MoapaPk wrote:I've been mum on this aspect, as it is so un-PC. But in the popular areas around here, where there are no fees, the trailer trash trash trailheads. Except a lot of them don't live in trailers.

Lots of folks mob the highways to Mt Charleston at the first sign of heavy snow, even if they don't have the required chains or 4wd, and leave incredible amounts of junk, including dirty diapers and their improvised sleds (usually cardboard). etc...

We see the same thing in the Angeles National Forest. I would prefer to see the ANF funded to a level where there could be adequate enforcement of litter laws, parking, etc.

lcarreau wrote:No, no - no, let's not bring cathedrals and religion into the equation !!!

This is all just a "numbers game," and the GOVERNMENT has more numbers, so they end up
on top of the heap and always telling folks what to do.

You're either part of the solution OR part of the problem, RIGHT ???



This here's MY cathedral :

I like it, I like it. Me too.

FortMental wrote:I don't know about you guys, but I've never actually seen a new trail being built by FS personnel. I've never seen a trail repair that wasn't performed by volunteers, and I've never seen habitat restoration that wasn't anything more than a "trail closed" sign. As for where the rest of your $3 goes... here is a 2004 GAO summary report on the matter: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d031161t.pdf

I'm a volunteer trail maintainer and am proud of the work done by fellow volunteers, but I have seen trail work done by the Forest Service (usually with a bobcat) and by Park Service summer employees. Oh, and after a bad ice storm here I helped with trail clean up work with a volunteer who was also a park ranger.

wallspeck wrote:Aaron quoted this...

"If the site has all six of the required amenities for a Standard Amenity Fee then they can legally charge people - to use the amenities.
What they cannot do is charge for the things on the prohibited list, which include "solely for parking" "roadside parking and picnicking" and traveling through dispersed backcountry without using any facilities."

So if I put a big sign in my window stating that I'm there ONLY to park (and perhaps a smaller note beneath it quoting the sources for the above named parking privileges), and that I am not using their outhouse, perhaps the rangers would skip writing a ticket.
Of course that does not fight any real issues, but if 10,000 of us began putting signs in our windows..........

Dream on. What it says is:

(1) Prohibition on fees for certain activities or services

The Secretary shall not charge any standard amenity recreation
fee or expanded amenity recreation fee for Federal recreational
lands and waters administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the
Forest Service, or the Bureau of Reclamation under this chapter for
any of the following:
(A) Solely for parking, undesignated parking, or picnicking
along roads or trailsides.
(B) For general access unless specifically authorized under
this section.
(C) For dispersed areas with low or no investment unless
specifically authorized under this section.
(D) For persons who are driving through, walking through,
boating through, horseback riding through, or hiking through
Federal recreational lands and waters without using the
facilities and services.
(E) For camping at undeveloped sites that do not provide a
minimum number of facilities and services as described in
subsection (g)(2)(A).
(F) For use of overlooks or scenic pullouts.
(G) For travel by private, noncommercial vehicle over any
national parkway or any road or highway established as a part of
the Federal-aid System, as defined in section 101 of title 23,
which is commonly used by the public as a means of travel
between two places either or both of which are outside any unit
or area at which recreation fees are charged under this chapter.
(H) For travel by private, noncommercial vehicle, boat, or
aircraft over any road or highway, waterway, or airway to any
land in which such person has any property right if such land is
within any unit or area at which recreation fees are charged
under this chapter.
(I) For any person who has a right of access for hunting or
fishing privileges under a specific provision of law or treaty.
(J) For any person who is engaged in the conduct of official
Federal, State, Tribal, or local government business.
(K) For special attention or extra services necessary to
meet the needs of the disabled.

As it is written, it is not absolutely clear whether "solely for parking" means when that is all they are providing or when that is all you are using. However, your interpretation would most likely be viewed by the courts as similar to a movie theater patron who says he shouldn't have to pay for the movie if he just wants to sit in the seat and not watch the movie.

Buz Groshong wrote:As it is written, it is not absolutely clear whether "solely for parking" means when that is all they are providing or when that is all you are using. However, your interpretation would most likely be viewed by the courts as similar to a movie theater patron who says he shouldn't have to pay for the movie if he just wants to sit in the seat and not watch the movie.

