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Quoted from the appended article about the ever-unpopular Recreation Site Facility Master Planning process.
["We can't take on new operations and maintenance, that's for sure," [deputy forest supervisor of Nevada's Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest] Schiff said. "That's the first question -- if you're going to build something new, who is going to take care of it? "Here's the catch phrase we have: No partner, no potty."]
The purpose for RSFMP is, as we have long said, to pare Forest Service recreation facilities back to the point where everything pays for itself or where everything that can be privatized is privatized.
Or more succintly:
No Partner, No Potty
No Potty - Site Closed.
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
11/24/2006
U.S. forest facilities may close
Jeff Delong - Reno Gazette-Journal
Funding woes have the federal government considering the potential
closure of hundreds of campgrounds and other recreation facilities
across the country, a situation officials said makes cooperation with
businesses and local governments to fund recreation increasingly
important.
A shrinking budget and rising costs have prompted the U.S. Forest
Service to evaluate the use, value and cost of about 15,000
campgrounds, picnic areas, trailheads with bathrooms and other
developed recreation sites.
"It's good business is one way of looking at this," said Gary Schiff,
deputy forest supervisor of Nevada's Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.
At Humboldt-Toiyabe, the largest national forest in the lower 48
states, the Forest Service is evaluating the future of about 20
developed recreation sites, Schiff said. That's about
10 percent of the roughly 200 sites across the forest, which covers 6.3 million acres in Nevada and eastern California.
The Forest Service faces a $346 million backlog in maintenance and its
2007 budget was cut 2.5 percent to $4.9 million. Costs of fire
suppression are growing, worsening the agency's fiscal woes, while
another important factor is the need to upgrade campground water
systems to comply with tough new federal drinking water standards,
officials said.
The Forest Service hopes to cut its maintenance backlog 20 percent by
2010, 70 percent by 2015 and 90 percent by 2020, the Associated Press
reported.
About 10 percent of facilities in 44 national forests that have
completed studies of recreation facilities have been targeted for
closure. Studies focus on the use of a given facility as well as the
cost and trouble associated with its maintenance, Schiff said.
"We start looking at what facilities need more attention and which
maybe don't have that much use," Schiff said. "Then we look at does
this still make sense to have this. We're looking at spending our
recreation funding on the greatest good for the greatest number."
The situation makes clear the need to continue cooperative ventures
with local governments and the private sector, particularly when it
comes to the construction of any new recreation facilities, Schiff said.
"We can't take on new operations and maintenance, that's for sure,"
Schiff said. "That's the first question -- if you're going to build
something new, who is going to take care of it?
"Here's the catch phrase we have: No partner, no potty."
A number of cooperative ventures for recreation facilities in Northern
Nevada are in place or pending. The Nevada Department of Transportation
maintains the restroom at the Forest Service's new Mount Rose
trailhead. A private snowmobile outfitter handles restroom maintenance
and trash pick-up at the popular trailhead at Spooner Summit. Douglas
County maintains the Forest Service-owned rafting take-out on the
Carson River.
"I want to continue looking for the opportunities to partner wherever
we can," said Doug Doolittle, Washoe County's parks director. Washoe
County maintains restrooms at the trailheads at Whites and Thomas creek
canyons and is joining with the Forest Service for the planned
construction of a new visitors center at Galena Creek Park.
With local governments facing some of the same fiscal difficulties as
the federal government, joining forces only makes sense, Doolittle said.
"I think we'll find more and more federal and local agencies partnering just because of the necessity to do so," Doolittle said.
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- Privatization 
