Ice riders can return to Hoit Road Marsh next winter now that Gov. Chris Sununu signed the bill into law on Friday that repealed the ban on the use of motorcycles on the icy marsh.
The passage of House Bill 517 is a victory for the ice bike riders who used to race around the frozen marsh in winter. The ban began in 2019, when Democratic Sen. Dan Feltes added a single line to the state budget prohibiting the use of off-highway terrain vehicles on the marsh at the request of Concord Mayor Jim Bouley.
Concord residents who live alongside the marsh have long complained about the loud noise the motorbikes create in the winter. Bouley told the Monitor in 2019that the sounds of motorcycles tearing around the pond on Christmas Day was the final straw for many neighbors, who reached out to their mayor.
Republication Rep. Tom Walsh of Hooksett sponsored HB 517, along with fellow Republicans Natalie Wells, Steven Smith and Howard Pearl.
“I’m glad he signed it. I filed the bill because it righted what I believe was a wrong, the way the whole process developed,” Walsh said on Friday. Because the ban was attached to the state budget, it did not pass through a committee or receive a public hearing.
Under state law, ponds over 10 acres are known as “great ponds” and open to the public. While some other bodies of water in the state impose limits on the winter use of off-road vehicles, the total ban on Hoit Road Marsh was the only one of its kind, Walsh said.
“The rights of property owners that abut resources can’t supersede the rights of the public to use those resources,” Walsh said. Even in a perfect winter, there are only a few days a year when the conditions would bring in motorcyclists to bother neighbors, which Walsh found reasonable for abutters to endure.
“If we make an exception for Hoit Road Marsh, what’s the next pond? What’s the next lake?” he said.