economic and budget climate, therefore the project was dropped.

This was personally disappointing to me because of the two plus years of effort I invested in the projects in the form of meetings and mapping.

I wanted this to be TMTC's third OHV area! Alas, as I end my 4 years as President of TMTC, this will not be the case. I'm busy with the other parks and likely will be for the foreseeable future, so it isn't like I needed something else to work on.

Still ... it is a bummer.
 
You time is not wasted - the project is just delayed. Thanks for the effort.
 
Wish I had some good news, but the project was dropped because of the lack of funding necessary to complete the project.

There was an initial grant received that funded about 50% of the overall cost of construction. The Forest Service did not want to proceed with the project without 100% of the funding in place owing to the current economic and budget climate, therefore the project was dropped.

This was personally disappointing to me because of the two plus years of effort I invested in the projects in the form of meetings and mapping.

I wanted this to be TMTC's third OHV area! Alas, as I end my 4 years as President of TMTC, this will not be the case. I'm busy with the other parks and likely will be for the foreseeable future, so it isn't like I needed something else to work on.

Still ... it is a bummer.

your efforts do not go unnoticed. :clap:

so what are these other parks you speak of :trust:
 
The whole situation is/was a double edged sword at best.

We started with the entire Sabine and Angelina National Forests and quickly whittled the areas down to twelve likely suspects because of the resource issues that we faced.

The committee was
  • Brandt Manchen
  • Larry Shelton
  • Steve Thompson
  • Tony Eeds - aka 'me'

Steve and I represented the OHV community while Larry and Brandt represented ... well ... other interests (identified and otherwise).

There was a group of forest folks as well that were involved, most notably Catherine Albers out of the Lufkin Headquarters, Cam Lockwood with Trails Unlimited Enterprise Unit, and Eddie Taylor - District Ranger for the Angelina and Sabine National Forests.

The entire process lasted slightly over two years with meetings at about monthly intervals. After a few sessions in the Lufkin office to create a criteria matrix and review we whittled the original twelve likely suspect areas to five that we ground proofed.

Each of the five had some positive as well as negative attributes and as you can imagine it depended upon your point of view mostly. For me, I quickly dropped from consideration any areas that simply replicated what we have in the Sam Houston National Forest. With the cost of fuel, I could not see how anyone out of Houston would come to an area that replicated something closer. As we were trying to draw the largest crowd to assure success of the system, I was shooting for 'unique'.

In my opinion we found unique. Unique in topo, amenities, location, yada yada all exist with the Red Hills Unit. Situated just north of Milam Texas, the approximately 4500 acre unit offered a set of attributes designed for success as an OHV area. Camping facilities and a small swimming lake are nestled in a northern slope at one end and iron ore deposits provided hardened trail opportunities galore. The lack of nearby neighbors was also a plus. Perhaps the most tangible plus of all was the support of the local officials. Without local support nothing succeeds and this project had garnered a lot.

The Recreational Trails Program Grant Committee (I am a member) earmarked 500K for initial development of the system in the 2010 grant cycle so seed funding existed. Cam Lockwood had completed an initial trail layout and cost estimate based upon what I put in ArcGIS based upon his design thoughts, so we thought things were going quite swimmingly ... but alas there was a large fly in the ointment ... the dramatically growing deficit in Austin and Wash DC.

The project was put on ice specifically because there was no clear path to funding to complete construction of the system. Frankly, I believe that volunteers would have come forth had the decision been made to move forward, but the critical first steps included resource surveys required to complete a NEPA analysis for the project.

As you can imagine, every funding source is little more than a spider web of requirements with the money being the ever illusive goal of traveling towards the center. At every juncture in the path there are side paths that have to be addressed to keep the entire process towards the ultimate goal stabilized (assuming that a positive outcome is desired). The problem is that the entire process is fraught with opportunities for opponents to destabilize the process. Now, don't get me wrong, getting it right in the right thing to do, but many of the issues faced were illusions at best. In any case, we never got to that point because funding was rescended back to the RTP program and redistributed during the 2011 grant cycle, which just occurred.

