As outlined in the article below Senator Baucus of Montana has taken a strong stand on the new fees and other changes to the Forest Service's recreation program under the Recreation Site Facility Master Plan. According to the Senator's spokesperson "the senator vows that the increased fees will never come to fruition" and “However, this proposal, at first glance, is ludicrous, because Max doesn’t think that the Forest Service should balance its budget on the backs of Montanans who take their kids hunting, fishing and camping on our public lands".
 
With the Forest Service planning to eliminate many of your favorite picnic areas, trails, and campgrounds while increasing fees at those areas that remain it is time to ask your Congresspersons and Senators to weigh in to protect the public's interest in public lands. Congress needs to take a hard look at where these Full Cost Recovery recreation policies are heading.
 
Over the coming days, weeks and months the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition will be asking will be asking individuals, originations and local governments to get involved by contacting their Congressional representatives asking them to hold oversight hearings and take legislative action to: 

*Roll back the Recreation Site Facility Master Planning process in the Forest Service. This program promises to eliminate thousands of recreation sites, reduces operating seasons, increases fees, creates new fee sites and turns hundreds more sites over to concessionaires. The RSFMP turns the Forest Service recreation program into a taxpayer funded "For-Profit" venture that forces Americans away from the forests and damages local economies. 

*Repeal the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) for the BLM, Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish & Wildlife Service and NPS. While the fee program remains extremely countenance, the agencies continue charge the public outside of the authority of the FLREA. Incentives created by the FLREA are the driving force behind policies such as the RSFMP.
For more on BLM and Forest Service FLREA Implementation click here.
  
 This includes repealing the new $80 "America The Beautiful Pass" which is pricing the public out of visiting our Parks and other public lands. Others in Congress question the new Pass :

"critics of the fee hike, including Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., questioned the high cost of the pass. "An $80 fee is certainly higher than what folks should have to pay to recreate on federal lands," Thomas said. Thomas, the outgoing Senate Parks Subcommittee chairman, said he opposed expanding the recreation fee beyond the national parks to other federal land management agencies, which will result in higher fees with no guarantee of improving the impacted recreation sites. "If there's a budget problem in our land management agencies, let's get to the root of it, address it head-on, and not put budget shortfalls on the back of recreational visitors," said Thomas. (Jackson Hole Star)

*Limit the cost of National Park entrance fees. Park fees are doubling further driving visitation down. This has been highlighted in a recent letter from Congressman Peter Defazio to the Department of the Interior concerning increased fees and lost spending priorities.
 
*Audit the agencies budgets and mandate that 75% of Congressionally appropriated recreation funding gets to the ground. The Forest Service, for instance, has had its recreation funding increase 22% over the last decade while according to local FS managers local funding has decreased by 50% in some cases. The WSNFC currently estimates that, at best, as little as 18% of Congressionally appropriated funding for Forest Service recreation actually gets to the ground. 

Its been two years since the FLREA was attached as a rider on a spending bill. All the public has to show for it is agency policies that are pricing the public out of THEIR public lands, policies that replace appropriated funding with fees at the local level, agencies that think they are above the law in charging fees and decommissioning of thousands of recreation campgrounds, picnic areas and trails.
 
We applaud Senator Baucus, Senator Thomas, Rep. Defazio and others for their stand on fees and the RSFMP. For those of you in Montana, Wyoming and Oregon you might want to contact the Senators Baucus and Thomas as well as Rep. Defazio to give support. For those that live elsewhere, please start contacting your elected officials. Ask them to oversee and restore the public in public land.
  
For more information go to: http://www.westernslopenofee.org 
 
Robert Funkhouser, President
Western Slope No-Fee Coalition

It seems as though the Army Corps can't go more than about 12 months before the next scandal befalls it. With Katrina now more than a year old, the Corps was overdue. Here are the fixin's of what could become the Corps latest misadventure.

Why would any federal agency, in this case the Army Corps of Engineers, forego collecting recreation fees to which they are absolutely entitled and do so without APPARENT motivation or return? Why would they cut their revenue streams at a time when the disappearance of recreation funding has become such a critical issue??

