mud boggers

[bill london <london@moscow.com>]

    The Thursday Lewiston Tribune (6/13, page 1C) included an article
about tire-piercing spikes found in mug bogs in the Pomeroy Forest
Service Ranger District.  The spikes were placed illegally.  The spikes
were discovered because they punctured tires on 4-wheelers that were
being driven through forest meadows creating mud bogs.
    The "mud-bogging" (driving through the meadows) is illegal because
of the damage to water quality and to the meadows themselves.  However,
the authorities involved said they were more concerned with the spikes,
and considered the placing of the spikes an act of eco-terrorism.
    While I do not support the vigilante justice action of placing those
spikes, I certainly can relate to the emotion and anger behind it.  I
have seen beautiful mountain meadows ravaged through the thoughtless and
wanton destruction by 4-wheelers and motorcylcists.  In just a few
minutes, the wet soils and fragile flowers of a meadow can disappear,
churned to mud--which then fouls streams and invites further desecration
later.
    Given the impossibility of stationing guards at every meadow or
catching any of the perpetrators in the act, perhaps stopping
mud-bogging with spikes is not such a bad idea.  Maybe the US Forest
Service should place tire-piercing spikes in areas where "mud-boggers"
go for their kinky thrills.  The USFS could post plenty of warning
signs.  Perhaps the potential threat to their machines would keep these
scofflaws on the roads and out of the meadows.
    The situation is the same as the commion practice of police placing
strips of tire-piercing spikes on roads when they are trying to stop a
vehicle in a chase situation.  Of course, the police do not place spike
strips randomly across roads.  They use the spikes when they are trying
to stop someone in a dangerous and illegal act.
    Same with the spikes in the meadows.  By definition, anyone driving
in the meadow is committing an illegal act.  A flat tire is better than
a ravaged meadow.
BL