Aetna Mountain in the News

#1
A lot of you know the situation we are dealing with on Aetna mountain and twra, well there is a public comment period this week and look what they plaster on the local news.
And yes they are referring too Aetna, black creek is the subdivision at the bottom and they are the reason for all the static the last few years.
And btw those that are in the loop, twra and black creek's land swap fell though

CHATTANOOGA, TN (WRCB) -- The Chattanooga Fire Department responded to a call for help at approximately 2:45 a.m. Monday morning, from several stranded people on the side of Black Creek Mountain.*

A total of eight people, ranging in age from 11 to 17,* had to be rescued using the Chattanooga Fire Departments off road vehicles, with assistance from personnel with TWRA and a retired 911 dispatcher.

The parties had been stranded for two days in a remote area, after making a wrong turn and getting their Jeep Wrangler stuck in the mud.

They called for assistance first from friends with other four wheel drive vehicles but the attempts resulted another vehicle breaking down and more parties stranded.

Those stranded were not prepared for the lower temperatures which prompted Chattanooga Fire department to respond after Park Rangers apparently refused to help.

All victims were safely transported down the mountain, no medical attention was needed. After warming up at Chattanooga Station 3, the parties were able to call family members to transport them home.
http://m.wrcbtv.com/default.aspx?pi...d-on-black-creek-mountain?clienttype=rssstory

http://www.chattanoogan.com/2012/3/1/220653/TWRA-Seeks-Public-Comment-On-Aetna.aspx
 
#4
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/jul/08/turf-war-turns-into-environmental-issue/?local#share

In the torrent of rain that accompanied tornadoes in late February 2011, a plug of mud swirled down an Aetna Mountain creek and plopped into the middle of U.S. Highway 41.

Some of the mud traveled on, eventually washing into the Tennessee and creating a sandy delta jutting an acre or more off the river bank.

But the blame didn't go to the storm supercells that National Weather Service meteorologists said dropped up to 2 inches of water with tornadoes that struck South Pittsburg, Signal Mountain and Red Bank.

Instead, on March 10, 2011, a Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation memo states Chattanooga's TDEC field office staff tracked the avalanche to the top of Aetna Mountain where TVA transmission lines cross the mountain and hold the ruts and scars left by off-road vehicles.

What began as a turf war between developers of a high-end proposed enclave atop Aetna Mountain and a club of four-wheelers who enjoy partying with extreme terrain suddenly had morphed into an environmental degradation issue.

And complaints normally fielded by state environmental regulators have been amped up by the very powerful nonprofit and donor-funded Southern Environmental Law Center, which just opened a new Nashville office this year.

"Decades of unmanaged [off-highway vehicle] use have created a deteriorating condition that cannot be stabilized so long as OHV use continues. The rutted scars left by cross-country OHV riding on Aetna Mountain erode further with every rain, degrading water quality and sending massive deposits of sediment into the Tennessee River and its tributaries," states a Southern Environmental Law Center comment brief written by litigator Anne Davis in May.

The four-wheeler club that uses the mountain, WeRock, takes issue with that assertion, as well developers' portrayal of them as outlaws and trespassers.

Christie Perkins, head of the WeRock Club, says the development of 2,000 homes and a new taxpayer-financed road will cause far more sedimentation and erosion problems than four-wheelers on the power line easement. And she said they have had permission to be there from the land-owners whose property the power line crosses.

"We keep the place cleaned up. Before my club got up there, there were burned-out vehicles up there, garbage. Without us, it's going to be hell up there. And when they go up there and start building roads and houses, where is all the wildlife that TWRA is supposed to be protecting going to go?"

Ruts and ravines

As with many environmental issues, there seems as little solid ground on what constitutes harm to the environment and who's responsible as there is on the four-wheeler ruts that crisscross Aetna Mountain.

The ruts trail up and down steep ravines and run for miles along the power transmission rights-of-way of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Made by enormous off-road vehicles specifically made for such terrain, the ruts cross public land held by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, land owned by the Tennessee River Gorge Trust and the property of a friendly private neighbor. Both the neighbor and the Gorge Trust's executive director, Jim Brown, said they have allowed the club to cross their land on the TVA right-of-way.

But in 2006, TWRA designated the 1,200 acres it acquired from a private landowner with federal Forest Legacy money as a wildlife management area. That designation brings with it a policy against four-wheelers.

Now TWRA and the developers of Black Creek homes at the foot of the mountain and those planned for the top say the club and its members are "trespassing."

