USER FEE OPPOSITION

The Inland Empire Chapter of the Backcountry Horsemen of Washington is a member organization that provides significant volunteer effort in developing, enhancing, and maintaining multi-user recreational trails on public lands. We are staunchly opposed to general user fees for recreational use of public lands, including Federal and State parks, forests, and other properties owned by government agencies. We support traditional fees for uses of public lands that offer specific value-added services, like campgrounds.

We have compiled a list of ten reasons we oppose these fees.

  1. Paying for parks is a legitimate use of taxes. Public lands are part of the public trust. Our taxes rightfully should pay for their care and maintenance. We don't want to pay twice.

  2. Charging fees will discourage use. Our State Parks mission is fostering outdoor recreation and education to provide enjoyment and enrichment. Fees unnecessarily force users to make recreation choices based on cost of participation.

  3. Charging fees will not lower your taxes. A 1997 status report to the Washington Legislature showed that State Parks had generated significant new revenue, but it simply supplanted general tax funds instead of addressing park system deficiencies. We believe it is an appropriate use of general funds to provide for the preservation of the natural heritage of the State. We believe changes in user fees will lead to continued underfunding of public lands by simply exchanging fees for general funds, perpetuating the woefully inadequate funding level.

  4. Charging fees discriminates unnecessarily against lower income families. We don't want to see public lands become another playground of the rich and famous. Everyone is entitled to enjoy the wonders of nature. Discouraging use through fees is an elitist view that is not in the public interest.

  5. Charging fees to cover operating costs could lead to closure less popular destinations. Washington has 105 parks, more than most states. Its parks are widely diverse. They can be found on ocean beaches, Puget Sound, forests, and grasslands. Geologic areas, historic sites, and boat launches for fishermen, hunters, and boat travelers are examples of park sites. Forested areas and indigenous peoples rock paintings compete with access to the Pacific Ocean beaches. State Parks facilities include campgrounds, picnic areas, group camps, trails, interpretive centers and signs, environmental learning centers, moorage for boaters, and a host of other facilities and activities. We believe it is important to preserve this level of diversity in recreational opportunities for public use. Some advocates of fees think a locale's popularity should dictate it's availability. We respectfully disagree with their views.

  6. Charging fees may preclude certain types of use. We continue to be strong advocates of compatible multiple uses of public lands for recreational purposes. Retaining equine access to public lands along with hikers and bicyclists is at the top of our priority list. We respect other users, particularly those with motorized vehicles, and support restrictions of use where safety makes common sense. We believe that fee use may lead to a perverse form of discrimination where the users paying the most could influence public lands administrators to ban other users.

  7. Charging user fees is contrary to over one hundred years of public policy. The two individuals most profoundly credited with the National Park idea were John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt. Muir founded the Sierra Club, and Roosevelt, of course, was President of the United States. Their efforts led first to the creation of our national park system. The idea of saving public lands for scenic use and to preserve the great lands of the West (and elsewhere) for wildlife is well established. The public policy instituted by these actions led to the acquisition of much of the great lands in our state. We believe they were correct, and our actions and efforts are designed to support their ideals.

  8. User fees would discourage volunteer activities on public lands. One of the two contributions of Backcountry Horsemen of Washington is volunteering our time clearing and creating trails for all outdoor enthusiasts on public lands. Getting charged to use our public lands may motivate us to spend our volunteer time elsewhere. [The other impressive thing we do is teach low-impact techniques to outdoor users through our LNT (Leave No Trace) educational programs.]

  9. User fees would jeopardize the attractiveness of Washington as a tourism destination. Parks in Washington are a significant draw to people from outside Washington. The last thing we want to do is decrease tourism to our State. Tourism provides lots of jobs for people in Washington, and also generates a lot of tax revenue from the services sold to tourists.

  10. Fee collection costs could easily exceed fees collected. A study of user fees conducted for the National Park system concluded that the collection costs of user fees averaged between 25 and 50 percent of the fees collected. The good news is that in isolated National Parks where there are few access points but lots of visitors, the costs were at the lower end of the range. The bad news was that for low use sites or areas where access was broadly available, the user fee collection costs often exceeded the amounts collected. Except for a few Federal and State Parks in Washington, most public lands have a multitude of access points and are not extensively used.

 

Prepared by Randy Barcus, Government Affairs/Legislative Board Member
Inland Empire Chapter of Backcountry Horsemen of Washington - March 23, 1999

rbarcus@avistacorp.com

Placed onto the internet with permission by Wild Wilderness.