Public-lands fee program needs to be re-examined

Public-lands fee program needs to be re-examined

July 5, 2001

It’s a balmy summer evening in Cortez, and you decide to head to Centennial Park to take a stroll and maybe feed the ducks in the pond.

But when you pull into the parking lot and get out of your car, you’re startled to see a toll booth at the main sidewalk with a sign saying, "Park admission: $5 per person."

Such a scenario is patently absurd. No one expects to pay to take a walk in a city park. The area belongs to all of us; we support it through our taxes, and in return we have the right to enjoy it freely, as long as we don’t do damage.

But when it comes to federally owned public lands, the story is different. In an increasing number of places, Americans have to pay to hike, bike, or drive in scenic areas — even though those areas are also supported through taxes.

The Recreational Fee Demonstration Program, adopted by Congress in 1996, made major changes in fee policies on public lands. It allowed certain national parks, national monuments, and sites on BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service lands to retain most or all of the fees they collected rather than throwing them back into the general fund. That way, the monies could be used directly to benefit each area by funding road improvements, interpretive sites, refurbished facilities, and so on.

As a result, fees were upped at many areas that were already charging them, and were instituted at other areas where entrance had always been free.

One such site is Yankee Boy Basin, a high-elevation area near Ouray popular with motorists, hikers and mountain-climbers. Recently the Forest Service announced it would begin charging admission to the formerly free area: $5 for vehicles, $2.50 for mountain bikes, motorcycles and ATVs.

On Saturday, the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition is having a demonstration at Yankee Boy to protest the new fees and the fee program in general.

The protesters’ concerns are legitimate.

It’s difficult to object to charging a fee at heavily visited, highly developed areas such as national parks. Sites like Mesa Verde and the Anasazi Heritage Center, both of which participate in the fee-demo program, offer many amenities and require considerable maintenance. The national parks have a long tradition of charging fees and few people want to change that, so long as the prices remain reasonable.

But when fees are expanded to BLM lands and national forests, it’s time to worry. Will users be expected to shoulder a bigger and bigger share of the burden of caring for public lands, while Congress stints those areas in its budget? Will parks and forests try to lure ever-increasing numbers of visitors just to fatten the coffers? And don’t such fees run counter to the entire concept of public lands?

Supporters of the program like to say that $5 or $10 or even $20 is not too much to charge for a visit to a popular site, compared to the cost of, say, going to a movie. But the fact is that many folks can’t afford to go to first-run movies. And movie theaters aren’t supported by taxes; public lands are.

Many of the items that fee-demo monies are paying for are things that ought to be routinely funded by Congress. According to a Forest Service website, the service had spent $42 million in fee-demo revenues as of Sept. 30, 1999. Thirty-one percent of that went for general operations such as garbage pick-up and cleaning restrooms. Why should such utterly routine maintenance depend on collections from visitors?

The Yankee Boy protest may be a sign that citizens are growing concerned about the broadening scope of the fee-demo program, and rightly so.

Clearly, national parks and other public lands need and deserve increased funding. But the bulk of that funding should come from Congress. If there’s money to give everyone a tax refund, there’s money to pay for the maintenance and care of our national treasures without expecting every hiker to dip into his pocket when he wants to take a stroll.