LYMAN — SWOT (Southwest Wyoming Off-road Trails) continues to move ahead on its plan for a network of off-road vehicle trails it maintains that could be a significant boost for local economies in southwest Wyoming.

Some of the adjacent landowners and other area residents who utilize the roads are concerned about the increase in traffic and riders trespassing, leaving garbage behind, tearing up private property and clogging county roads.

According to a story in Cowboy State Daily Tuesday, Uinta County Commission Chairman Mark Anderson said, ““I can see both sides. More people are going to bring more bad behavior. But they’re generally not casual riders on $5,000 to $10,000 machines these days. They’re folks with $30,000 to $40,000 machines that they want to take on long trail rides.”

According to SWOT at a recent meeting at the Mountain View Town Park, Mark Tesoro, SWOT president, said the set up would also give areas a handle for more control and help minimize the problems created by the increased traffic. At that meeting, it was proposed to turn the Badlands, southeast of Mountain View into a state park or designate official trails to be utilized by the riders. The overall tenor by the many locals who attended was, “We don’t want that in our back yard.” They expressed concerns about the problems, which would arise, and according to Theresa Kellum and others, these problems are already in the area due to the continuing increase of riders in the area. Fences have been cut, horses have been turned out of fields and pallets have been burned on the ground.

At the Mountain View meeting, Tesoro cited the web pages by property owners in the Piedmont area promoting hunting and more and said, “That traffic is coming. They are looking for somewhere to go.”

But the push is still on to increase the trails in Uinta County that can be used for off-road vehicle riding. The proposal pushes the idea, the benefits outweigh the negatives so Uinta County and others should support the increase of utilizing trails for off-road vehicles.

Uinta County has already approved the use of 22 of Uinta County’s 89 roads that ATVs and side-by-sides can utilize, Tesoro said at the meeting in Mountain View. He said SWOT had created signage to signify which roads these vehicles could utilize. There was signage “on about 110 miles of roads already,”

The plan is, the trail ride plan will bring responsible people to enjoy the area, and they may then support local business during their time in the area.

The plan for more trails now hinge on an underpass along I-80 near Evanston. It would provide access for off-road vehicles to pass between trail systems now split by the Interstate.

As for the underpass, the Wyoming Legislature passed a bill earlier this year allowing a right of way for the off-trails underpass. The bill laid out a number of conditions for the underpass.

Wyoming law currently doesn’t allow ORVs anywhere in the right of way of interstate highways, but the legislation created an exception at the Evanston crossing and possibly other sites in the future. It would allow for safe and legal passage under the interstate, as well as short ORV routes running parallel to the interstate leading to and from it.

It was also stated there would have to be a “physical barrier” such as fences to separate the ORV’S from highway traffic. This section would only be accessible for ORVs, operated by licensed drivers and have license plates or ORV registration stickers.

At this point, no construction date has been set.

Uinta county and neighboring jurisdictions hope to get state funding to help pay for costs affiliated with the project, Anderson said. Funds raised through fees for ORV stickers are available through the Wyoming State Trails program, Anderson said.