WILDERNESS FEES ON FEDERAL LANDS

For the second year, backcountry users are being charged to climb, ski, or backpack on federal lands.

SHOULD YOU PAY?

BACKGROUND

Over the past 15 years, federal land-management agencies have seen their budgets reduced. Under a four-year trial of the Fee Demonstration Program approved by Congress, the Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service have permission to make up for shortfalls with many types of user fees. These user fees can be based on a cost-recovery or set at prices that are competitive with comparable recreational opportunities. Some representative fees:
 

 * $15/person to climb Mt. Rainier or Mt. Shasta or Mt. St. Helens.
 * $20 for a permit plus $4/person/night for backcountry use of the Grand Canyon.
 * $5 for a permit plus $2/person/day for wilderness use of Olympic National Park.
 * $3/person/day trailhead fees in many national forests.
 
Money collected under this program does NOT go into the General Treasury (as was the case with old entrance fees into national parks). Instead, 80% of the money collected by user fees can be used as the administrators of that park/monument/forest see fit; the remainder goes to the regional authority overseeing each agency.
 
Administrators of federal lands say that the bulk of any fee maintains the particular program for which it was collected. For example at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, the $15/person/day climbing fee pays for early plowing of the road to the climbing camp, more rangers to patrol the mountain, better markers on the trail, a dedicated phone line for climbers, and daily maintenance of a pit toilet at timberline. Some of the climbing money also pays interpretive rangers working at the visitor centers.

WHAT'S MISSING?

In the St. Helens example, some questions are worth asking. Do we need all these services? Do we need to plow a road early when climbers could walk two extra miles and help keep their recreation free? Are extra rangers patrolling the mountain a real benefit or are they just enforcing permits that pay their wages? Are daily checks of the pit toilet necessary--climbers who find no TP will bring their own supply in the future.

There are also matters of equity. A twosome climbing Mt. Shasta will find that between the parking fees ($5/day) and the climbing fees ($15/person) they can sleep in a motel for less than sleeping in a tent. And at St. Helens, compare the $15/person climbing fee (permit good for a day) to the $8/person Monument Pass (good for 3 days) to see the three visitor centers and special viewpoints. It took $176 million of taxpayer's money to build the highway to these visitor centers and another $50 million to build the three grand structures and the interpretive resources around them. The cost of this infrastructure dwarfs the gravel road and pit toilets that climbers receive for a higher fee.

Finally, if federal lands need money, why do they give away resources to private enterprises turning a profit? Why are forest roads built with taxpayer's money for logging companies? Why are trees sold for less than market value? Why can a cow graze, trample, and pollute federal lands for $1.40/month? About the Forest Service's trailhead fees, Ron Judd, the outdoor reporter for The Seattle Times, says "...there's something particularly unseemly about the Forest Service — which has earned its place in history by virtually giving away the bulk of our national public forest resources — charging me to partake in the least destructive form of land use..."

DOUBLE TAXATION

There are also matters of principle at stake. Appropriations for federal lands have always come from our taxes. Had the government given back the taxes that were formerly appropriated to federal lands and then charged user fees, that would be equitable. Instead, our government employees continue to build hierarchies of inefficiency and to operate in ways that would bankrupt private enterprises. Rather than doing the right thing (downsizing, streamlining, making intelligent purchases, eliminating outdated subsidies) the government keeps trying to float all their dead wood. We should let elected officials and park administrators know how distasteful user fees are. If we don't, when the Fee Demonstration Program finishes its four-year trial period (September 1999) more (and probably higher) fees will follow.
 

THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC LANDS

User fees for climbing, hiking, and wilderness camping are driving a wedge into the historical position that public lands and wild places should be free for all to use. In the past we've been free to experience the greatness of our national landscape, test ourselves, and ponder imponderables under a vestibule of stars for the cost of sweat and sore muscles. That spoke powerfully about what Americans believed in.

