Tearing Up The Terrain Off-Road Vehicle Impacts On Liberty Lake Park And Nearby Private Land May Force Prohibition

Mud-spattered motorized bikes, trikes and trucks might soon leave the Liberty Lake ORV park and never return.

Known to off-road vehicle riders as a place for year-round muddy fun, the park is now so rutted that no vegetation can grow and trails have been closed. Surface runoff, which feeds directly into the lake, is silt-laden, packed with the potential to endanger Liberty Lake’s fragile water quality.

“The park’s in the heart of the Liberty Lake watershed,” said Wyn Birkenthal, manager of Spokane County Parks and Recreation. “All that water runoff ends up in the lake, which creates more silt in an already shallow lake.”

In addition to the environmental concerns, trespassing has been a source of constant tension between nearby landowners and riders.

The park’s rules, posted on a large sign in the parking lot, continue to be broken.

Though the park has a wood-fence boundary, riders continually pull down or plow through the rails and bike on private land.

“(Riders) are on my property just about all the time,” said Ron Knudsen, who has 150 acres in Idaho near the park’s eastern boundary. “They go whereever they want. I never met (a rider) I didn’t like, but I never met one that could read.”

Derrell Hilgers, who owns 15 acres along the southern edge of the park, has taken steps to keep riders off his land. He ran lengths of barbed wire through the boundary fence along his property - only to find two riders pulling their bikes through the wire just two hours after he’d put it up.

It’s been more than a year since Liberty Lake resident Matt Sarner last rode in the ORV park. But the reasons to ride there are endless, he said.

“I love just going for miles and miles - all the way to Coeur d’Alene Lake. I like being able to go a long way and not be confined.”

After years of trying to remedy the situation, Spokane County now is faced with selling or swapping the park land - which some say should never have been created in the first place.

Birkenthal, Parks Department staff and the county Park Advisory Committee have recommended to county commissioners that the park be closed to ORV use and that the damaged terrain be repaired as much as possible to improve the drainage problem.

The county used a grant combining state and federal money to acquire the 350-acre park in 1966. The transaction made a traditional use legal, because for years riders had free range over the land. After the park was established, however, many riders crossed onto private land, often without knowing it, in order to access Mica Peak, Three Fingers and Signal Point.

In 1994, after years of complaints from landowners and riders alike, the county received a $195,000 grant to install a wood-rail boundary fence, hundreds of signs and new culverts and trenches to alleviate the immediate runoff problem.

But today, runoff is heavier than ever, sections of the fence are down, and signs, meant to mark closed trails, are broken in two, torn out of the ground or ignored.

“There’s not one of those signs standing,” said Birkenthal.

Even the president of the Northwest Off Road Racing Association said riders haven’t followed the rules.

“I know someone who thought since the (fence) rails were down, the trails were open again,” said Jeff Williams, who drives his Jeep in the park. “I tried to tell him it was closed but they went in there anyway. That’s the kind of thing that gets the park closed.”

Williams said he thinks a few “bad apples” are ruining it for responsible riders. “It only takes one vehicle, one motorcycle to go out on private land and make a set of ruts,” he said.

Riders, landowners and Parks Department staff thought patroling the park would do the trick.

Birkenthal applied for an enforcement grant to hire a part-time park ranger who would ticket offenders and break up drinking parties. The grant was denied.

Then, a volunteer rider patrol was formed, but Birkenthal said it lasted one month.

“I didn’t see the level of follow-through from riders that would have helped this park,” he said. “There’s virtually noting I haven’t tried. I’ve beat my brains out trying to make this work, but it hasn’t.”

Recently, the county trenched Idaho Road to keep water from running down the hillside in between the park and the lake. Because the park’s soil is so soft, thin and rocky, ruts created by riders cut away the soil and runoff washes the soil away. In many sections, no soil’s left and bedrock is visible.

“At the time it was established, no one really knew the implications of having the park erode into Liberty Lake,” said Williams, an avid racer who frequently uses an ORV park in the Seven Mile area.

“It probably wasn’t a real wise choice to use that land. Riders have kind of done it to themselves. We just have to deal with what’s come of it.”

The grant the county used to acquire the land for the ORV park has a condition attached to it. If the county sells or converts the land to another use, it would have to provide an alternative site for ORV riding somewhere else in the county.

Options include swapping land or selling off the ORV park to buy land for an alternative riding site, Birkenthal said. What the county can’t do is close the park and wash its hands of the muddy mess.

Another option Birkenthal said he’s looking into is the expansion of an existing ORV area. If the county could sell the Liberty Lake riding area, money from that purchase could be used to expand a riding area near Airway Heights run by the state Department of Natural Resources.

That news that the county is likely to shut down the Liberty Lake ORV park is welcomed by neighboring landowners.

“It’s a real headache for a lot of us,” said Knudsen. “For the people who live up here, it’s even worse. I just wish they’d move it to an area that wasn’t so environmentally sensitive.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 6 Color Photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Management options After conducting an erosion study at the Liberty Lake ORV park in February of 1996, Century West Engineering of Spokane suggested three management alternatives to the Spokane County Park Advisory Committee: Do nothing. Improve the drainage problem and allow ORV riding to continue. Improve the drainage problem and close the park to ORV riding. The Park Advisory Committee and county Parks Department staff have recommended the third alternative to county commissioners. There will be a public hearing on the matter at 5 p.m. on March 18 in the Hearing Room at the Public Works Building, 1026 W. Broadway.