Take Me To Post Comment Form The U.S. Forest Service is trying to decide whether to permanently ban off-road vehicles in an area of the Chattahoochee National Forest known as Anderson Creek.

There are several places in the national forest that offer designated trails for smaller vehicles such as ATVs and motorcycles. But Anderson Creek is one of only two (the other is Beasley Knob) that has trails for full-size SUVs such as Jeeps. And it has been closed for several years to allow the area to recover from environmental damage.

The Forest Service says these large vehicles cause so much erosion that there's no way to keep dirt out of mountain streams, thus leading to violations of the Clean Water Act. Chattahoochee National Forest officials are in favor of closing Anderson Creek's trails permanently.

But there are groups of off-road SUV enthusiasts who would like to see the trails not only reopened but enhanced. They say that if proper maintenance is performed, it is possible to have SUV trails that will not harm the environment. And club members have volunteered to do the maintenance work themselves.

What do you think? Are off-road trails for big vehicles a bad idea under any circumstance, or is there a way to offer this type of motorized recreation without degrading the forest's vegetation and trout streams?