A new precedent is being established. Public lands are now being managed like privatized commodities. Congress is encouraging federal-land agencies to treat all forms of recreation like economic commodities AND to forge partnerships with private enterprises that can help pay for campgrounds, marinas, interpretive centers, personnel.... Heaps of information about how and why this is taking place is available at the  Wild Wilderness  website (www.wildwilderness.org).

Winnebago-driving Americans will appreciate where this public-private alliance is leading (more concessions; fewer restrictions on motor boats, snowmobiles, motorcycles, and RVs; campgrounds with Laundromats and stores; swankier hotels; interpretive displays teaching us about the outdoors indoors). But people who value the spiritual connection to raw nature (whether that’s achieved through climbing, skiing, hiking, or canoeing) will find old paradigms about wild lands and conservation under siege.

Why? Because the types of corporations lending helping bucks to our federal lands (and the types of corporations who will, therefore, obtain privileged status) are RV manufacturers, motorcycle associations, downhill ski areas, power boat and jet ski manufacturers, tour associations, lodging corporations, and oil companies.

Development is the price of giving private enterprises access to our public lands. The Forest Service is aware of the price. In its Public-Private Ventures Desk Guide, it notes that changes are required to accommodate private partners. "There are traditional views of what types of facilities are appropriate in the national forests; these views may need to be reevaluated. For instance, to provide a viable business opportunity (for a concessioned campground) it may be necessary to consider amenities such as showers and telephones, or additional sources of revenue such as laundries, electrical hookups, or camp stores that are not traditionally associated with Forest Service campgrounds."

The Desk Guide also eludes to the fact that staying at such a campground won't be cheap and will require an "average income per site, per night of $20."

If a night on public lands is sounding more like a night at KOA, you're right. That's where the trail blazed by the Fee Demonstration Program leads. If this doesn't conform to your notion of what public lands are about, your voice needs to be heard.
 
We who don't want public lands privatized and who value UNDEVELOPED recreation will lose the fight unless our federal congressmen and senators (who will ultimately decided the fate of the Fee Demonstration Program) have their mailboxes filled with letters of protest and unless the superintendents of land agencies understand they are violating the heritage of these lands with their new paradigm.

 The time to reverse these new developments is short. In September of 1999, the trial period of the Fee Demonstration Program ends, Congress evaluates the program, and, if the populace has taken the bait, our public lands will be forever altered.
 
And the current user fees will be but the tip of the stiletto. With these fees in place, Congress will probably slash public-land appropriations more, public-land managers saving their jobs will create more public/private partnerships, and private companies (along with the developments they bring) will control ever larger chunks of our public holdings.
 

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1) Join forces with groups that are fighting fees. To learn more about anti-fee efforts, contact:  Wild Wilderness  (www.wildwilderness.org),  Keep the Sespe Wild  (www.rain.org/~edc/lpnf.html), and   FOPAF  (www.freeourparks.org) or  Free Our Forests (www.vcnet.com/~freeourforests).
 
2) Write your federal representative and senators. They will decide the fate of the Fee Demonstration Program and must hear your dissatisfaction. Obtain mail and e-mail addresses of  congressmen  from (www.house.gov/writerep/) or those of  senators  from (www.senate.gov/senator/index.html) .
 
3) Paste this message into an e-mail and send it to all your friends who value wilderness and undeveloped recreation. Ask your friends to send this on to their friends.
 
4) Ask your friends to write their senators and representatives.

5) Write the superintendents of the public lands you visit. Tell them your opinions and which backcountry/climbing/trailhead fees you will be boycotting. By making fees a curse to administer, grassroots disobedience could destroy them. Note: You may end up paying for your principles--getting caught without the appropriate permits may result in expulsion or, at a ranger's discretion, a fine of about $50 (amount depends on the state).
 
6) Visit the webpages of the  Forest Service  (www.fs.fed.us) and  American Recreation Coalition  (www.funoutdoors.com). Read between the lines and you will be alarmed by what our public stewards and the organizations they are aligning themselves with (American Recreation Coalition) have in store for us.

 

This document is being hosted on the Wild Wilderness web site.