As the appended press release from the Army Corps makes plain, they have just announced that they will be participating in one aspect of the controversial Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act. They will be providing a 50% reduction on camping fees to those Seniors (those over 62)  who have purchased the new America the Beautiful Pass (ATB), to those Americans with permanent disabilities and to those who have earned a pass by volunteering the requisite 500 hours. This is not necessarily a bad thing, yet please consider the following:

The Army Corps was not included in the legislation that authorized the America the Beautiful Pass. Only the NPS, USFS, FWS, BoR and BLM were authorized to be part of the ATB program .

The Army Corps will not be selling the ATB pass because they are not authorized to do so. The Army Coprs will not receive revenues from the sale of ATB passes, because Congress did not authorize them to participate in the program. The Army Corps has chosen, without any apparent authority, to voluntarily lose money. Why?

In a nutshell, the Army Corps and the American Recreation Coalition enjoy a relationship that some might described as "collusional". The America the Beautiful Pass which went on sale this week is the creation of the American Recreation Coalition. The ARC, for various reasons that are not in the public's interests, wants their pass to succeed. It appears that the ARC has gotten the Army Corps to commit a number of seemly unethical acts and possibly illegal acts.

To learn more, GOOGLE for the combination "American Recreation Coalition" and "Army Corps" then start reading. If you want to read only one article, here's the link to follow.

Scott
 

Traditional car-camping is under increasing attack by the US Forest Service. Targeted for closure, decommissioning or privatization are those primitive, low-cost, minimally-developed camp-grounds most highly favored by locals.

Pasted below is a  very informative new article from Washington State's Methow Valley. Here are two passages quoted from that article:

 "A lot of the sites they are going to close are the unimproved sites that are the favorites of locals," said Perrow. "When we're out camping, we don't need hot running water and flush toilets - that's not what we're about in the Methow." Perrow said she believes the RSFMP inventory is being conducted so the Forest Service can close down recreation sites that don't make money. She said it seems to her as if the process is being conducted "on the sly."

---

 Currently in the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, 80 of the approximately 160 campgrounds charge fees, and 102 of roughly 140 (or 73 percent) of the major trailheads charge fees. Isabelle Spohn of Twisp said she is concerned the RFSMP will result in more new fees and the closure of many free recreation sites that Methow locals have been visiting for decades. "The irony is that a lot of people have stopped going to the national forests because of all the user fees, so now the Forest Service is going to close down these sites because people use them less," said Spohn. "It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Scott

It just so happens that the national forest which ends (or perhaps begins) a few miles from my house is frequently at the leading edge of the Forest Service's efforts to radically transform the management and delivery of outdoor recreation. It is a mere coincidence that I live at ground zero, but it is no coincidence that the Deschutes NF is in this unique position.

You see, our former Forest Supervisor, Sally Collins, has become the Associate Chief of the entire Forest Service. She is a very powerful woman. Unfortunately, Sally can all too frequently be found in the company of the American Recreation Coalition -- the folks who seem to run the recreation program for the USFS these days. 

If you'd like to see a recent photo of Sally and ARC's President Derrick Crandall laughing it up together, the ARC has made one available at here. If you'd like to read of Sally and Derrick's upcoming (January 2007) Partners Outdoors meeting, you can learn more at here.

So with that introduction, I'd like to share with you the appended article published in my local alternative weekly. It is the first article to document a very nasty new USFS fiddle -- a fiddle first applied by the USFS right here on the Deschutes and which is now being applied to every forest in America.  It's a fiddle that has undermined the multi-million dollar Recreation Site Facility Management Planning process and invalidates years of USFS planning. It is a fiddle so disingenuous that, I suggest, it would have been inconceivable, had not the leadership of the USFS and the ARC been working in partnership.

Scott 

PS... the photo (above) is of Sally Collins taken at an American Recreation Coalition event. Sally is standing besides an automated payment machine similar to machines installed at trailheads in Arizona. If you look closely, you might see that the sign above the machine says "Welcome to the Great Outdoors".

 [The retirees’ coalition has a zero-tolerance policy on commercialism in the parks, even opposing the idea of bricks or benches featuring the names of donors. Wade says the only way the parks can truly be a national system is if they are funded by taxpayers, "and, in my judgment, do away with fees, except for certain user fees."

