NOTICE OF ADDITIONAL DAYS OF HEARING

The Minnesota Environmental Quality Board will hold a public hearing in mid-January on proposed rules establishing mandatory Environmental Assessment Worksheet and exemption thresholds for certain types of recreational trails.

The hearing is scheduled for:

Comments regarding snowmobile trail categories.  EQB received 47 comment letters directed specifically at whether there should be mandatory review for snowmobile trails. Collectively, the points made in these letters can be summarized as follows:  A. Snowmobile trails should either be exempted from environmental review or at least there should not be mandatory review categories for these trails, B. Because snowmobiles ride on snow or ice cover and do not directly contact the ground, and because the ground is frozen, snowmobile trails do not adversely impact the environmental, C.

The Environmental Quality Board was charged by the 2003 legislature to develop rules for mandatory Environmental Assessment Worksheet and Environmental Impact Statement categories and exemption categories for recreational trails. The rules are required to be adopted by January 2005.