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Dear Public Lands Supporter:
The two class action lawsuits filed on May 5 against the Forest Service in Arizona and Colorado are starting to draw media attention. Pasted below is one of the best, from the Tucson Weekly.
These are groundbreaking cases that seek to show the Forest Service has far exceeded its legal authority in the way it has implemented the fee programs at Mt Evans and Mt Lemmon. There are many more fee programs that are similar, and these cases will have an impact nationwide.
Thanks to those who have made donations to WSNFC earmarked for this effort, and please keep them coming. Donation info at our website.
Kitty Benzar, President
Western Slope No Fee Coalition
http://www.westernslopenofee.org
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PUBLISHED ON MAY 15, 2008:
Fee Fight Fattens
A class-action lawsuit seeks to rein in what critics say are
out-of-control Forest Service charges
By TIM VANDERPOOL
Daniel Patterson, with wife, Jeanine, and daughter, Ruby, at left, and
Christine Wallace, right, are two of four locals taking on Coronado and
the Arapaho National Forests' visitor fees.
Glimpsed from Tucson, the Santa Catalina Mountains brush the sky with a
lovely, distant serenity. But in recent years, this otherwise peaceful
range has become a legal battleground, where activists clash with
bureaucrats over a visitor-fees regimen never approved by Congress, but
nonetheless feeding up to $800,000 annually into coffers of the
Coronado National Forest. But the terms of this high-altitude skirmish
are about to change. Here's why: Whenever the current fee program has
been challenged by outdoor enthusiasts who refuse to pay, federal
attorneys eventually drop any charges that might directly test the
program's legality, or allow for risky appeals.
That's exactly what happened in January 2007, when a federal judge
saddled Tucsonan Christine Wallace with a $100 fine for refusing to pay
Forest Service fees after she parked outside a developed campground on
Mount Lemmon. But just before her trial, U.S. attorneys dropped charges
related to another incident in which Wallace parked roadside in an
undeveloped area. The latter fine had offered a meaty basis for appeal,
since forest fees at unimproved sites are prohibited by law.
That's when fee foes decided to turn the tables. Rather than fighting
charges for refusing to pay, fee critics have filed class-action
lawsuits against the Coronado and the Arapaho National Forest near
Denver. They argue that the Forest Service's fee collection has gone
far beyond what's allowed under the Federal Lands Recreation
Enhancement Act, or FLREA. That law specifically prohibits fees for
using undeveloped camping areas and for parking alongside the
road--fees routinely charged by both forests.
Citing the pending litigation, Forest Service officials have declined to comment.
Plaintiffs in the local case include Wallace, Daniel Patterson, Gaye
Adams and Greg Lewis. Patterson is Southwest representative for the
advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (and a
candidate for the state House in Legislative District 29), while Adams
and Lewis are members of the Arizona No Fee Coalition.
Lewis opposes most visitor fees on public preserves. "Personally, I
believe the whole fee system is a private-public partnership," he says,
"a move to make us become customers on our own lands."
Several U.S. senators apparently agree. Led by Max Baucus of Montana,
they've introduced legislation to repeal large parts of the FLREA. The
measure has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources, and a hearing is anticipated this session.
The bill would be a long-needed change for a widely despised program.
Since 1996, the Forest Service has charged for the use of campgrounds,
roads and other facilities, initially under what was called the
Recreation Fee Demonstration Program. It was a lucrative venture:
According to a 2003 U.S. Government Accountability Office report, fee
demo has earned more than $900 million since its inception.
Locally, the Santa Catalina Mountains--including Sabino Canyon--raise
between $600,000 and $800,000 from fees each year. Of that, about
$100,000 reportedly goes to informative and interpretive services;
$300,000 goes for safety and water systems; and $75,000 goes to
enforcing fee compliance.
But the program has also proven hugely unpopular, sparking organized opposition from activists and steady criticism in Congress.
In 2004, Congress reined in the original fee demo program--which
allowed nearly limitless possibilities to charge visitors--and replaced
it with the more restrictive FLREA. According to the new law, fees
could no longer be levied for general access, or "solely for parking,
undesignated parking or picnicking along roads or trail sides."
To get around this constraint, Coronado officials followed the example
of other forests by designating the Santa Catalina Mountains as a
"High-Impact Recreation Area," or HIRA. "They invented HIRAs to be able
to continue business as usual, just as they'd done under fee demo, and
not have to pay any attention to these new restrictions," says Kitty
Benzar, president of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, based in
Durango, Colo.
Read the rest of the story at http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=110919
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