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From Today's Aspen Daily News, full article appears below:
{Aspen/Sopris Ranger District continue to finagle their way along with an ever-shrinking pot of funds as the U.S. Forest Service tightens its operations nationally to meet budget shortfalls...
Wilderness Workshop director Sloan Shoemaker said Forest Service budget issues are part and parcel of a larger problem. "What we're seeing is that philosophy of shrinking government till you can drown it in a bath tub. It's coming home to roost..."}
From the Oregonian, July 31, 2005:
"{[Cid] Morgan, the Angeles [NF] district ranger [is]...seeing her overall budget reduced for basics such as campground maintenance, law enforcement and recreation. 'We're going to have to do more with less until we do everything with nothing,' she said."}
From Wild Wilderness' most popular webpage since 1997
**Access to public lands is deliberately being manipulated for the benefit of campground associations, private concessionaires, manufacturers and users of motorized sports vehicles, and giant tourist and recreation corporations.
**Congressional budgetary cuts are intentionally creating a maintenance crisis for federally managed recreation lands and facilities.
**The rescue of a badly decayed system of National Parks and recreational lands, through private corporate investment, is the planned outcome of this strategy. <continues>
Today's Aspen Daily News article describes how the privatization process described above is being playing out upon the White River National Forest and, by extension, upon every public forest and National Park in this nation. The issue is not one of penny pinching. The issue is the intentional destruction of America by design for profit.
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
04/18/2007
Forest Service penny pinching continues
Sarah Gilman - Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Even as an increasing number of outdoor enthusiasts flock to ski slopes
and the vast network of trails lacing the White River National Forest
surrounding Aspen, land managers on the 720,000-acre Aspen/Sopris
Ranger District continue to finagle their way along with an
ever-shrinking pot of funds as the U.S. Forest Service tightens its
operations nationally to meet budget shortfalls.
"To give you an idea of the funding situation here on the district,
when the Aspen and Sopris districts were separate, we had about 20
full-time employees and three permanent part-time employees (between
the two)," acting district ranger Mike Kenealy told Pitkin County
commissioners at a work session Tuesday.
"Now we have about 11 full-time employees and four permanent part-time
employees. That's a 40 percent decrease in five years," he said. The
district's permanent recreation staff, once 10 strong to deal with the
forest's most intensive use, is now down to four, he added. "So yes,
our funding is going down."
Though the fiscal year began last October, the local Forest Service
will get its final 2007 fiscal year budget this week, and Kenealy
expects money to stay tight.
The local facilities maintenance and improvement budget will likely be
down 60 percent from 2006 funding levels, he said, and though funding
for trails will be up seven percent, the overall recreation program,
excluding the ski areas which have a new management program this year,
will be down 10 percent.
The latter drop may not sound like much, Kenealy added, but "it's a
pretty small budget (to begin with) for the most heavily recreationally
used forest in the nation." He would not disclose funding amounts for
print.
In addition to decreased staff and funds, the district now shares land
and property specialists and some other specialized staff with other
districts instead of keeping its own onsite.
"Our biggest challenge is meeting the resource needs and the public needs in the manner we would like to," he explained.
Given the wide range of programs on the forest, from fuels reduction to
road maintenance to recreation to wildlife to oil and gas leasing to
land exchanges, the situation is "frustrating," he said.
"We're not able to address peoples' needs in as timely and efficient a
manner as we'd like to. It kind of goes against the Forest Service's
'can-do,' 'let's get it done' philosophy," he said.
It may also mean primitive and expensive facilities like Portal
Campground, near Grizzly Reservoir up towards Independence Pass, must
shut down if long-term volunteer arrangements can't be made.
And while federal funds for local forest operations and maintenance go
down or stay low, Region Two of the Forest Service, which includes
Rocky Mountain states like Colorado, is slated to receive $4.3 million
less this year than in 2006 for forest health and fuel reduction
projects. That shortfall this week prompted Colorado's nine
Congressional delegates to draft a letter to Forest Service Chief Gail
Kimbell asking that the money be at least restored if not increased to
deal with elevated fire danger near communities arising from widespread
bark beetle infestation.
"The fact is there is not enough being done," the letter reads. "The need for increased funding is apparent."
Wilderness Workshop director Sloan Shoemaker said Forest Service budget issues are part and parcel of a larger problem.
"What we're seeing is that philosophy of shrinking government till you
can drown it in a bath tub. It's coming home to roost," Shoemaker said.
With the Bush administration deficit spending and diverting billions of
dollars into the Iraq war, he explained, "agencies like the Forest
Service (increasingly) don't have the resources to adequately manage
recreation programs or carry out fuel mitigation projects to protect
communities."
And as the federal government "streamlines" the Forest Service "as an
efficiency-type maneuver," he said, rangers spend less and less time in
the field and public services are increasingly cut. Shoemaker pointed
to the winter shutdown of the Forest Service visitor center and
decreased visitor services in Glenwood as an example.
Still, recent legislation that allows the Aspen/Sopris Ranger District
to keep income from Maroon Bells for maintenance, staffing and
improvements on site has been a major boon, Kenealy said, as has
legislation that allows the district to keep outfitter fees that more
than double the trail maintenance budget.
To boost "boots on the ground," the Forest Service also relies heavily
on volunteers from countless partner organizations. In the summer,
Kenealy said, such volunteers represent 60 to 70 percent of the local
Forest Service's on-the-ground presence, providing everything from
citizen wilderness patrols to off-road trail maintenance and more.
Even so, Kenealy said to the commissioners, "how are we doing? We're barely getting by."
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- Land management 