Wade claims the current fee structure excludes entire demographics from experiencing the parks. But Crandall holds an opposing — and seemingly reasonable — view.

"There has never, ever been any proof to that assertion. Again, remember, you can get into every national park in this country for an entire year for $50," Crandall says. "We’re talking about a maximum charge for a carload of people for seven days of $25.]

Crandall is blowing hot air as is anyone who continues to assert that there is no direct correlation between increasing fees and decreasing visitation. The correlation has been established beyond any reasonable measure of doubt. I could provide dozens of pieces of strong evidence to support this statement,  but will provide merely four.  If Crandall or any other fee-tout would like to pit his or her evidence against mine in an open public forum, I invite them to do so!

1. When entrance fees were reduced in California's State Park System, visitation SOARED.
   
   
2. When parking fees we introduced in Washington's State Park System, visitation PLUMMETED.
   
   
3. The Canadian government says "parking meters in provincial parks are almost entirely to blame for the steep drop in visits to B.C. provincial parks."
   

It was become increasingly popular to deny reality or claim a lack of facts when facts abound. It has become popular to deny common sense truths, such as when prices rise, demand drops or higher prices impact lower income persons more than they do the rich. It has become all too popular to deny that the public makes  BLACK and WHITE distinctions between that which is entirely free and that which comes with a price tag. And it is ludicrous in the extreme to suggest, as some have done, that the higher park entrance fees are priced, the more the public will value their parks.

Let me close with this statement and this prediction.

THE STATEMENT: On January 1, 2007 -- it will be out with the old $50 National Park Pass and in with the new $80 America the Beautiful Pass.

THE PREDICTION: Throughout the year, there will be a massive effort by the Park Service, tourism industry and several high-profile conservation organizations to lure additional visitors to the parks. The media will, I predict, be saturated with advertorials and planted stories -- even more so that we saw in 2006.

If park visitation holds steady in 2007, fee-touts will claim that the public accepted the higher-priced America the Beautiful Pass without complaint and if park visitation continues to decline, you will hear denials or silence, from those same fee-touts.

As for the forth piece of evidence, please see the appended news article published just days ago.

Scott

The US Forest Service didn't exactly say "Get of my lands", but they have been acting as if the National Forests are theirs and citizens wanting to visit these lands had damned well better be prepared to pay for that privilege.

Pasted below is a sharply worded denouncement of the Tucson area's Mount Lemmon fee published today in the Tucson Citizen. The local reporter rightly called the fee program "a real lemon" and tells forest officials to "take their fee stations off of our land."

I'd like to add that the US Forest Service is, at this very moment, embroiled in even bigger battles involving access to forest lands. As part of Recreation Site Facility Master Planning, the USFS is about 2/3rd of the way thought the process of targeting unprofitable recreation sites all across America for decommissioning, closure and or privatization. As part of the January 2007 roll-out of the new $80 multi-agency public lands access passport known as "America the Beautiful Pass", the USFS just days ago committed their 16 media talking points to paper and are now conveying these points to the media. Several of these talking points are tall tales. One reveals a stark truth.

Here, for example, is a tall tale. It is talking point #6:

"Many recreation uses and activities continue to be free on all National Forest System managed lands. Examples include general access, pass-through travel, scenic overlooks and pullouts, parking on the side of roads, and walk-up camping at undeveloped sites."

Read the appended article and you will discover how the government is pursing one woman through the court system because she parked on the side of a road and walked in the woods. Know also that I personally have been ticket by the USFS for parking on the side of a road. In my case, however, when I told the prosecutor that I wanted to fight that ticket, the agency immediately backed down.


Here is a second of the agency's talking point. It is point #12 and it presents a stark statement of truth!

"Fees continue to be one part of a comprehensive recreation funding strategy which also includes appropriated funds, volunteer assistance, interagency cooperation, partnerships, commercial operations and funds leveraged from other sources."

Fees are, as I have frequently stated and as the USFS confirms, merely one tool in the toolbox now being used to facilitate a shifting in the way public recreation opportunities are funded -- from public funding to privatized alternatives.

Scott

A great many National Park advocates have high hopes for the new director Mary Bomar. After the horror that was Fran Mainella, it is understandable that people who love our parks desperately want to believe that the current director will be better than the last.

