Thursday, October 02, 2008

Huntsman rips into off-trail ORV use Off-road vehicles that stray from trails are doing immense damage to the state, said Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who has directed state officers to begin cracking down. "It's an abomination, it's an embarrassment," the governor said Wednesday during a meeting with The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board. Huntsman said that he recently visited the area around Moab with David Bonderman, a prominent venture capitalist and major financier for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, to see the damage done by illegal off-road travel. "I wanted to get a sense of what the concern was, and it became a concern to me," he said. So Huntsman - who rides dirt bikes, but sticks to the track - said he has begun a two-part effort to reduce the damage, using enforcement and encouragement. First, he has asked the Department of Natural Resources to step up enforcement on state land. "You penalize them. . . . You give them tickets, you charge them, you fine them, which is what we're going to be doing through DNR," he said....

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