Forests for Fat
Cats?
Forests for
Fat Cats? Backcountry for billionaires? Mountains for moguls?
Call it
what you will, but the move by the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona to
charge "market fees" for camps leased to organizations like the
Boy Scouts of America is a holdup.
The Forest
Service needs no mask or gun to steal candy from babies. All it has to do
is mail the bill.
However,
the blame for the move may be misplaced. The Forest Service says it is
simply complying with a federal law that requires it to collect
fair-market value for its lands.
The
congressmen and senators who approved that law should step up and take the
credit—or damnation—for it.
Sure, the
Forest Service has leased its lands to private individuals for giveaway
rates for too many years. Worse, its low-buck rates enriched individuals
with mountaintop or lakeside cabins at the expense of the public.
Camps for
kids are different.
In Arizona,
the lease fee for the Mount Lemmon Boy Scout Camp near Tucson would rise
from $4,500 to $71,000. That’s a lot more money than a few more Saturday
car washes will generate.
To be fair,
the Forest Service says that groups that cater to children or the poor can
apply for reductions.
Yet, faced
with the federal law and the tempting fair-market values, what will the
Forest Service choose? Fat cats with fat wallets or a bunch of
bologna-eating kids?
We think we
know. Faced with a similar dilemma little more than a decade ago, the
state of Idaho chose to sell off camp land on Payette Lake near McCall to
a private developer.
Lawmakers
and the U.S. Forest Service should re-think this greed grab before the
nation’s public lands become defacto gated communities with entrance
granted only to the wealthy.