Federal Lands

Many of the nation's national parks, forests, and other federal lands provide opportunities for individuals to use snowmobiles and watercraft for recreational purposes. The federal agencies that manage these areas are mandated by law to monitor the environmental impact of these vehicles. However, 60 percent of the federal areas GAO surveyed have not collected the necessary information to determine whether there have been any adverse effects on their unit's resources. Of the other 40 percent, about half indicated that the information they have collected is not enough to determine how these vehicles use should be managed. GAO found that the federal agencies are not complying with federal regulations and thus are not fulfilling their responsibility to protect the lands and waters they manage.

GAO noted that: (1) in fiscal year 1999, personal watercraft, snowmobiles, or both were used for recreation in 475 of the 1,018 federal units that responded to GAO's questionnaire; (2) several factors determine whether personal watercraft or snowmobile use is permitted in a particular federal unit; (3) specific provisions in federal law prohibit the use of these vehicles in some locations, such as wilderness areas, and specifically authorize their use in others, such as national recreation areas; (4) if no laws specifically prohibit or authorize use, the federal agency responsible for managing the land and water makes such a determination; (5) NPS and the FWS generally disallow the recreational use of these vehicles unless it can be demonstrated that no harm would be likely to result to the unit's resources and environment; (6) in contrast, the Forest Service and BLM generally allow their use unless the unit manager clearly demonstrates potential harm; (7) approval for recreational use of personal watercraft or snowmobiles on federal lands generally comes with restrictions; (8) in most cases the restrictions come from state laws and regulations that have been adopted by the federal agency or an individual unit; (9) in many cases, enforcement actions are a shared responsibility among federal, state, and local officials; (10) even with this shared responsibility, a significant number of federal units reported that a personnel shortage limited enforcement activity; (11) managers of individual federal units often do not have any information on the impacts of personal watercraft and snowmobiles on their unit's resources and environment; (12) a variety of laws and executive orders authorize the federal land management agencies to monitor the impact of using recreational vehicles on natural resources, safety, and other users of federal lands and waters; (13) about 60 percent of the federal units that have use reported that they have not collected information on the effects of that use; (14) of the remaining units, about half said the information was not adequate for determining how personal watercraft and snowmobile use should be managed; (15) agency officials generally attributed this lack of information to the low priority the agencies have given to monitoring the effects of these vehicles; and (16) according to officials of all four agencies, monitoring has received a low priority because only a few units have experienced intensive use of these vehicles.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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