Pennsylvania Environmental Org Sues to Shut Down ATV Trails

Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) working on trail access issues again, this time in court. It’s helping to defend a decision to create the Northcentral Regional ATV Trail Connector Pilot (NRAT), an initiative that’s begun with more than 374 miles of trails in the Tiadaghton, Tioga, Sproul, and Susquehannock state forests in the northeast of the state. This could eventually expand across 1.6 million acres of the state forests and state parks in the area.

The Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF) just sued the state, state governor Josh Shapiro, and the DCNR, seeking to have the NRAT shut down. The PEDF claims ATVs damage the land in ways that do not “[preserve] the clean air, pure water, and natural, scenic, historic, and aesthetic values of these public natural resources, as guaranteed by our state constitution.”

Here’s the context. In 1985, the state government added ATVs to a snowmobile titling law that also opened ATV use “on designated trails in state forests and state parks.” In 2000, ATV riders were asking for more legal trails to ride; there were supposedly 222 miles of legal throughways, but riders had allegedly created another 2,500 miles of illegal trails in the parks and forests.

Nothing came of the request until 2018, when Pennsylvania politicians amended the state’s Fiscal Code to allow the DCNR to create the NRAT. After a few more amendments, the NRAT opened in 2021 and, according to a study by Penn State University, has been a financial success for the counties it crosses. The government allotted $2.4 million to create the NRAT and run it for three years, from 2021 to 2023. Two of the four counties the system crosses, Potter and Tioga (Clinton, Lycoming are the others) are said to have made $10.4 million combined in 2022 and $13.1 million in 2023. Businesses along the trails “reported that about 35 percent of their summer customer base was a result of the pilot.” On top of that, the state pulled in $430,000 from ATV passes sold during the first three years.

The PEDF believes ATVs degrade the environment and the experience that non-ATV riders can have in the parks and forests. It cites Section 27 of the state constitution, added by amendment in 1971, stating, “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”The environmental foundation sued the state in 2022, filing a 77-page appellant brief asking the courts to declare ATV use unconstitutional. That same year, the court verdict declared the PEDF’s evidence “does not support the claim that, on their face, the statutes show no respect for the Environmental Rights Amendment,” further stating that forbidding any ATVs on the state lands “would eliminate the balancing of recreational interests with the preservation of the forests.”

Having failed in its blanket claim of being unconstitutional, the PEDF filed a new, 130-page brief on December 2 detailing the ways it believes ATV use contravenes Section 27. The goal is the same, to prevent ATVs in state parks and forests.

None of the defendants have commented on the new suit. For now, another addition to the state’s Fiscal Code keeps money in the budget for the DCNR to run the NRAT through the end of 2025.

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