Opposition mounts to forest user fees

Roger DuBree had heard about the recreational demonstration fee, but the avid motorcyclist--who loves to ride the trails and take care of them--hadn’t given much thought to what the user fee meant to him personally.

Until, he said, he was stopped by a federal officer and questioned about his (lack of) pass.

Now he’s mad and wants to fight the recreational fee demonstration program in the Ketchum Ranger District and the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. The fee program, which is entering its second season, requires all users of the two forest areas to purchase a user pass for $2 per day or $5 annually.

"I’m just a little guy, and I’ve never been involved in anything like this before," he said. "This is just the tip of the iceberg."

DuBree said he and fellow motorcyclists have started a letter-writing campaign to Idaho’s Representatives and Senators and will be circulating a petition among local businesses to get a list of names of others who are opposed.

Another local group, the Committee for Public Access to Public Lands, also has initiated a letter-writing campaign. The group meets regularly to discuss issues that relate to the use of motorized vehicles on Forest Service lands and devoted last Wednesday’s meeting at Power Engineers in Hailey to a discussion of the demo fees.

"The only way to make these [Congress] people believe that this is an issue is to put their jobs on the line," said Ron Beazer, a new member of the organization.

---

"Forrest Gump wouldn’t have been able to carry enough money to run through all the national parks." Ron Beazer

---

The Ketchum Ranger District and SNRA test fee site is one of 57 U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service sites currently charging recreational fees. Congressional legislation allows each land management agency to designate up to 100 test sites, for a maximum of 400 sites across the country.

No national forest test fee demo areas have been dropped due to public opposition, said Linda Feldman, program manager for the Forest Service.

"This isn’t just our area, it’s a nationwide thing," Beazer said. "Forrest Gump wouldn’t have been able to carry enough money to run through all the national parks."

Ketchum Ranger Kurt Nelson, who attended the Committee for Public Access to Public Lands meeting, said opposition and public debate are a part of the whole test fee program.

"I don’t see this as a big citation writing campaign on our part," he said. Rather, he said, it is an opportunity for discussion and reflection on how, in the future, people want their land management agencies to proceed.

"I’ve worked all over the West," Nelson said. "I feel that recreation has been given short shrift in the national forest system.

"Budgets don’t mesh with where people spend their spare time. When it comes to weighing in on a national recreation level, recreationalists just aren’t as organized as commercial interests," he said.

Feldman said overall, public acceptance of the recreational fee demonstration program varies from region to region.

"What we’re finding is that it takes time. People just are not used ot paying fees in their backyards," Feldman said. "In most places there is a lot of documentation that people are accepting it with the caveat that the money comes directly to the ground."

Where there is opposition, she said, it generally stems from the feeling that people should not be charged to use public lands for which they are already being taxed.

Feldman pointed out that for every $1 of tax money, 0.00018 percent of one cent goes for the whole recreation program for forest services nationwide. The Sawtooths, then, get only a fraction of this already minuscule amount.