In a room packed with ATV proponents and opponents, the former group carried the day when the Wolf River Town Board in northeastern Wisconsin voted June 2 to open roads to ATV riders. The three-member board agreed to open four roads, and provide unspecified future access to area businesses.

“I take this to mean that this is only the beginning,” Jamee Peters, co-owner of Bear Paw Outdoors, wrote in an e-mail after the meeting.

Peters’ business lies within the township but caters to Wolf River kayakers and mountain bikers. She tried to rally her constituency – people who value quiet, nonmotorized recreation in that corner of the northwoods.

“We better get busy, because the march to chew up the land with ATV trails is on,” she wrote.

Near his house on the Wolf River, which he enjoys paddling, Phil Johnsrud said he’s seen ATV’ers damage the banks while crossing the stream. At the meeting, he said the town board tried to make a distinction between ATV routes, links and trails. “But in the end, you can go back and forth on an ATV,” Johnsrud said.

Johnsrud said the ATV’ers at the meeting greatly outnumbered silent sports enthusiasts, and the board members appeared to have their minds made up in advance.

Peters said ATV’ers have long sought greater access to the area’s forest roads and trails with the “ultimate goal” of using an abandoned rail trestle over the Wolf River in Hollister.

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