I expect that will be the case, but only because of how extraordinarily horrible was Mainella. Yet Mainella merely lived up to my expectations. For example, on the day Mainella's name was offered up as a candidate for the Director's position, I wrote:

 A few hours ago, President Bush announced the nomination of Fran Mainella to head the National Park Service. I would hope that the environmental community HOWLS like banshees at this nomination!!!!

Later that  week I went on to say:

Can there be any doubt that Ms. Mainella's job will be to  facilitate the Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the Wild?

Mary Bomar will not be another Mainella though she won't be a great director either. My guts tell me Bomar will likely do a great deal of harm by successfully facilitating additional commercialization, privatization and perhaps even motorization of the park system. But because Bomar is so damned politically savvy and personable, that fact will likely go unnoticed until after the damage is done.

Because Bomar is so damned savvy, I predict that neither the press nor the big-green conservation organizations will adequately watchdog her and as a consequence of that failure, Bomar will successfully advance much the same agenda Mainella would have advanced had Mainella been competent.

Pasted below is Bomar's very first memo to her troops. It sounds so love-er-ly that Julie Andrews or even Mary Poppins herself might have sung it.

I've emboldened phrases and passages that jarred my tilt sensors. This phrases will become the issues for which, in retrospect, former Director Bomar will probably be best known.. or so I predict.

Scott

In recent weeks, dramatically shifting federal recreation policies have begun collapsing all at once.  Efforts of the land management agencies and their private sector partners to concentrate opportunities for outdoor recreation into areas where "experiences" could be sold to PAYING CUSTOMERS are meeting with increasing resistance.  Having been pushed too far by the magnitude, rapidity, insensitivity and overt greed of these changes, the recreating public and key members of Government are pushing back.

Pasted below how the generally conservative, recreation industry-friendly, Federal Parks and Recreation newsletter described that situation today. If anything, opposition the new $80 public lands access pass and associated efforts to shutter recreation sites is even greater than this article suggests!

Scott

PS...the article ends with a gratuitous plug for "a free volunteer pass". That so-called "free" annual access pass is available only to persons who have already contributed 500 hours of free volunteer labor.

Quoted from appended article about the steeply rising cost of taking a walk in the woods:

 [ Critics of the fee hike, including Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., questioned the high cost of the pass. "An $80 fee is certainly higher than what folks should have to pay to recreate on federal lands," Thomas said.

    Thomas, the outgoing Senate Parks Subcommittee chairman, said he opposed expanding the recreation fee beyond the national parks to other federal land management agencies, which will result in higher fees with no guarantee of improving the impacted recreation sites. ]

Let me be plain about this. The reason it will cost you $80 to recreate upon your public lands is because a few democracy-hating, free-market-touting, ideologues such as Lynn Scarlett fought long and hard to eliminate public funding for public lands and to replace  free access with pay-to-play. The reason it will cost $80 to enjoy your birthright is because the recreation industry, lead by the American Recreation Coalition, spent more than two decades and buckets of money lobbying Congress for this change.

To my conservation and progressive-oriented friends, I ask you --- what do you make of the hearty endorsement given by Mark Rey and Lynn Scarlett for the new America the Beautiful Pass???

To all of my friends, conservatives and progressives alike, I ask you --- do you agree with Senator Thomas (R-WY) that entrance fees should be confined to the National Parks ONLY --- and that those fees should be kept affordable???

America is made less beautiful with each infringement of the rights of citizens. America is made less beautiful by the transformation of fully-vested citizens into mere customers. Please do not passively accept this latest infringement.

Scott

PS... The  "America the Beautiful Pass" was 27 years in the making. I have warned of its coming since 1997. GOOGLE for "wild wilderness" combined with "America the Beautiful" and you get 456 hits. Follow them and you will learn the ugly truth about this new pass.

Beginning more than 15 years ago, the recreation industry, led by the American Recreation Coalition began lobbying Congress for the creation of a universal public lands access pass that they called "The America the Beautiful Passport".  Congress even introduced the ARC's preferred legislation in 1992, though the proposal received a cold reception and went nowhere.