Bogus analogy. I didn't already pay to buy and run the movie theater. I think a closer analogy would be the owner of the theater having to buy a ticket because he walked through the theater when the movie was playing.

mconnell wrote:

Buz Groshong wrote:As it is written, it is not absolutely clear whether "solely for parking" means when that is all they are providing or when that is all you are using. However, your interpretation would most likely be viewed by the courts as similar to a movie theater patron who says he shouldn't have to pay for the movie if he just wants to sit in the seat and not watch the movie.

Bogus analogy. I didn't already pay to buy and run the movie theater. I think a closer analogy would be the owner of the theater having to buy a ticket because he walked through the theater when the movie was playing.

And if the income from fees pays for maintaining the parking lot, why shouldn't you pay the fee in order to park even if you already paid for building the parking lot? Your analogy is just as bogus.

It still seems from the context (although it is not absolutely clear) that the intent of "solely for parking" means when that is all that is provided rather than when that is all that someone wants to use.

I think that it is strange that some of y'all WANT there to be fees. While I certainly feel some sympathy for Moapa's point about keeping out people who do not treat the land with respect, the rest simply seem to want to fill the coffers of either the Forest Service or private concessionaires. I think this is a very strange, almost masochistic phenomenon akin to saying "please take my money". If the point of wilderness is to be wild, then part of the experience should not be having to buy a ticket (to use the previously used analogy). Jim Bridger didn't have to pay for a place to hobble his horse when traveled through the Big Horns. I know, I know, he did not have cars or roads or picnic tables et al, but if we parse this too much, that attitude ends up throwing the wilderness out the window.

As far as the Forest Service needing the revenue, that is hogwash. At least out here in northern CA. I have a good friend who works at the Shasta T. Much of the time we hang out together ends up griping about how mismanaged the Forest Service is, how much money is wasted and how incompetent the leadership often is. Take for example the Shasta T headquarters down in Redding. The building is huge and only 50% of its capacity is used. That massive facility seems to be money well spent... Beyond that, the Forest Service's responsibilities have changed little since the 50's. Perhaps some more infrastructure has been built, but where is their increased budget going? Well, like most overly bureaucratic agencies (and the Forest Service is definitely a Byzantine bureaucracy) it is top heavy with overpaid bureaucrats. And let's not talk about money wasted on redundant NEPA reports and the like.

All of this is still not the essential issue here. These are our lands. We should not be made to pay to use them just because some bureaucrat says or some agency is underfunded. Cut the waste, mismanagement and misuse of funds and you might see a lot of people opposed to fees eager to chip in on their own and help meet the needs the Forest Service has.

Here is a good example of what the public could be doing in mountains around the country:
http://www.trailcrew.org

At the end of the day, this is our lands and it is not the Forest Service's to make us pay for them.

Buz Groshong wrote:And if the income from fees pays for maintaining the parking lot, why shouldn't you pay the fee in order to park even if you already paid for building the parking lot?

I would agree except that, in this case, the fees don't go to maintaining the parking lot. The income from the fees is to maintain other facilities, and to make the concessionaire more money. At the campground/trailhead by here, all of the fees collected went to the concessionaire, whose only expense related to the facilities was to have the outhouses pumped a couple times a year and trash collected. The road to the campground was maintained, and all winter access for about 2.5 miles to get to the campground was done by private individuals. Trail maintenance, signage, and clean-up was done by a non-profit.

I personally am not against paying fees. I'm against FS property being used as a money making scheme by private companies while taxes are still used to maintain the facilities those companies are charging me to use. If 100% of the fees go towards supporting the local facilities, then I have no problem paying them.

mconnell wrote:

If 100% of the fees go towards supporting the local facilities, then I have no problem paying them.

Yep, that's the big rub in the program right there. I was told that 85% comes back to support
the local facilities, but I'm not sure that a "measley" 85% is enough to support the facilities
the way folks want them to be supported.

When I go to the trailheads, I bring a garbage bag and have a field day with the trash!

With concessionaires I would guess whatever the percentage that it is it is calculated AFTER the cost of collection. Kind of like donating money on the phone, "85% of the *profits* go toward..."

Great post Aaron!! This needs to be nipped in the bud immediately to avoid precident. Anyone that thinksthis should be taken lightly is narrow minded and has bats in their belfry.

PORTLAND, OR- More than 70 Forest Service recreation sites in Oregon and Washington will see new or increased user fees under proposals approved February 2, 2010 at a teleconference meeting of a citizens advisory committee. The approvals were unanimous despite the fact that most public comment about the proposals was overwhelmingly negative.

