Letter to the Editor

Action needed on trail systems

To the Editor

The County Board should act. No action by the Bayfield County Board will lead to more trail closures and land titles will remain clouded. The snowmobilers do not want more trails. They want to make the existing trails safer and insure they will continue to exist.

These trails follow the abandoned C & NW RR ROW between Sawyer County and the Tri County Corridor trail and from the Tri County Corridor to the City of Washburn. These trails have been in use for about 15 years and a lot of snowmobiler's money has been spent on developing and maintaining them. including seven bridges being built or rebuilt. Many. ROW easements were granted by, generous, adjoining landowners where the ROW was not on County ROW, National Forest and DNR lands. Through the years the trail, in several places, has been forced off the ROW onto plowed roads, through a wetland and across Owen Lake, when easements were lost.

Before the Mauler lawsuits, Federal laws that made the Federal Government the owner of the ROW of Land Grant railroads and allows the County to legally assume ownership, were not well known. The ownership of even numbered sections is now being challenged and should be determined. The title of adjacent landowners will remain clouded and the future of the trail is in question until the County acts.

We think the County should legally prove its ownership of the ROW of the above named trails and give ROW Quit Claim deeds to landowners where homes are close to the ROW, if landowners provide safe, permanent, reroutes.

Earl Orner

Iron River

President Bayfield County