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Five years after Minnesota passed laws aimed at keeping ATVâs on designated trails, riders are causing widespread damage to public wetlands, rivers, lakes and protected areas.

ATV damage and enforcement

Ride the Red Top Trail

DNR Trail Ambassadors Program

DNR trail repair on ATV routes

ATV damage prevention

Part I: Renegade riders

By DAVID SHAFFER, TOM MEERSMAN and GLENN HOWATT , Star Tribune staff writers

Last update: June 18, 2009

FIRST OF THREE PARTS

State Conservation Officer Matt Miller stopped his truck at the edge of the Rum River, just in time to see the wet joyrider.

A young man on an all-terrain vehicle was driving down the center of the shallow river, waves of mud and water pouring away from his machine. It was the kind of destructive fun that draws many ATV riders to Minnesota's public lands and waters. It's also against the law.

The thrill-seeking rider drove up on the bank. Miller followed in his truck, to the man's nearby home and wrote him tickets. Returning to the Rum River, a state wild and scenic waterway north of the Twin Cities, Miller photographed a stretch of once-green shoreline that had been scraped into black ruts by ATV wheels.

"It seems like some of them think they can ride anywhere they wish regardless of what guidelines and laws there are," Miller said.

Part II: Renegade riders

Perry May

A club-sponsored ride leads to an investigation of a damaged wetland, triggering a fox-guarding-the-henhouse debate.

Control at last or inviting trouble?

A massive DNR program to decide where ATVs may go in state forests is meant to reduce damage and resolve conflicts. But some agency experts say the plan leaves too much land open to motors.

More from this series:

Graphic: Where the ATVs roam
All-terrain vehicles have been an ever-increasing presence in Minnesota for over a decade. Here's an interactive graphic that looks at the number of ATVs registered, violations that have occurred and how state forests are being managed to better handle the thousands of ATVs that take to the trails of rural Minnesota.
What do you think about ATVs on public lands?
What do you think about ATVs on public lands? What do you think should be done about renegade riders? Sound off here about the Star Tribune's multimedia investigation.
About the data used in this series
Data for this project was provided by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to the Star Tribune, which requested the data under the Minnesota Data Practices Act.