JoseCuervo
New member
Is this just an example of good "user fees", or "double taxation"? Or is this maybe just another way to get $$$ to an underfunded agency? These Demonstration fees just target Rafters, Backpackers from designated trail heads, and I think some cross country skiers. Other Forest users are not charged. And the rate charged is not the same. A rafter is charged by the day, and a hiker is just charged once.
If I go down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, or the Main, I get charged $5/per person/ per day. Doesn't seem like much, until you write a $540 check to the Fores Circus, to use a river flowing through a Wilderness.
Sunday Statesman Article
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
’You play and pay’:
Recreation fees raise revenue, controversy
Congress to decide what to do with pilot program started in 1996
Pete Zimowsky
The Idaho Statesman
When Carla Chambers and Kristin Aldrich launched a raft on the Main fork of the Payette River at the Banks recreation site, they paid $3 for the opportunity to use the parking lot, restroom and launch area.
Hikers who park at trailheads in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area pay $5 for maintained trails, restrooms and interpretive sites.
Rafters on the Middle and Main forks of the Salmon River in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness pay $5 per person per day for boat ramps, road maintenance and river patrols.
These rafters and hikers are a few of 364 million recreationists nationwide who pay to use public lands and outdoor recreation amenities.
It´s part of the federal government´s 8-year-old Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, a pilot program created to raise funds for improvements for facilities like outhouses and boat ramps in about 300 areas across the country. It was started because of the increased popularity of outdoor activities and shrinking federal funds.
Congress is debating whether to introduce legislation to extend the controversial program, make it permanent or modify it. The program is scheduled to end Sept. 30, 2004. It has already been extended four times.
Reaction to the pilot program has been “overwhelmingly negative,” said Mike Tracy, communication director for U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.
“People have been frustrated by the whole project,” Tracy said, “They want it to go away.”
But federal land managers and some recreationists like the fees. The program has generated $920 million since it started and has paid out $633 million for recreation-site improvements and maintenance, said Lee Larson, a recreation manager with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Washington, D.C.
About $3 million has been raised at four major fee demo sites in southern Idaho. The latest figures show that, to date, about $1.26 million of that has been spent on improvements at southern Idaho rec fee demo sites — $756,000 in fiscal year 2002 alone.
Federal law mandates that revenues from recreation fees are spent at the site where they were collected. They don´t go into the U.S. Treasury. But money also can be carried over from year to year on local projects.
The projects would not have been possible without rec fees because of Congress´ squeeze on national recreation budgets.
“Congress has not given us appropriations (for recreation), and fees have made a big difference,” Larson said.
He said .001 percent of the total taxes collected goes to the nation´s recreation budget.
The U.S. Forest Service recreation budget, for example, gets 29 cents of every $1,000 in taxes paid by U.S. citizens, according to Forest Service recreation economists.
But critics say Congress should appropriate money from tax revenues to fully support federal recreation programs and that the recreation fee is merely another tax.
“It´s double taxation,” said Will Caldwell of Ketchum.
He is one of the leading critics of the fees and president of the board of the Idaho Sporting Congress, a group that supports protection of the state´s forests.
Caldwell, a hiker and artist who likes to paint natural landscapes, says he believes there is a deeper agenda for the recreation fees.
He sees the program as a grander scheme to “hand over a lot of the management of national forests to private industry and create more of a theme park (atmosphere).”
About 75 percent of the campgrounds in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area are operated by concessionaires, or private companies, which means they handle day-to-day operations at the campgrounds.
He fears that the fees give federal agencies the go-ahead to build facilities that aren´t needed.
“We were just fine with dirt parking lots. Now we have paved parking lots,” he said.
He says management of forest lands now is less for the protection of natural values and free access for all Americans and more about income-generating potential.
Caldwell isn´t alone in his opposition of the program. Tracy from Craig´s office said reaction at public meetings and comments coming into the senator´s office have been 75 percent to 85 percent against the program.
But some recreationists gladly pay. Several whitewater boaters questioned at the Banks launch site on the Payette River said the fees are OK if they help pay for restrooms and other improvements.
“I don´t mind paying the $3,” said Chambers, as she pumped up a raft recently at the Payette River recreation site north of Boise.
“I wouldn´t want to pay any more than that,” Aldrich said.
Both are Boise State University students from Canada who rafted the Payette River in summer. The river was one of the first areas in the state where the Rec Fee Demo program was initiated.
Pay ... or get a ticket
Caldwell, who hikes in the Sawtooths, doesn´t pay fees and encourages others not to pay.
Recreationists who don´t pay the fees are given a ticket with an envelope so they can drop the fee off at a ranger station or send it in the mail.
If they ignore the ticket, they are contacted by federal law enforcement officers and could be fined up to $100.
The Forest Service says it gets about 85 percent compliance in the Payette River area, 66 percent in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and 99 percent for the Middle and Main forks of the Salmon River in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.
The fees are easier to collect at the launching points for the wilderness rivers, which are similar to toll booths.
Rafters can´t get on the the Middle Fork or Main Salmon rivers without a permit through a lottery. Once they get the permit, they have to pay the rec fees or they don´t float the river.
