OFFICIALS HOPE GATES STOP POT

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area officials plan to put up 10 gates
on service roads to deter illicit marijuana growing.

Marijuana growers rendezvous with suppliers on the roads, the longest
of which is half a mile long, said Whiskeytown Superintendent Jim Milestone.

"They are using these roads," he said.

The roads range from old logging roads to access roads for power lines
passing through Whiskeytown. Milestone said the gates will block
unauthorized motor traffic on the roads.

"The public can still walk in there and take their bike up there,"
Milestone said. "I doubt the public will even notice that these gates
have been installed."

Whiskeytown is taking public comment on the proposed gates until early
September.

In considering the gates, which cost about $1,200 each, Milestone said
he consulted with off-highway vehicle users and didn't hear negative
feedback. He said they recognize that the roads are park management
roads and not part of Whiskeytown's recreational road system.

Sylvia Milligan, chairwoman of the Recreation Outdoors Coalition and
among the people Milestone met with, said the gates aren't a problem.
But she said it's clear that Whiskeytown's direction is against
off-highway vehicle use.

"Not that many people use it for motorized recreation," Milligan
said.

Milligan said her group, which supports off-highway-vehicle use on
public lands in northeastern California and Southern Oregon is focused
on changes to the Shasta-Trinity National Forest's road system that
cut the number of roads open to motorized use.

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted July 27 to sue the forest
over its controversial roads plan, contending that the Shasta
Trinity's leadership didn't listen to the county's concerns when
designating routes for off-road vehicles.

The Forest Service changed its road rules after former chief Dale
Bosworth identified unmanaged off-highway-vehicle use as one of the
top four threats to the nation's forests in 2005.

Whiskeytown's planned gates are all about stopping marijuana growers,
said Jim Richardson, Whiskeytown's chief ranger.

"It will continue to make it harder for them to grow in the park," he
said.

So far this year there have been four growers arrested in Whiskeytown
and 9,174 plants pulled from within its boundaries, Richardson said.
Whiskeytown rangers also have found 20,597 plants growing on lands
adjacent to Whiskeytown and managed by the Bureau of Land Management
and U.S. Forest Service.

In December 2008, Whiskeytown started locking the gate up South Fork
Mountain Road, a seven-mile dirt road leading up the peak north of the
Whiskeytown Visitor Center.

People can still drive the road after obtaining a free permit and lock
combination from Whiskeytown's headquarters by giving their driver's
license number and vehicle description.

He said the gate on South Fork Mountain Road stopped the stream of
suppliers carrying hoses, fertilizer and other gear to growers on the
3,447-foot mountain.

"That particular road was a main highway," he said.