Trouble in Tellico

[tjbliley]

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4258154#post4258154

Let your voices be heard. The more support for SFWD the better. We need to support of brothers.

http://www.sfwda.org/trails/tellico/tellico20070917.html

 

[Grim Reaper]

The President of Southern is in my 4x4 club and a friend.

This group doing the lawsuit has SO many holes and out right deception going on it is not even funny. One of the things they site is a drop in fish population and site this count that is done yearly. What they don't point out is the way they did the count has changed so it looks like a drop in the last year. If you look at the previous 10 years the count has DOUBLED. Next year the new count under the new method will show and increase.

The pictures they use are old and some we question if they are even at Tellico.

The like harping on the bridges. Well one is done and the FS has not had the money do build the second even with all the ISTEA monies that Southerns Members have raised. The majority of the heavy equipment used to maintain the Area was purchased by Southern to try to prevent this. The unfortunate part is their Lawsuit has merit in the fact that the FS HAS failed due to lack up funding and government bureaucracy DESPITE all the money Southern has dumped into the area and all the free labor they have provided.

This lawsuit is vindictive attack instead of actually getting out and doing physical work to help correct the few points that do have Merritt. It is actually making the problem worse because the money that was going into the area to correct the valid complaints is now being redirected to the lawsuit.

Then lets get to another point. They close Tellico half of Murphy NC is going to go Bankrupt. That OHV is the biggest single cash cow for that town they have.


Please take some time to send a letter in support of Tellico. It and Beasley Knob are one of the few legal public OHV's in the Southeast of any size.

 

[DesertRose]

I take it the clubs are doing lots of proactive work - raising funds for the bridges or at least volunteering to help mitigate the erosion (working with FS), and volunteering to stay off trails during spring thaws to cut down on ruts?

Sounds like a tough situation - too bad it has to come to lawsuits and all that.

 

[Grim Reaper]

I take it the clubs are doing lots of proactive work - raising funds for the bridges or at least volunteering to help mitigate the erosion (working with FS), and volunteering to stay off trails during spring thaws to cut down on ruts?

Sounds like a tough situation - too bad it has to come to lawsuits and all that.

Southern has always been proactive with Tellico. Sothern is the only reason Tellico is open today. A lot of people do not realize the "Dixie Run" event (This weekend in fact) is a Fund raiser for Southern that most of the money goes right back into that Trail system.

The seasonal closure in the winter is a given. We knew it was coming. Beasley has been closed in the winter for several years now. It really is the right thing to do. The Reason it hasn't happened already is Money. Tellico generates a LOT of parking fee's for the FS. That has been helping and the volunteer work has kept the need for the FS to hire a pro crew to groom the trails and fix water bars to a minimum.

The real irony here is the only reason Trout’s Unlimited has the ability to even use the area without a 2 -3 mile hike in is the OHV that opened it back up after Opal knocked several hundred trees down blocking all the trails. The FS did not have the money to deal with it and was going to just close it. Southern opened back up at no Cost to the FS and they raised huge money in the process from www.istea.org