Other sites, such as those along the Payette River or in the Sawtooths, must be patrolled to make sure users have parking permits.
Why the program started
The Rec Fee Demonstration Program was created by Congress in the mid-´90s when federal agencies started having trouble funding improvements at recreation sites. Money wasn´t keeping pace with demand because of Congress´ plan to cut the cost of government and balance the federal budget.
In the national forests of the Intermountain Region, which includes the Payette River system and southern Idaho, annual federal funds started dropping from about $19 million to $18 million because of budget cuts.
But demand for recreation sites continued to grow and so did the cost of operating and maintaining them, said Vicki Jo Lawson, recreation business planner with the Intermountain Region of the Forest Service in Ogden, Utah. That office is the regional office for national forests in southern Idaho.
At that time, other types of recreation besides hunting, fishing and camping were becoming more popular, she said.
The Forest Service had to start planning for the increased popularity of activities such as mountain biking and whitewater rafting. “There are new uses taking time and attention,” she said. “We didn´t have much out there.”
There were no formal launch and take-out sites along the Payette River system. River rafters were getting out of the Main Payette River on the shoulder of busy Idaho 55 before the Beehive Bend parking lot was built.
With those and other needs for recreational improvements, Congress started the program in 1996.
The program gives federal land-management agencies, like the Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the authority to charge fees for recreation use.
By 1999, newly initiated rec fees started making up the shortfall, and recreation funding, including tax dollars and rec fees, was up to about $23 million for the Intermountain Region.
The Payette River was one of the early projects. From 1998 to 2002, $224,347 has been raised in the Payette River System. Of that total, outfitters paid $94,177 in user fees.
So far, about $168,985 has been spent in the area on recreation improvements.
The Sawtooth National Forest has collected $467,900 since the program started and has spent about $400,000.
The Middle Fork/Main Salmon Rec Fee Demo Project has collected $2.15 million since it started. Total expenditures are not clear, but expenses for fiscal year 2002 were listed at $572, 600.
Despite what agency recreation managers see as successes, critics argue that administration costs are too high. The cost of collecting the fees averages about 20 percent of the total collection nationwide.
But land managers say the program is worth it.
“We really need these fees,” said BLM´s Lee Larson.
“I can´t see that Congress is going to let it drop.”
About $175.7 million was collected nationwide in 2002 and resulted in $159.7 million in recreational improvements that year.
“It´s brought the money right to the ground so we can enhance the facilities and maintain them better,” said Kay Schiepan, the Idaho state recreation outdoor planner for the BLM.
Molly Mettler, a whitewater boater from Boise, simply said, “I think we have to pay dues.”
“You play and pay,” Larson said.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
If I go down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, or the Main, I get charged $5/per person/ per day. Doesn't seem like much, until you write a $540 check to the Fores Circus, to use a river flowing through a Wilderness.
Sunday Statesman Article
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
’You play and pay’:
Recreation fees raise revenue, controversy
Congress to decide what to do with pilot program started in 1996
Pete Zimowsky
The Idaho Statesman
When Carla Chambers and Kristin Aldrich launched a raft on the Main fork of the Payette River at the Banks recreation site, they paid $3 for the opportunity to use the parking lot, restroom and launch area.
Hikers who park at trailheads in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area pay $5 for maintained trails, restrooms and interpretive sites.
Rafters on the Middle and Main forks of the Salmon River in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness pay $5 per person per day for boat ramps, road maintenance and river patrols.
These rafters and hikers are a few of 364 million recreationists nationwide who pay to use public lands and outdoor recreation amenities.
It´s part of the federal government´s 8-year-old Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, a pilot program created to raise funds for improvements for facilities like outhouses and boat ramps in about 300 areas across the country. It was started because of the increased popularity of outdoor activities and shrinking federal funds.
Congress is debating whether to introduce legislation to extend the controversial program, make it permanent or modify it. The program is scheduled to end Sept. 30, 2004. It has already been extended four times.
Reaction to the pilot program has been “overwhelmingly negative,” said Mike Tracy, communication director for U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.
“People have been frustrated by the whole project,” Tracy said, “They want it to go away.”
But federal land managers and some recreationists like the fees. The program has generated $920 million since it started and has paid out $633 million for recreation-site improvements and maintenance, said Lee Larson, a recreation manager with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Washington, D.C.
About $3 million has been raised at four major fee demo sites in southern Idaho. The latest figures show that, to date, about $1.26 million of that has been spent on improvements at southern Idaho rec fee demo sites — $756,000 in fiscal year 2002 alone.
Federal law mandates that revenues from recreation fees are spent at the site where they were collected. They don´t go into the U.S. Treasury. But money also can be carried over from year to year on local projects.
The projects would not have been possible without rec fees because of Congress´ squeeze on national recreation budgets.
“Congress has not given us appropriations (for recreation), and fees have made a big difference,” Larson said.
He said .001 percent of the total taxes collected goes to the nation´s recreation budget.
