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 Daily progress is being made in the ongoing fight to end pay-to-play on the national forests and today I have good news to share. That said, I almost chose not to distribute the appended article because, in addition to reporting the news, it is larded with Forest Service misdirection. It concerns me that as Congress moves toward repeal of the Forest Service's fee-charging authority, the agency will likely respond with outright lies and deliberate deceptions. Sorting fact from fantasy will become evermore difficult and your help will be vital in the task of grounding the issue to bedrock realities.
Eight years ago I wrote an essay titled, What would Thoreau say? I'm providing a passage here and encourage you to read the entire, 650 word, piece. It presents truths to which land management agencies have no honest rebuttal.
[As the cost of recreation rises toward its free-market potential, private sector investors will be encouraged to develop, through private/ public partnerships with federal agencies, an ever-wider array of commercialized recreation products. We, the customers, will be given the opportunity to purchase or to forgo these products in accordance with our willingness and/or our ability to pay. These newly created commodities will encompass not only those nature-based recreational activities that we have traditionally enjoyed on public lands. They will also include entirely new, and far more profitable, forms of 'eco-tainment', 'edu-tainment' and 'wreckre-tainment'. The result will be the Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the wild.]
Regardless of anything the Forest Service says to the contrary this is, what Thoreau would call, "the hard bottom of rocks."
Scott
"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe...till we come to the hard bottom of rocks in place, which we can call reality."
-Henry David Thoreau
--- begin quoted ---
6/29/08
No fee hike at Green Mountain
By Bob Berwyn
GOLDEN — Against a background of mounting congressional opposition, an
advisory group once again denied a Forest Service proposal to increase
daily and seasonal fees at Green Mountain Reservoir.
The Forest Service wasn’t able to show general public support for the
plan, panel members said, asking the agency to arrange a site visit to
the popular campgrounds and beaches at the reservoir north of
Silverthorne before voting on the fee increase.
Unless the regional Forest Service frees up some money for Green
Mountain, the group’s decision means the agency may have to cut
staffing at Green Mountain Reservoir this summer, said Ken Waugh,
recreation staff officer for the Dillon District.
Waugh had hoped to raise the camping fees from $5 to $10 and the season pass fees from $25 to $65 for the rest of this summer.
The Forest Service budget for managing the Green Mountain sites was
based on the higher fee structure, and the no-vote will leave the
agency in a bind.
“We have an obligation to operate the sites at the level the public
expects,” Waugh said late Tuesday, trying to win approval as several
members of the advisory group started packing their briefcases toward
the end of the meeting.
The increased price of the season passes for Green Mountain spurred
numerous negative comments, said Michael Blanton, of Jackson County,
who represents local-government interests on the stakeholder panel.
“I’ve heard a lot of resistance to raising the annual pass — $25 to
$65. That’s a lot to stomach, especially in this economy,” Blanton
said, adding that he was not likely to vote in favor of a fee increase
after hearing from Kremmling-area residents.
Because of the makeup of the panel and the quirky voting requirements,
Blanton’s stance on Green Mountain left the agency’s plan for the area
dead in the water, Waugh said.
The next step for the Forest Service is to try and educate the public
even more about the need for increased fees at the camping and picnic
areas around the reservoir, he said.
Other members of the recreation-resource advisory committee raised
concerns about the inclusion of the Cataract Lake trailhead in the
Green Mountain fee program.
Those questions hit close to the philosophical core of the controversy over pay-to-play issue.
While the public may grudgingly accept fees as a necessary evil for
public lands staffing at heavily used recreation fees, there is more
resistance to paying for parking and access to wilderness areas.
Waugh said the agency plans to add a ranger station at Cataract Lake to
help with wilderness education efforts. He also pointed out the need
for increased law enforcement at the well-used trailhead.
The same advisory group was unable to decide on the Green Mountain
proposal last February, when members struggled to find a definition for
the terminology in the federal law that requires the Forest Service
show public support for the controversial “pay-to-play” proposals.
As a next step, the Forest Service will take another look at the fee structure and budget for Green Mountain, Waugh said.
A future fee-hike proposal could include a budget option that leaves out the Cataract trailhead revenue.
The agency may also reconsider the season-pass pricing on the next go-round, he said.
The Forest Service wants to chip away at a deferred $5 million
maintenance backlog with the Green Mountain fee revenue, using about
$10,000 annually to upgrade facilities.
Another $10,000 would come from a regional pot of fee money under an internal agency grant program, Waugh said.
The Forest Service initially launched the Green Mountain fee program because the area was being hammered by heavy use.
“Until people see the benefits (of the fees) they’re not going to trust
us,” said Steve Sherwood, the ranger in charge of recreation for the
Rocky Mountain region. “We’ve got an area out there that’s being
sacrificed.”
Following through on promised improvements will help the agency build trust, he said.
“We need to show that we care about sanitation and all that other
stuff, and that it ultimately benefits the public,” Sherwood said.
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