During the process, I answered every complaint raised regarding the impact of a trail system but alas, forces far bigger than I could address ultimately caused the plug to be pulled on the project after it flat lined.

For me this is doubly sad because the same forest ecosystem supports a really nice trail system just east of Red Hills in Louisiana and it is a an asset to both the forest and the surrounding communities in the area.

Simply stated, I do not understand the resistance to the system ... actually I do, but frankly the resistance is mostly based upon illusionary rather than real issues. This is a product of the times and until the silent majority steps up and takes back the reigns of government from those currently piloting the bus the process will not change.

Deep East Texas can best be described as poverty stricken with pockets of economic vitality in areas like Lufkin and Nacogdoches. There are other areas as well, but unfortunately all too many times opportunity pass the area by because there is too little the area can offer.

I could go on and on because downtown revitalization, economic development and historic preservation is what I do in real life ... but alas I'll stop.

I will include a copy of the map of the trail system to close the loop.

Please feel free to download and peruse. The trail system can be seen in the eastern part of the Red Hills unit.

1251731198_zKaCC-L.jpg


If you get a hankering to ride some trails, come check out our two parks we own and operate ... Barnwell Mountain near Gilmer and Escondido Draw near Ozona.
 
:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Since I'm in Lufkin, who would you recommend I talk with to get more information and to encourage future efforts? Miss Albers?
 
:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Since I'm in Lufkin, who would you recommend I talk with to get more information and to encourage future efforts? Miss Albers?

Yes, Catherine is the best place to start as she is the OHV recreation person ... I've forgotten her exact title ... and she is VERY supportive of our efforts.

Call the Lufkin office and they can hook you up with her.

Tell her I asked you to call and ask her what steps could be taken to make sure that the forest service knows that there are interested stakeholders that want to see this to fruition.

At this point what would help the most is a coalition of people that are willing to finance the completion of the system. When the economy strengthens a bit I think a group of us should start ringing up the various manufacturers. Texas is second only to California in the sales of off road motorcycles and ATVs.
 
i dont understand why they cant let some of the TRAIL RIDING ORG's put together a trail system and maintain it. there are more people that would step up to the plate and do this then they know, they just want and have to be PC! let the forest service have all the monies at the trail heads for clean up of restrooms like at the SHNF or for whatever. we the riders could keep the trails somewhat clean. theres always that few that will trash out any place, so you would have to weed out then idiout. that could be sometings else the FS could make money on. i dont know the answer to this, but it sure does hurt now to be able to ride in the trees. ive put in many miles in the angy and miss it. i was out in that area about 8 months ago and it was changed. pulled into where we use to camp and ride and it was sad to say the least. its hard for me to help much as work and living in galveston gots me by the boys. i do however make sure i clean up after myself and always pick up trash from others that dont care about OUR riding areas. yep, you can go to these riding parks, aint calling out any names, but it aint the same as being in the TREES! gotta love them woodpeckers.
 
Can we be frank here?

I'm going to assume that y'all are the best of the best as far as abiding by the rules, never trespassing on the property of others, always picking up after yourselves and making sure your bikes are quiet, like they should be.

That being said ... there are one heck of a lot of people in the OHV community that have no concept of the damage they inflict on the sport with their attitude about where their rights stop and the rights of others begin.

Perhaps more importantly ... all too many idiots in our community are more than willing to provide the ammunition for our detractors in the form of celebratory photos of their antics for use by every opposition group with access to the world wide web.

Sure, most of the photos are from events on private property, but try and inject that bit of wisdom in the middle of a meeting of folks that are predeposed to not want our sport on earth to begin with. Do you think they care about the truth?

Frankly, what is the truth?

  • Is it true that every one of us knows of an illegal trail somewhere?
  • Is is true that all too many of OHV folks equate loud noise with power?
  • Is it true that all too many of us rides with someone that has a loud exhaust system?
  • Is it true that there are little more than a handful of folks actually attending meetings and trying to defend the sport to the public?

I could go on for more time than I currently have.

Apathy is a word that few understand but most abide.

Change will not come until we address those within our sport that give us a bad name.

