Recreational Forest Roads on Maine s Public Reserved Lands NERCOFE Meeting Presented by Chuck Simpson Eastern Region Lands Manager

Transcription

1 Recreational Forest Roads on Maine s Public Reserved Lands 2013 NERCOFE Meeting Presented by Chuck Simpson Eastern Region Lands Manager

2 Maine s Public Reserved Lands Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry Division of Parks & Public Lands 400,000 regulated forest acres; 600,000 acres total 3 regional offices Ashland Bangor Farmington

3 Maine s Public Lands

4 Eastern Region Lands 160,000 acres 100,000 regulated AAC= 37,000 cord equivalents +/- 150 campsites Over 100 miles of hiking trails Dozens of lakes, miles of rivers and streams

5 Public Lands Road Classifications Public Access Roads: Designed for public use and maintained to a twowheel drive passable standard. Management Roads: Designed for timber management or administrative use that may be also used by the public as long as they remain in service. Service Roads: Administrative, not open to public.

6 Public Lands Road Classifications Cont. Sub-Classification Shared-Use Roads/Trails: If suitable for use by ATV s, horses, bicycles, etc. a road or trail may be designated and signed as Shared-Use The Eastern Region has 235 miles of roads. Ninetyeight are Public Access, 76 are Management Roads, and 130 are Shared-Use Roads.

7 A major goal of Public Lands is to provide a variety of opportunities for recreational and access opportunities to the public. Public Recreational/Access Opportunities on Public Lands One result of this is the conscious decision not to block use of suitable roads throughout the year. Many of our roads are also parts of organized trail systems for either ATV s or snow sleds. This forces us to plan our management activities accordingly.

8 Road Costs for Public Lands

9 Planning and Construction Roads are primarily planned for our management activities, but we have to anticipate their future use by the public. We typically have narrower rights-of-way clearing (35-45 ) on our major roads. This makes construction harder. On roads to be designated as Public Access, we have to construct off-road yards. We try to construct all-season roads whenever possible to provide future public access. We tend to build permanent bridges/crossings instead of temporary ones. This means a bridge deck will only provide access for one harvesting cycle. We do build temporary crossings when appropriate. Due to our visual considerations, we will put turns in a road exclusively for aesthetic/visual buffers, increasing distances and costs. Regional new road construction costs are around $5/ft., not counting culverts or bridges.

10

11 At times, we share roads in the winter with sleds on major trails. This is only when we have to access certain areas in the winter. Sleds on roads leave ice picks which inevitably end up in someone s tire; usually a $500 truck tire. Safety and Public Use of Roads We have had a log truck roll over avoiding sleds, and a disabled sled being towed run into a log truck. At our Nahmakanta Unit, we spent a lot of money rerouting sled and ATV trails to avoid conflicts. Vegetation control along our roads is always a challenge and a big safety concern. We wait until after berrypicking season, and are limited as to how wide we can clear due to visual concerns. There are several commercial camps whose clients use our roads for access; by coach busses in some cases. We spend a lot of time and money installing, repairing and replacing road signs.

12 Gates on Public Lands

13 The Costs The Eastern Region contains 235 miles of roads on roughly 160,000 acres. A total of 98 miles are Public Access Roads and 130 are Shared-Use. We harvest and haul approximately 40,000 cord equivalents of timber annually. In the past three years, we have spent an average of $127,000 for signage, maintenance, repair and replacement of roads, bridges, culverts and roadside vegetation control.

14 Compliance with Road Use Policies Call on the Road Gods!!

15 ??Questions??

16 Thank You Chuck Simpson, Eastern Region Land Manager Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry Division of Parks & Public Lands 106 Hogan Road, Suite 5 Bangor, Maine Tel: chuck.simpson@maine.gov