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Recreation Fees Here to Stay in Bush's Budget



N.S. NOKKENTVED THE OLYMPIAN
President Bush's proposed federal budget would make permanent a controversial recreation fee on public lands.
The program has sparked varied reaction from outdoors enthusiasts. Some hate it, some accept it grudgingly and others support it.

Making the program permanent would make it easier for Congress to justify large cuts in agency budgets, said Mat Erpelding, 28, who runs The Evergreen State College's Outdoor Program.

It would set a precedent that the Forest Service and other federal land management agencies should be revenue-generating machines. Funding those agencies still is a taxpayer function, Erpelding said.

Congress approved the fee program in 1996 as a three-year demonstration program -- known to some as fee-demo.

The program went into effect in 1997 and established recreation fees on public lands across the country managed by the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The program has since been extended and is authorized through 2004.

Some South Sound hikers said that:

- Fees turn outdoor recreation into a commodity.

- Taxes already support public lands and should include recreation.

- Fees collected are supposed to go to trail maintenance, but they still see volunteers doing a lot of trail maintenance.

Others say they don't mind paying if the money is spent locally and the government charges a simple, single recreation fee.

"I don't mind paying, but don't nickel-and-dime me to death," Rob Plankers of Olympia told The Olympian recently.

In the Olympic National Forest, the pass is required to park at trailheads only. It is required to park at marked trailheads, turnouts, picnic areas and similar sites in Gifford Pinchot and other Northwest forests and the North Cascades National Park.

For Olympic and Mount Rainier national parks, the program means the parks get to keep more of the money collected at entrances.

The program encourages decisions that bring more people rather than protecting the resources the parks were established to preserve, critics say.

Federal land managers say the program provides a source of money for maintenance.