The U.S. Forest Service recreation budget, for example, gets 29 cents of every $1,000 in taxes paid by U.S. citizens, according to Forest Service recreation economists.
But critics say Congress should appropriate money from tax revenues to fully support federal recreation programs and that the recreation fee is merely another tax.
“It´s double taxation,” said Will Caldwell of Ketchum.
He is one of the leading critics of the fees and president of the board of the Idaho Sporting Congress, a group that supports protection of the state´s forests.
Caldwell, a hiker and artist who likes to paint natural landscapes, says he believes there is a deeper agenda for the recreation fees.
He sees the program as a grander scheme to “hand over a lot of the management of national forests to private industry and create more of a theme park (atmosphere).”
About 75 percent of the campgrounds in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area are operated by concessionaires, or private companies, which means they handle day-to-day operations at the campgrounds.
He fears that the fees give federal agencies the go-ahead to build facilities that aren´t needed.
“We were just fine with dirt parking lots. Now we have paved parking lots,” he said.
He says management of forest lands now is less for the protection of natural values and free access for all Americans and more about income-generating potential.
Caldwell isn´t alone in his opposition of the program. Tracy from Craig´s office said reaction at public meetings and comments coming into the senator´s office have been 75 percent to 85 percent against the program.
But some recreationists gladly pay. Several whitewater boaters questioned at the Banks launch site on the Payette River said the fees are OK if they help pay for restrooms and other improvements.
“I don´t mind paying the $3,” said Chambers, as she pumped up a raft recently at the Payette River recreation site north of Boise.
“I wouldn´t want to pay any more than that,” Aldrich said.
Both are Boise State University students from Canada who rafted the Payette River in summer. The river was one of the first areas in the state where the Rec Fee Demo program was initiated.
Pay ... or get a ticket
Caldwell, who hikes in the Sawtooths, doesn´t pay fees and encourages others not to pay.
Recreationists who don´t pay the fees are given a ticket with an envelope so they can drop the fee off at a ranger station or send it in the mail.
If they ignore the ticket, they are contacted by federal law enforcement officers and could be fined up to $100.
The Forest Service says it gets about 85 percent compliance in the Payette River area, 66 percent in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and 99 percent for the Middle and Main forks of the Salmon River in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.
The fees are easier to collect at the launching points for the wilderness rivers, which are similar to toll booths.
Rafters can´t get on the the Middle Fork or Main Salmon rivers without a permit through a lottery. Once they get the permit, they have to pay the rec fees or they don´t float the river.
Other sites, such as those along the Payette River or in the Sawtooths, must be patrolled to make sure users have parking permits.
Why the program started
The Rec Fee Demonstration Program was created by Congress in the mid-´90s when federal agencies started having trouble funding improvements at recreation sites. Money wasn´t keeping pace with demand because of Congress´ plan to cut the cost of government and balance the federal budget.
In the national forests of the Intermountain Region, which includes the Payette River system and southern Idaho, annual federal funds started dropping from about $19 million to $18 million because of budget cuts.
But demand for recreation sites continued to grow and so did the cost of operating and maintaining them, said Vicki Jo Lawson, recreation business planner with the Intermountain Region of the Forest Service in Ogden, Utah. That office is the regional office for national forests in southern Idaho.
At that time, other types of recreation besides hunting, fishing and camping were becoming more popular, she said.
The Forest Service had to start planning for the increased popularity of activities such as mountain biking and whitewater rafting. “There are new uses taking time and attention,” she said. “We didn´t have much out there.”
There were no formal launch and take-out sites along the Payette River system. River rafters were getting out of the Main Payette River on the shoulder of busy Idaho 55 before the Beehive Bend parking lot was built.
With those and other needs for recreational improvements, Congress started the program in 1996.
The program gives federal land-management agencies, like the Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the authority to charge fees for recreation use.
By 1999, newly initiated rec fees started making up the shortfall, and recreation funding, including tax dollars and rec fees, was up to about $23 million for the Intermountain Region.
The Payette River was one of the early projects. From 1998 to 2002, $224,347 has been raised in the Payette River System. Of that total, outfitters paid $94,177 in user fees.
So far, about $168,985 has been spent in the area on recreation improvements.
The Sawtooth National Forest has collected $467,900 since the program started and has spent about $400,000.
The Middle Fork/Main Salmon Rec Fee Demo Project has collected $2.15 million since it started. Total expenditures are not clear, but expenses for fiscal year 2002 were listed at $572, 600.
Despite what agency recreation managers see as successes, critics argue that administration costs are too high. The cost of collecting the fees averages about 20 percent of the total collection nationwide.
But land managers say the program is worth it.
“We really need these fees,” said BLM´s Lee Larson.
“I can´t see that Congress is going to let it drop.”
About $175.7 million was collected nationwide in 2002 and resulted in $159.7 million in recreational improvements that year.
“It´s brought the money right to the ground so we can enhance the facilities and maintain them better,” said Kay Schiepan, the Idaho state recreation outdoor planner for the BLM.
Molly Mettler, a whitewater boater from Boise, simply said, “I think we have to pay dues.”
“You play and pay,” Larson said.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