Opposition to the ARC's passport never waned, but the political landscape of America shifted and in 2004 ARC's legislation was sneaked though Congress as an appropriations rider. After 15 years, the recreation industry got it's way, the "America the Beautiful Passport" was renamed the "America the Beautiful Pass" and the people of America must now pay the price.

Yesterday the government announced that the new public lands access pass would go on sale beginning January 1. What follows are excerpts from what was said  today on the blogosphere The public is not amused. More to the point, the public is not buying the line our government is selling.

Scott

The America the Beautiful Pass became real yesterday when federal officials announced that this new $80 per year public lands access pass will go on sale beginning January 2007.

Many of my readers will recall that the is was Ohio Congressman Ralph Regula who introduced the legislation that gave us the much detested Recreation Fee Demonstration Program in 1996.  Some may recall that it was the Congressman Regula who introduced the legislation that gave us the Recreation Access Tax (aka the RAT) in 2004. Few will know that it was this very same Congressman, Mr. Regula who, in 1992, introduced legislation that for the first time in America's History proposed the creation of an outdoor recreation PASSPORT --- a passport to be purchased and carried by all who recreate upon America's Public Lands.

That 1992 legislative proposal, which can be read below, was broadly denounced and soundly defeated.

By way of contrast, the legislative proposal that has given us both the RAT and the America the Beautiful Pass was never so much as introduced in the US Senate. It was attached in the middle of the night onto "must pass" legislation and became law over the objection of the American People and of those in Congress who had vowed to prevent this bill from becoming the law of the land.

The Pass is called "America the Beautiful" but there is nothing beautiful in how it became the law of the land. There is nothing beautiful in that fact that citizens must now pay to walk in their National Forests. There is nothing beautiful in having to show a photo ID when using the new America the Beautiful Pass --- or is that Passport?

Scott

On September 28th,  I shared a message I'd titled: Government Offers Volunteers Slave Wages . In it, I announced that federal land management agencies would soon introduce the new America The Beautiful public lands pass and that persons unable to pay the anticipated $85 - $100 price tag would be given the option to earn a pass by volunteering 500 hours for one or more of the land management agencies.  Assuming the $100 price-tag, I pointed out that for purposes of this recreation pass, the government was valuing citizen's labor at 20 cents per hour. I was wrong.

Today the Department of Interior and the US Forest Service formally announced the introduction of this pass. While it will, as I suggested, still be available at absolutely no cost to anyone who volunteers 500 hours, the cash purchase price will be just $80 per year. The value of volunteer labor has thus been devalued by 20%.

I'd ask you to consider how much personal time 500 hours represents.

• If you worked 8 hour days, five days a week, you could earn an America The Beautiful in 12.5 weeks.
  
  
• If you worked 2 hours a day, each and every day after returning home from your normal place of employment, after one year you would have volunteered enough to receive an $80 pass.
  
  
• If you worked 24/7 from this moment (December 5) until Christmas --never stopping for breaks, never stopping to eat or sleep -- late on Christmas Day federal land managers would be ready to reward you with a one of their friendly stocking stuffers.

Today the US Forest Service and Department of Interior jointly announced the introduction of the "America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass." (see appended).  With this new pass comes the end of an era of almost universal free-access to public lands. It also shatters the illusion that the recreation fees introduced since 1996 are "user fees".

Ten years ago, the concept of "recreation user-fees" was foisted upon this nation. The vision was that the federal government would gradually cease to offer opportunities to recreate on America's public lands as if citizens had any kind of right to enjoy those opportunities. The idea was that outdoor recreation would be packaged, marketed and sold to paying customers by land managers and their private-partners. Access to public recreation sites would become a privilege for which the public would be required to pay.

Yet when the user-fee concept was first rolled out, the American pubic was told that the fee they paid would be used to fund the service they consumed. Today, with the issuance of the interagency America the Beautiful Pass, we have moved beyond that concept.  From this day forth, when you purchase an "America the Beautiful" at the new www.recreation.gov web-portal,  the $80 you pay will be divided amongst 5 federal agencies operating in 50 states.

What do you call that - a user-fee, or a tax????  And let me just add this. It is a quote from the US Forest Service they used in the late 90s until they realized that their words were making their new $5 per day user fee program look ridiculous.

