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 Following is an important column that appeared in the Seattle Times on October 4, 2007 about entrance fee increases in National Parks. We have been sounding the alarm about these ever since we learned that 95% of NPS units that charge entrance fees will increase them, some by doubling or even tripling, between 2006 and 2009. At 19 NPS units, entrance fees will increase more than once during that period. Beginning in 2011 the NPS plans to increase entrance fees every 3 years based on the Consumer Price Index.
This approach to managing National Parks on a for-profit business model is very worrisome to many Americans, and to many members of Congress as well. The NPS has been getting significant resistance in some areas, enough that they have put planned increases on hold in a few Parks.
These increases are not being announced at the national level, only locally by each individual Park, Monument, or Historic Site. Comment periods are very short and often not very well publicized. Please check with the NPS units near you, or the ones you enjoy visiting, and find out what their plans are. A spreadsheet showing all planned increases through 2009 is available from the WSNFC on request. Then comment to the NPS and send copies of your comments to your elected officials in the U.S. House and Senate and ask them to intervene. Opposition from local governments and Chambers of Commerce has also been proving to be effective in stopping (temporarily) some planned increases.
Your efforts can help keep OUR National Parks, Monuments, and Historic Sites accessible to all Americans!
Kitty Benzar, President WSNFC
WESTERN SLOPE NO-FEE COALITION
P.O. Box 135 Durango CO 81302
www.WesternSlopeNoFee.org
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Seattle Times, October 4, 2007
Love your national parks? Get fired up about excessive fee hikes
By Ron Judd - Seattle Times staff columnist
Let's all take a little day trip into the near future.
It's Jan. 1, 2009. The in-laws are here from Ohio. It's one of those
rare, crisp, clear winter days — you remember, we had one in 2004 — and
you decide to do what any good Washingtonian would: Drive those folks
over for a visit to our local mossy pride and joy, Olympic National
Park.
After forking over a hundred bucks or so for gas and ferries, you hit
the entrance station to Hurricane Ridge and a friendly local ranger
says: "That'll be $25, please."
Then you remember: That blasted fee increase you read about as a vague
possibility, more than a year ago, is now smacking you in the face.
It's now $25 for your afternoon drive to snowline. Your double-tax
dollars at work.
Next time, you're likely to think twice — and just stay home. Which,
based on its behavior, might be exactly what the Park Service wants.
In case you missed it: Olympic, which, like Mount Rainier, now charges
$15 per carload, is looking to implement a $25 fee Jan. 1, 2009. (No
word yet on a fee increase at Rainier.) It also wants to boost — in
some cases doubling — a wide range of fees for backpacking, camping and
the like. For you frequent fliers: An annual pass to Olympic, now $30,
would cost $50. Lifetime passes for seniors would remain $10; passes
for the disabled would still be free.
And since you asked: Don't be thinking you can avoid the entire matter
by whipping out your handy $50 annual National Parks Pass. While you
weren't looking, your National Park Service quietly smothered that baby.
Now, your only option is to pay $80 for a new "America the Beautiful"
pass, good at all fee-happy federal recreation areas, including Forest
Service trailheads, for one year. (Check the fine print. The new
passes, available at ranger stations now, and reportedly at outlets
like REI soon, are no longer good for one year from the time you first
use them, but one year from month of purchase.)
Feeling hosed yet? Oh, there's more behind-the-scenes outrage.
That 62 percent entrance-fee jump was something that not even Olympic
National Park could throw out there with a straight face. It was, says
park spokeswoman Barb Maynes, a number produced by D.C. parks
officials, with the help of a consultant hired (price for this? still
asking) by the National Park Service to "standardize" entrance fees at
U.S. national parks.
Part of that process involved "tiering," or assigning parks of
comparable visitor bang a price tag of comparable entrance-fee buck. In
spite of obvious differences, such as the high number of single-day
visitors there, Olympic, based on other criteria, apparently is a "tier
one" park, ranking up there with Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Yosemite,
Glacier, Bryce and Zion.
And naturally, "price standardization" to the feds means jacking every
price up to a comparable obscene level, not bringing some down.
So there it is. In just over a year, it could cost $25 to drive up the
Elwha, or visit Hoh Rain Forest. My honest take? I doubt they'll get
away with it. But they could, lacking a significant public outcry.
And what's most alarming is that the Park Service, as is its custom,
has deftly conspired to push the "mute" button by keeping most of us in
the dark.
Park honchos in D.C. never publicly announced the egregious fee hikes
now in the works at Olympic and 129 other parks, choosing to let local
rangers do the dirty work. The memo about Olympic's price hikes was
posted on the park's Web site, May 11. I pay pretty close attention to
such things, but, mea culpa, never saw it until stumbling across a
blurb in the park's newsletter two weeks ago.
I then passed it on to the paper's news department, which apparently
hadn't heard about it, either. It was only then that I learned the
official cutoff for public comment was Sept. 30 — as in, last week.
Park staff members, to their credit, did meet with a half-dozen Olympic
Peninsula user groups. They heard broad concern about the fee jumps,
particularly the $25 entrance fee, which gets you into the park's
various gated areas for seven days, Maynes said.
"What we're hearing is that people have an appreciation of what fees
are able to do" to improve park facilities with some $1.5 million
collected annually, Maynes said. "But it seems to us the public is
saying, 'It's too much.' Somewhere in there is a line, and $25 crosses
that line."
Indeed.
Even so, the park has collected only 126 public comments, which will be
forwarded to the regional National Parks office by Jan. 1. The one
shred of good news: In the interim, you can still express your
thoughts. Just do it as soon as possible.
Send letters to Olympic National Park Fee Program Office, 600 East Park
Avenue, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or fax to 360-565-3015. (A Web/e-mail
link set up earlier might not function now that the "official" comment
period has ended.)
While you're at it, cc: your congressional delegation, which, unlike
that of Oregon and Idaho, has been quietly sitting on its hands. (Are
you listening, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-That Park's In My Backyard?)
Remind them that you already pay a hefty entrance fee, and then some,
every two weeks in your paycheck. Remind them that in Olympic, like
most other parks, visitor numbers have declined steadily since the fee
program began a decade ago (3.8 million in 1997; 2.7 million last year.)
Tell them you care, you vote, and you've had enough. Suggest a blanket
moratorium on ALL federal-land use fee increases until federal Park
Service, Forest Service and other land managers are sent to
reality-check rehab.
Otherwise? See you at the ATM. Again
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