The developers have blocked a public road the four-wheelers often used to gain access to the mountaintop. The developers -- Doug Stein and Gary Chazen -- tried to have the road closed, but lost that bid in a lawsuit. Now developers have secured a $9 million commitment from city officials for a new public road up the mountain.

Google Earth shows the extreme off-road trails plainly. The bird's-eye view shot from planes and satellites gleams with bare sandstone and the orange-red dirt slung from big-wheeled muscle cars in the midst of broad and unsettled mountain wilderness.

Who's responsible?

Sam Evans, another litigator with Southern Environment Law Center, said it, like the state agencies and developers, is frustrated by the morass of complications that are stalling action.

"Under the laws designed to prevent this sort of damage, the landowner, TWRA, has responsibility for cleanup, even if the landowner isn't at fault. As an additional complicating factor, the landowners have had trouble preventing the damage because TVA has removed all the trees from the easements, making a huge, open playground with no vegetation to hold the soil in place."

Evans said he and Davis have "encouraged" TDEC to open a public comment period to gather information and public input "about who is responsible under the Clean Water Act."

"We believe that this problem can be solved if all involved parties will sit down at the table with TDEC," Evans said. "It will cost money to repair the damage, but it will be much more expensive to leave the trails in their current condition while tons of dirt continue to smother streams and wash into the river."

He estimated the cost could "run into the millions."

TWRA spokesman Dan Hicks said his agency just closed a public comment period on the issue, and the majority of people want the extreme four-wheeling to stop and the damage repaired.

He said TWRA had a staff committee meeting Thursday and decided to take that course, though more meetings will be needed before a formal decision is announced.

"We cannot access the area with the four-wheel-drive vehicles we are issued by the state, and we worry about that from the public safety standpoint," he said.

"It's a time bomb waiting to go off from the public safety standpoint. I can't imagine what we would do if one of those vehicles rolled over on a crowd of people. I can't imagine how we'd handle it," he said.

Tracking efforts

"The ball is in TWRA's and TDEC's court," Evans said.

TVA policies preclude four-wheelers beneath their power transmission lines if the utility own the land. But that policy doesn't apply to power transmission lines where TVA does not own the land, but has only a right-of-way easement.

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation has a 2-inch-thick file on the issue of Aetna Mountain, but has not taken action against either of the land-holders, both sister conservation organizations.

Email exchanges between TDEC water pollution field supervisor Dick Urban and TVA's senior manager for compliance interface and permits, Cynthia M. Anderson, offer a measure of environmental regulators' frustration.

"While TVA regrets that soil erosion is being caused by others on the [right of way], we do not have any authority to patrol or remove persons ... except where activities may endanger the transmission structures. To date we do not have evidence of this. Unfortunately the removal of trespassers is the landowners' responsibility," Anderson wrote.

More email exchanges in April 2011 show TWRA had received verbal support from the developers to stop the four-wheeling.

TWRA's Dave McKinney wrote to Urban that Stein told him he had Chattanooga annex the area of the mountain in Hamilton County "to obtain police assistance in stopping the off-road vehicles from accessing Aetna Mountain through Cummings Cove/Black Creek subdivisions."

In another email, McKinney wrote to Urban: "I suggest you find a TVA contact and begin to explore how much cooperation is available from local law enforcement and the DA. ... It's obvious this situation will only continue to get worse without a coordinated response."

In February of this year, one former four-wheeler wrote a letter that now also is in TDEC files.

"Hillsides are being devastated, run-off streams are being used as trails, and wildlife tormented. ... To help those who did not have large or powerful vehicles get up the WeRock members' trail, a 'buggie' with bolts in its tires, drove up and down steep sections of trail while spinning said tires. This may have provided traction for others, but it also displaced about six inches of packed soil."

When regulators tracked the storm-driven mudslide from the river to the mountain's top, they found what the four-wheelers call "the peanut butter hole."

It is a natural ravine on land owned by the Tennessee River Gorge Trust. Brown said he has made an agreement with the WeRock group allowing them to ride there if they keep the property clean.

But Davis and regulators say the four-wheelers dammed up the lower end of the ravine to make an amphitheater-sized mud hole to play in.

Perkins said they didn't dam the ravine. Rather, natural forces did with washed-out rocks, dirt and fallen trees.

"We cleaned it [after the slide] to help get TDEC off Jim Brown's back," Perkins said. She said club members took heavy equipment up there to clear what hadn't been blown out by the powerful storm.

"It doesn't fill up as much as it did. Now the water is redirected to vegetation," Perkins said.


 
#5
Sorting interests

Brown acknowledges there are many conflicting and complicated questions, not the least of which is Chattanooga's interest in touting itself as an outdoor tourist destination.