Knowledge of the problems we face will only come by attending the public meetings and listening to the comments that the opposition makes. Some are inane, but many times they are valid.

Our opposition is passionate about their opposition to our sport. Are we passionate enough to organize and fund a defense of our sport?

I've been the President of Texas Motorized Trails Coalition for almost 4 years and will until our elections the end of the month. I have heard every excuse imaginable as to why someone cannot scrape together the cost of membership. A lot of comments seem to focus on the belief that we are not effective. We are only a group of volunteers.

I am self employed and TMTC consumes about 1,000 hours of my life yearly between meetings and travel. In that much of that is during the week, I have to keep my real business afloat at nights and over the weekends.

The OHV community needs a paid advocate to attend the myriad of meetings that exist, many of which pop up almost unnoticed and often unannounced. The TMTC board has been talking about a paid executive director, but we need membership to support the funding to pay the ED. The position will not be a popular one as much of the message that needs to be imparted is that 'we' have to clean up our own in many cases in order to improve our image.

If we do not support our own defense, where do we think it will come from?
 
Who of the opposition has gone on record? If I had names and contact info, I might could talk with them and see where they're coming from, try to show them where guys like us are coming from, and think hard about possible solutions. I grew up around environmentalists (dad is a retired state forester in another state); I have a B.S. in Geological Engineering, and I used to work for the Department of Environmental Quality of a different state. In my limited experience, so far careful listening and patient education (along with some legal precident) has been the key to finding solutions to social concerns. I'm new to this debate here in East Texas, so I've got a lot of catching up to do. I need to learn more about both the issues that have been raised and the attempts which have been made to satisfy the concerns of the passionate opposition. After Holy Week (this week), I'll have a little more time to get involved.
 
After meeting Ms. Albers, it sounds like the US Forest Service will need some time to address some other projects before they can come back to this issue.
 
At this point what would help the most is a coalition of people that are willing to finance the completion of the system. When the economy strengthens a bit I think a group of us should start ringing up the various manufacturers. Texas is second only to California in the sales of off road motorcycles and ATVs.


I'm interested in helping. Let me know what you want me to do.
 
its always the same answer. they know what we want and we know what they want

not certain what the second part of the quote means, but we made it abundantly clear what we would like to see. The maps I posted were the culmination of two years of meetings and probably 500 hours of my time time trying to push this across the finish line.

The political climate is bad enough anytime, but couple it with the toilet the economy has placed us in and things got doubly skiddish over this deal. It is a shame, because the system would have been very sweet and I could easily see it becoming a favorite.

The SHNF is now beginning to benefit from the best practices of Trails Unlimited, but this area would have been laid out, detailed and constructed to best practice standards from the get go, which would have resulted in a fluid system that would quickly be adopted because of the challenge and yet simplicity at the same time.

It is really a bummer to flush so many hours down the toilet, but unless someone plunks about 1.5 million on the table, I don't think this will resurface. We had about 700K earmarked for the trails, but there was infrastructure and resources surveys that would have required an additional 800K.

Again, it was a shame.

In the mean time leading up to an future effort we need to set up an email blast that could be used to get the word out and QUICKLY.

One way to handle that is to join TMTC and we could build it there. We are representing the OHV community from the Sabine to the Rio Grand and most points in between except for the panhandle.
 
they know we want nice/good trails and they want us not to trash them and tread lighty. but theres alway 1 AH in every bunch

OK, got it, thanks.

There are more than one, more than a bunch actually and on BOTH sides. Unfortunately we keep shooting the sport in the foot. Not 'us' specifically, but Bubba does it for us, or to us as the case may be.

Kinda like the point that the thousands of Harley riders with loud pipes give the hundreds that don't have loud pipes a bad name.

I don't know of an easy answer, but it does begin with us self policing our sport and not giving so dang much ammo to the opposition.
 
if you could keep all the AH's off the trails and do what your suppose to, not ride where your not suppose to and wear your gear and cleanup after yourself and on and on, we could do this. but its the few that mess it up for all of us. yea,theres more to the story then that, but thats one of the biggest problems i see. who wants a bunch of AH's tearing up OUR public lands? maybe one of these days
 
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