"A person with an annual income of $40,000 pays less than $.03 per year in taxes to recreate on Forest Service lands, nationwide."

By the way, you are still paying that same 3 cents in income taxes, though now it doesn't look like a lot of money compared to the cost of an America the Beautiful Pass.

Scott

PS... stay tuned. I will be having a lot to say about this new pass in the next few days. 

Within days you will begin hearing a great deal about the new, America the Beautiful Pass. You will be told that the America the Beautiful Pass will serve as your passport to fun and adventure.

National Park Service managers will claim that by purchasing an America the Beautiful Pass, you will be helping  preserve and protect America's Crown Jewels.

Forest Service mangers will hawk the America the Beautiful Pass as being a great bargain, giving you basic access to your National Forests for less than 50 cents per day.

Bureau of Land Management officials will tout the America the Beautiful Pass as being your admission ticket to millions of acres of thrills and excitement ... a ticket costing far less than what a family pay for a single day at Disneyland.

US Fish and Wildlife managers will shill the America the Beautiful Pass, saying ... etc.

Within days, I will begin filling in the gaps, countering the frauds, exposing the deceits and presenting the unfortunate truth about the poorly named America the Beautiful Pass.

Scott

For five or more years, the US Forest Service has been quietly engaged in a process of determining which of its thousands of recreation sites could be closed, decommissioned, outsourced, or (in some cases)  enhanced so as to transform currently free-access sites into pay-to-play sites.

Eighteen months ago, Wild Wilderness picked up the scent and at that time described what we saw as "Closing Down, Selling Off, Forest Recreation."

We followed that original warning with 19 additional postings.

At first, the agency's effort met with little resistance.  It wasn't until the Forest Service began actually shutting, decommissioning, bulldozing and otherwise destroying opportunities for outdoor recreation did the public take notice.

Today the public has not merely taken notice, it is justifiably angered. This issue has reached the phase where the public is saying NO to the closing of low income recreation sites and the Forest Service's efforts to promote and maintain only those sites which can be operated profitably.

Appended are two excellent Editorials published today. Please read what is being said and consider writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and warning your community of the runaway bulldozer that needs to be brought under control.

Scott

Today NationalParksTraveler blogger Kurt Repanshek wrote about the soon to be introduced America the Beautiful Pass (ATB). You can read what Kurt had to say by clicking here

ATB is a new multi-agency National Recreation Passport that will go on sale starting January 1, 2007. ATB will replace such familiar passes as the National Park Pass, the Golden Eagle, the Golden Age and the Golden Access Passports.

This new pass will also allow the bearer to enjoy basic access and use of most of the nearly 700,000,000 acres of public lands administered by the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation.

The annual cost for an ATB pass had yet to be determine as of October 27, 2006. What has been determined, is that American citizens (or those domiciled in America) can earn a pass by volunteering at least 500 hours.

If you start today and are prepared to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week until the end of the year, you'll almost, but not quite, have earned a pass. If you can't afford to purchase a pass this Christmas, you better start volunteering quickly! And should you wish to work at a more leisurely rate of 40 hours a week, you can earn your pass in a mere twelve and a half weeks.

 Wild Wilderness has been closely tracking the coming of this new passport since it was first introduced as proposed legislation in 1992 by the American Recreation Coalition. That early legislative effort was broadly denounced by virtually everyone inside and outside of the legislature. For good reason, it failed to become law and the ARC's efforts to create their pass floundered. It was not until December of 2004 when legislation introduced by Congressman Richard Pombo was stuck onto an appropriation bill against the objection of ranking members of the US Senate that ATB was finally authorized.
We have written extensively on this subject and by clicking on this link you can access what we've had to say. We will very soon have very much more to say! Please stay tuned.

 For now, we'd like to invite you to read the Standard Operating Procedures federal land managers are following as they prepare the roll out ATB pass. You can access that document by clicking here.

I would just add that the agencies will be breaking the law when the pass is introduced.  You see, when Pombo's bill became law, Congress required that the new pass be called "America the Beautiful--the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass".  In Pombo's haste he failed to appreciate that the phase "America the Beautiful" was copyrighted and could not be used without permission of the copyright holder.