Fourteen people took advantage of the opportunity to call in to the Tuesday afternoon teleconference to express their views about the proposals. All of them spoke against approval, which was consistent with previously documented public opposition. Nevertheless, they were all approved.

Source: Westrn Slope No Fee Coalition


The fees will affect visitors to the Deschutes, Umpqua, and Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forests, at day-use, camping, and cabin rental sites. They include four primitive camping areas on the Okanogan-Wenatchee, seven new day-use fee sites on the Deschutes, six new fee sites on the Umpqua, and 55 increases at existing fee sites on the Umpqua.

A proposal for 17 new and increased fees on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest was withdrawn by the forest on January 22, without explanation.

This was the first meeting by teleconference of the Pacific Northwest Recreation Resource Advisory Committee (RecRAC), and despite occurring on a weekday afternoon, fourteen citizens from as far away as Pennsylvania took advantage of the opportunity to comment.

FEE SITES APPROVED DESPITE COMPLETE PUBLIC OPPOSITION - 12 MINUTE PODCAST

RICRAC COMMITTEE'S TREATMENT OF PUBLIC PARTICIPANTS IS ARROGANT AND UNBELIEVEABLE!

"Hang up on her."

"In our 2008 analysis report on the advisory commitee process we accused these committees of being rubber stamps for the Forest Service and BLM," said Western Slope No-Fee Coalition President Kitty Benzar in a press release issued shortly after the meeting concluded. "Today's outcome confirms that. This so-called public participation process is an utter sham."

I thought we got rid of PnP?

Derrick Crandall, President of the American Recreation Coalition (ARC), recently wrote a letter detailing ARC's anti-public lands, pro-corporate control lobbying, and posted it on their website for the whole world to see. Read Crandall's letter HERE.

Warren Meyer, head of the National Forest Recreation Association, used a NFRA press release to try and frame the plan (which NFRA initiated) to cheat seniors and the disabled out of the benefits they were promised with their lifetime passes as somehow being a boon to young families. Read the NFRA statement HERE.

Crooks.

What's most important in these letters: -
1) For the first time ever, Crandall openly refers to the corporate takeover of Public Lands, giving ARC credit for its central role in establishing Fee Demo and the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, or R.A.T. (Recreation Access Tax), and states the support of ARC for privatization of public lands along with charging prices for recreation at the same rates as private corporations do.
Even some members of ARC are against increasing fees, especially members of RV groups like the Family Motorcoach Association and the Good Sam Club, many of whom are seniors. They have seen the value of their retirement savings plummet and they rely on their discount to make camping affordable. All citizens need a fair level of access in return for funds supplied by our taxes.
2) The NFRA statement makes clear that the policy changes being proposed by the Forest Service are originating with them for the benefit of the firms they represent, and that the Forest Service is merely acting as their front man. There is no public benefit to the policy changes, only benefits to private interests.

Some pro-fee supporters say that the US Forest Service is short of funds and therefore continually increased fees are essential for its basic operations, which include the expense of fire-fighting. However, their recreation budget is separate from fire and the overall funding for the USFS is not only substantially ahead of inflation but has increased by over 60% since 2000.

So, what can we do?
Here are three suggestions which would be a great help at this important time, when a bill to REPEAL the R.A.T. (S.868) is pending in Congress: -
1) write letters to the editor or Guest Editorials about ending these ever-increasing fees, and keeping Public Land accessible to everyone, especially seniors and the disabled.
2) pass this on to anyone you know who could help in this important effort.
3) if you are an RV owner, tell your organization to let ARC know of your opposition to the fee increases.

Source: Western Slope No Fee Coalition

GOOD NEWS: WASHINGTON RESPONDS!
Idaho's entire congressional delegation, consisting of Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Congressmen Mike Simpson and Walt Minnick, have formed a united front against the ARC and NFRA plan to increase fees to use public lands, and have sent a letter to USFS Chief Tidwell about this.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has also publicly asked the Forest Service to continue the discounts that were promised to seniors and the disabled when they obtained their lifetime passes.

Having the entire Idaho delegation united on this issue is very impressive, much like the bi-partisan sponsorship of the bill to repeal the R.A.T. (Senator Crapo, R-ID with Senators Baucus and Tester, D-MT).

Senator Wyden (D-OR) plays a pivotal role as Chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the Forest service.

Such agreement, pretty rare these days, reflects voters' opinions on the Public Land fee situation very well: we're all in this together. Chief Tidwell would be wise to heed the advice of these five powerful members of Congress.

Source: Western Slope No Fee Coalition