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Published in the Asbury Park Press 4/19/04
By A. SCOTT FERGUSON
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
WARETOWN -- For once, it seems, off-road enthusiasts and conservationists
found some common ground yesterday at Wells Mills County Park.
Along with the Sierra Club and Forked River Mountain Coalition, the Jersey
Devil ATV Riders Association slogged along several Forked River Mountain
trails yesterday, cleaning up beer cans, plastic cups and other discarded
items.
With the help of about 200 other volunteers, including boy scouts, local
public-works officials and others, the ATV association spent three hours
along the trails not only picking up trash, but also working to improve
its reputation, which its members think younger riders have tarnished.
"Today, we are helping these guys clean up," said Rich Herbert, the
association's vice president and a West Milford resident. "The image is
that we destroy the land and tear down the trees. We're trying to
re-establish our name."
Often, off-road riders and conservationists don't see eye to eye.
Conservationists like to keep all-terrain and other vehicles out of the
mountains and other undeveloped areas, while riders complain there is no
place for them to go in New Jersey.
Part of the problem, as Herbert and others see it, is younger riders tend
to throw trash in the woods, and that creates a bad image.
Yesterday, association members tried to change that perception.
"Anybody who helps out is good," said Douglas Cortelyou, a Lacey resident
and longtime volunteer with the mountain coalition.
About three or four weeks before the cleanup, coalition volunteers helped
find "hot spots" in the woods and then marked them with a
global-positioning system. From that, maps were made to show volunteers
where to go to clean.
Yesterday, in one spot, Cortelyou pointed out where someone had thrown out
the bed of a pickup truck.
Away from the truck bed, Herbert and David Abate of Bethlehem, the ATV
association's secretary, picked up broken bottles and other junk that was
left.
The two said they hope what they did yesterday will have a lasting impact
and help improve their public image.
"We're trying to regain some face here," Abate said. |
