Group urges commissioners to fight fee-demo program

Group urges commissioners to fight fee-demo program

Sept. 13, 2001

By Jim Mimiaga
Journal Staff Writer

On Monday, the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition urged the Montezuma County commissioners to join them in their fight against a federal fee program that charges citizens to enter some public lands.

"We are lobbying for the federal government to continue full funding appropriations for our national public lands with tax dollars that we know are already there, not through fees," said Robert Funkhouser of the coalition.

"It is an unfair burden to make citizens pay to visit our public lands when we have already paid taxes for their management purposes."

The group urged a resolution against the so-called fee-demonstration program, initiated in 1996 as a trial system. As reasons for abolishing the program, they cited double taxation and a shift in policy that alters the basic premise that public lands are freely accessible to the taxpaying community.

"It sets a bad precedent and affects a traditional way of life for all Americans," said Rudy Ortiz. "Do we want a system where we have to pay to have a picnic or each time we want to go on a hike or on a mountain drive?"

The program is supposed to gauge the public’s willingness to pay to play on public lands, and Forest Service managers have reported that there is good support.

Critics at the meeting questioned that claim because there is no mechanism to tell how many people choose to avoid public lands because of the fee. Violators who don’t pay fees face a $100 fine.

Public-lands officials say heavy-use areas need supplemental funds to keep up with maintenance of long-neglected bathrooms, campgrounds, roads and trails used by hikers, bikers and off-roaders. Fees were initiated to help to deal with that; 80 percent of the money is supposed to benefit the toll-use area.

But fiscal reports of the program show that the fees collected go toward routine management previously funded by taxes, not necessarily for the improvement of deteriorated areas.

"It is supposed to be for dealing with the backlog, but that is clearly not happening," Ortiz said. "What we found is, for every fee dollar collected, the government takes away a budgeted dollar, so their argument is very contrived. More funding is needed, no doubt, but the fee program fails by leading to even more budget constraints."

According to the latest report on fee-demo funds allocation, 80 percent went to routine operations normally funded by annual budgets. Thirty-two percent of that went to paying fee collectors, fee-area signs and fee enforcement. Only 12 percent went towards upgrading facilities, while 4 percent went to resource preservation and habitat improvement.

Locally there are several fee-demo programs on BLM or Forest Service lands: The Anasazi Heritage Center, Yankee Boy Basin near Ridgeway, and in southeast Utah, all of Cedar Mesa, including the popular Grand Gulch Primitive Area. Some national parks and monuments, including Mesa Verde and Hovenweep, are also participating in the program.

Signed under President Clinton, the program has since been expanded to include several hundred sites nationwide. It was supposed to be reviewed in 1998, but the program was extended without meaningful public comment, the coalition against it said.

A current bill in the House would authorize it for another four years.

Two protests against fee-demo were held earlier this year at the Yankee Boy toll, which charges $5 per car, and $2 per mountain bike. Fifty persons entered without a pass and were ticketed; they are scheduled for a federal court hearing in Grand Junction on Sept. 18.

"It discriminates against poor people and is it a matter of principle. At first it is $2, then $5, then up and up until we get priced out of our own lands. We are owners of the public lands, not customers," said Jan Holt.

The role of rangers as stewards of the land also is minimized under fee-demo, said Skip Edwards, a former ranger in Utah and Colorado.

"Remember when rangers used to be like Smokey the Bear? They would answer questions about the land and direct you to trailheads. Well, with this, they become armed law enforcement coming towards you with a ticket book to check if you have pass to your own land."

The group said that the recreation industry wants to commercialize public tax-supported lands for profit, at citizen expense. Concerns that the federal government wants to redirect tax dollars traditionally budgeted for managing public lands towards other projects like the costly missile defense system were also voiced.

"The government should not give a tax break and then charge a fee to compensate a budget shortage," one man said.

Commissioner Kelly Wilson said that loggers and ranchers have to pay for a permit, so why not recreationists?

"Those business interests are making money off public-land resources, which is not the case for someone going on a hike or a four-wheel drive on Sunday," responded coalition member Kitty Benzar.

"This (fee-demo) forever changes our public-land philosophy of collective ownership," added Edwards. "The tax money is there, and Congress needs to be pressured by its constituents so that funding stays adequate. Government bodies like yours can help reduce the snowball effect."