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Dear fellow citizens that enjoy recreating on public land with our
families:
You have the opportunity to help nearly 300 million owners of public
land.
Something very tragic is happening to our public land
administered by the U.S. Forest Service … and you can help.
The Forest Service has been implementing a policy initiative called
Recreation Site Facility Master Planning, or RSFMP. This policy was cooked up
in secret by the Forest Service in 2002 with absolutely no public
involvement … or congressional review.
By law, every RSFMP "project" must go through the National Environmental
Policy Act process and have a public input period, but the Forest Service has
chosen to ignore NEPA.
My Recent Forest Service Contact
I recently contacted the Washington D.C. office of the Forest Service to
express my concerns about the RSFMP process. I asked them why the legally
mandated NEPA process was not being followed when they obliterate a campground
with a D-6 Cat.
They immediately told me that NEPA is not needed to set new policy. I told
them I knew that.
I told them that 22 national forests have completed their five-year RSFMP
site closure plans and implementation has begun.
I then said:
The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests in western
Colorado, have already started bulldozing campgrounds, removing toilets, capping
drinking water systems, closing picnic areas, and turning day-use areas over to
concessionaires. Also, the White River National Forest in Colorado has removed
toilets and other facilities at Green Mountain Reservoir despite local
opposition.
I reminded them that NEPA is required on a case-by-case basis,
if the policy results in any ground-disturbing work, and the NEPA process have
not been applied to any work being done to obliterate developed recreation
sites. I also mentioned that nowhere in America has any national forest ever
publicly released their RSFMP Plan.
The Forest Service representative then franticly began telling me "you don't
understand." This went on for what seemed to be an endless number of
times.
In between the "you don't understand" statements, I gathered that the Forest
Service feels that congress has not appropriated enough money to fully fund the
recreation program
I knew very well that there was ample funding for recreation appropriated to
the Forest Service by congress. Thus, my contact with the Forest Service was a
waste of my time.
The Forest Service Washington D.C. Office withholds 85% of the
Recreation Budget Appropriated by Congress, and does not tell the national
forest Supervisors
According to the FY2006 Interior and Related Appropriations Conference
Report, congress appropriated $368 million for the 2 recreation related funding
items:
1) Facility Maintenance/Capital Improvement, and
2) Operations (Recreation, Heritage, and Wilderness).
Congress allowed the USFS to sell some unneeded off-Forest administrative
facilities, and pull money from non-recreation programs to use for recreation
facilities. This generated $65 million. With these additional funds, the total
money appropriated by Congress for Forest Service recreation facilities and
programs was $433 million.
Even assuming a very generous two-thirds allocation to overhead, there should
have been at least $143 million dollars for developed recreation site operations
and maintenance, or slightly less than $1 million per National Forest if evenly
distributed across the system.
In spite of this:
- the Deschutes National Forest’s RSFMP 5-Year Plan claims to only have
$149,000 in Congressionally appropriated funds to manage its 212 developed
recreation sites.
- the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest's RSFMP 5-Year Plan
claims to only have $138,000 to manage its 138 developed recreation
sites.
If the extremely low numbers given by the Deschutes and GMUG were projected
across the whole National Forest system, the agency would only be allocating
approximately $22 million of their $143 million appropriation to the individual
Forests for their developed recreation programs.
So where is the other 85% of the Forest Service recreation appropriation
actually going?
Somewhere it is being siphoned off in the Forest Service
bureaucracy.
What does RSFMP do?
- RSFMP mandates that every National Forest must inventory all of its
developed recreation sites and rank them compared to a National Required
Standard. Those that do not measure up will be closed or "decommissioned"
(a.k.a. obliterated). This inventory is being taken on every national forest
in America as I write this note.
The closures will affect mainly simple, remote facilities favored by local
residents, hunters, fishermen, and others who prefer dispersed and minimally
developed recreation sites. This seems totally illogical and absurd. We all
know these "simple", "remote" facilities: 1) have very few improvements and 2)
are easy to maintain and are maintained at minimum cost.
- For more developed sites such as campgrounds, an analysis will be made to
determine how much it costs to maintain each site on a yearly basis. Then,
these costs will be compared to the drastically reduced funding estimates each
national forest receives for recreation as reflected in each forest's RSFMP
5-Year Plan.
If there isn't enough money in the budget to operate the developed recreation
site to standards, then it will either:
1) be converted to a fee site and still be managed by the Forest Service,
2) be obliterated, or
3) be turned over to a private concessionaire (who will also charge a
fee).
As you might expect, this is another Bush
Initiative
According to Terry Knupp, regional coordinator for the RSFMP program in
Region 1 (Missoula, Montana), the national policy came from the Bush
Administration.
Knowing Bush's cozy relationship with corporate America, it is highly likely
that Bush's motivation for RSFMP is corporate management and decisions affecting
our campground now … with timber acres later.
As I said earlier, the vast majority of Americans don't have a clue that
RSFMP even exists … let alone that it is currently being implemented on their
favorite national forest.
The American public must become aware.
Perhaps even more important is for the Forest Service to KNOW that the American public is
aware.
There are two things taht the Forest Service is sure of:
1) president Bush personally ordered RSFMP, so it must be done, and
2) the only way to pull off RSFMP, is to maintain it's
secrecy.
How you can Help
The thing that needs to be done very quickly is for as many people as
possible to contact the Forest Service and ask questions about RSFMP. This
will accomplish 2 goals:
First, it will make the Forest Service understand that nationally, "the cats
out of the bag" on RSFMP.
Once the secrecy is gone, the Forest Service will finally realize that they
cannot continue to lie to the public about the motivation and specifics of
RSFMP. Maybe the connection between Bush and corporate management of public
land will come from the Forest Service.
There is simply not enough time to wait until your next hardcopy newsletter
is mailed to your members. One obliterated campground is too many. Many of
your groups either have email lists of members, or a WEB page. Please use one
of them to contact your members.
Possible Questions for the Forest Service
You might suggest that your members ask the Forest Service the following
questions:
- Why was the public totally excluded from the planning and implementation of
RSFMP?
- RSFMP has been in the implementation stage for several years, why has the
Forest Service not publicized this and explained to the public exactly what
RSFMP is?
- What's the big secret about RSFMP?
- NEPA is not required to set up a new federal policy. However, NEPA is required on a case-by-case basis, if the policy results in any
ground-disturbing work. A programmatic, nationwide NEPA analysis will not do
for every project. NEPA is required for each project where ground-disturbing
work occurs. NEPA also requires that the environmental analysis is
site-specific
- Why is the Forest Service ignoring its legal mandate under NEPA?
- Congress appropriated more than enough recreation funding to the Forest
Service in 2006. What's the real reason for RSFMP?
Thank you on behalf of 300 million current Americans and many hundreds of
millions of Americans as yet unborn.
Dick Artley, recently retired Forest Service employee
Grangeville, Idaho
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