 Pombo may not have known, or perhaps did not remember, that a century ago while standing atop Pike's Peak in Colorado, school teacher Katharine Lee Bates penned her famous song describing what she saw before her -- the "purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain."

  Today, you or I or Ms. Bates' decedents would need to be in possession of an America the Beautiful Passport to look out upon those majesties and plains. But because the decedents of Ms. Bate own the rights to the those famous words and have not granted the government permission to use them, federal land managers will be in violation of those copyrights when their ATB pass is put on the market for sale.

Interestingly enough, if you decide to read the Standard Operating Procedures referenced above, you'll discover that the agencies are fully aware of this fact. Remarkably, they seem perfectly willing to break the law.

Scott

ParkRemark is a blog which has gradually been homing in upon some extremely important and sometimes controversial National Park-related topics. Today they take a closer look at an issue that has in recent months been receiving increasing amounts of increasingly superficial media attention.

 Appended is today's ParkRemark. I'd like to preface it with two short quotes -- both from Henry David Thoreau.

"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe ... till we come to the hard bottom of rocks in place, which we can call reality."

---

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

Thank you ParkRemark for your efforts. 

Scott

We strive to ensure that Wilderness areas, roadless areas and other areas now substantially free of development will continue to provide outstanding opportunities for high quality, non-motorized, recreation.

The appended article from the Society of American Foresters does a remarkably good job of explaining what's going on with the increasingly controversial Recreation Site Facility Master Planning process now being implemented nationwide.  In this article, the US Forest Service's director of Recreation, Heritage and Wilderness Resources, Jim Bedwell, appears to have stepped into a deep puddle. Bedwell is quoted as saying:

[ "There's no intent to pull back or curtail recreation. What we're seeing so far is that less than ten percent of sites will either have operations modified or closed." ]

The facts suggest that Bedwell's ten percent isn't even in the right ballpark.

Here is the summary of RS-FMP proposed actions for my local forest, the Deschutes. This condensed document was handed out at a USFS meeting I attended last week. It can now be read here. The unedited parent document can be read here.

The bottom line for the Deschutes is this -- out of 212 developed recreation sites, "NO CHANGE" has been proposed for just 50 sites.

Operations will be modified at more than 75% of all developed recreation sites on this forest and I've seen similar figures for other forests.

In the appended article, Funkhouser's version of reality is more believable than Bedwell's, or so I would suggest.


-- Highlights from USFS condensed document --

 The Deschutes National Forest currently manages 212 developed recreation sites.  The following is a summary of the proposed changes ...

• Remove constructed features at 23 sites and manage them as dispersed recreation sites.
  

• Change the season of management at 85 sites
  

• Change operator or work force at 9 sites by seeking partnerships to operate and maintain 5 sites, where possible partners have been identified; and by including 4 sites, currently managed by the Forest, in the next (FY 2009) campground Concession permit prospectus.
  

• improve 12 day use sites to meet public demand, protect resources, and increase recreation opportunities and begin charging day use recreation fees at these sites.
  

• implement fees at 2 overnight sites where we do not currently charge.
  

• No change is proposed for 50 sites.
  

Scott

Pasted below is an article that ran on the Front Page of the Denver Post under the banner headline -  "Forest Plan Trims Access".  

There are a number of important issues that are not addressed here. Not the least of those are the RSFMP's heavy reliance on access fees to achieve its goal of self-sustainability (profitability), thereby replacing appropriated funding. We are very concerned about the enormous negative impacts to local economies, lack of public comment through the federally mandated NEPA process and additional barriers to public use and enjoyment of public land. The Western Slope No-Fee Coalition has estimated that between 3,000 and 5,000 sites are to be decommissioned, closed, or "returned to dispersed use" with many sites being gated. Having reviewed additional forest RSFMP 5-year Plans we stand by those numbers. We will update estimates when and if additional RSFMP 5-year plans are made available to the public for review. Closures and decommissionings are just one aspect of the RSFMP. Additional fee sites, reduced operating seasons, turning sites over to concessionaire operation and other barriers to public use add to impacts of the RSFMP. The WSNFC's ground-breaking report on RSFMP can be read at http://www.westernslopenofee.org
 
Robert Funkhouser
President, Western Slope No-Fee Coalition