"This is a tough issue," he said. "I can see both sides of the argument. These aren't bad people. They just want to do able to do their thing."

On the other hand, he said, the streams and river need to be protected.

"I'm trying to work with everybody," Brown said.

Water expert and activist Rene Hoyos, executive director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, is one of the groups the Southern Environmental Law Center represented in its comments to TWRA about stopping the four-wheeling on the mountain.

But Hoyos said she agrees with the four-wheelers that development won't help the mountain and its wildlife management area either. Nor will it help the river.

"I'd say they're both bad," Hoyos said, noting that her organization tracks the citations and cases brought by the Tennessee environmental regulators.

Sedimentation and E. coli problems "trade off" about every two years as the greatest water quality issue statewide, she said.

Sedimentation is mud from erosion choking the ecology that helps keep streams and rivers clean. And most of it is caused by construction, she said.

E. coli is a bacteria from sewage and septic systems, another problem caused by developments after the construction is over and families move in.

"When homes are being constructed, it's an even apples-to-apples comparison," she said of the destruction capabilities of four-wheeling and development, even though builders try to use erosion controls.

"After the homes are built and people move in? Then you're trading other pollution problems from road oils and chemicals and septic or sewage issues," Hoyos said.
 
#6
as much as it pains me to say this... there are many in this sport that are ruining it for all of us. I wonder if the rock bouncer buggies are tearing our sport apart from the inside out.
 
#7
as much as it pains me to say this... there are many in this sport that are ruining it for all of us. I wonder if the rock bouncer buggies are tearing our sport apart from the inside out.
they just about are, as badass as they are, they are drawing TONS of attention to themselves. madram11 has so many views its not even funny. when a democrat sees that they have so much **** to feed off of. but what they miss is what 95% of the people who use the park actually do
 
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01tj

Guest
#8
they just about are, as badass as they are, they are drawing TONS of attention to themselves. madram11 has so many views its not even funny. when a democrat sees that they have so much **** to feed off of. but what they miss is what 95% of the people who use the park actually do
Majority of those videos are on private land.
 
#10
They are definately ruining it. I have been wodering how long it would take people to realize this. It is absolutely no wonder Nation Forests are closing OHV's when you see these earth destroyers.
 
#11
What Ive noticed in all the places Ive wheeled is that way to many bypasses are being cut around obstacles turning a single lane trail to an interstate of trails with a few obstacles scattered about. This IMO causes the worst erosion than a handful of tough trails designed for built rigs.
I agree.
 
#13
Unfortunatly legislation come into play when the need arises because people cannot govern themselves. Private pand or not they are damaging waterways and other areas that effect other people. I hate to say it but I hate what these buggies are doing I our sport. And I hate the comeback of well they can do things without spinning that little rigs can't. This is true but they don't. Too often they are in 2 wheel drive and doing alOt of unnecessary damage. I know it's the nature of the sport but it is what it is....flame away
 
#16
So very true. When an obstacle gets bypassed for whatever reason, when earth is disturbed or trees moved, it don't matter if the tire tracks are from a 30" tire, 35 or 44" tire it gives others the impression its OK to leave the trail and starts the downward spiral.
IMO. It's not one more than the other. Sure the big tire high horsepower rigs spin more but typically they are on the muddy ****.

I think you get more ATV's and pussy's bypassing **** and tearing it up.

The *** hole in a stock old CJ that drank a case of bud's is just as bad as this *** hole that had a case of natty's.

The video's on the internet are not helping either. But, I think it's just the inevitable. It's gonna be private land only before long and the insurance will do away with that one of these days. Hopefully I am wrong.
 
#17
Unfortunatly legislation come into play when the need arises because people cannot govern themselves. Private pand or not they are damaging waterways and other areas that effect other people. I hate to say it but I hate what these buggies are doing I our sport. And I hate the comeback of well they can do things without spinning that little rigs can't. This is true but they don't. Too often they are in 2 wheel drive and doing alOt of unnecessary damage. I know it's the nature of the sport but it is what it is....flame away
4wheeling doesn't damage waterways anymore than any other un-natural thing you do to land. Building, logging, fawking all produce sediment that get's into your rivers. Hell boats leak oil directly into water...whaddayasay we stop commercial fishing next.
 
#19
I've often wondered that myself. I've been told where I can or can't camp in the woods and never could figure out why. I know that's a little different subject, but for some reason some activites get hammered way more than others.
You are correct there JR. I don't see a problem camping anywhere as long as you don't have a fire if your not supposed to and clean up after yourself.
 
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