EVADA FOCUS: Plan would impose fees for hiking on public lands
GREGORY CROFTON, Tahoe Daily Tribune
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
©2003 Associated Press


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(11-25) 23:58 PST SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) --

Pay to hike on national forest lands that surround Lake Tahoe? Pay to
hike on land your tax dollars paid for?

How about a $5 day pass or an annual pass for $35 to drive a car to
your favorite forest and hike a trail?

That could become a standard if new proposed federal legislation gains
support.

It would expand and make permanent a program created in 1996 to help
federal land management agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service, pay
to maintain and install such things as trails, toilets, showers and
explanatory signs.

The legislation was introduced in October by Rep. Ralph Regula,
D-Ohio. He was the architect of the 1996 program which was considered
temporary. President Bush recently extended the trial run for the
program by signing an appropriations bill extending it through
December 2005.

Regula's bill, HR3283, is called the Federal Lands Recreation
Enhancement Act and will not likely be heard until next year. One way
it would expand the fee program is through something called "America
the Beautiful -- the National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands
Pass." It would allow entry into all fee restricted federal land with
the purchase of one pass.

South Lake Tahoe residents didn't seem surprised when they heard about
the proposal. Ralph Melhorn, 48, said national forest land is
increasingly a place where people throw garbage and having extra funds
to clean up the trash might not be a bad thing.

"That's a tricky one," Melhorn said. "But I'd have to decide according
to what's in the fine print ... then you'd have to pay somebody to man
the money."

Danny McKenna, 18, had just returned from hiking and snowboarding on
Mount Tallac. He rejected the proposal.

"I wouldn't be down with that," McKenna said. "If I have to pay five
bucks each time, no."

Tom Royce, 57, said he doesn't believe the money collected would end
up funding projects that make a difference to fee payers, like
installing showers at a campground. And he doesn't support fees for
camping on undeveloped forest land.

"If they want people to register for safety, that makes sense," Royce
said. "It's not a lack of funds. It's where the funds go. The Forest
Service can't sell any timber any more because the public doesn't like
that. (The agency) used to operate in the black."

The Forest Service is not the only federal agency participating in the
fee program. It also includes the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation.
The Forest Service manages nearly 80 percent of the land within the
Lake Tahoe Basin including Desolation Wilderness which sees more than
100,000 visitors a year.

Don Lane of the Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit said
the fee program was instituted for Desolation in 1997 and it has
worked. It generates $130,000 year, of which 85 percent goes directly
back to improvements for the land. Fees are charged on people who stay
overnight, it's free for day use.

The money allows Lane to hire five wilderness rangers to work the
wilderness instead of two. It also pays for an informational trailer
to be set up at Taylor Creek each summer. People who work in the
trailer sell permits for Desolation, $5 a night, and educate the
public about wilderness issues.

"Some people argue 'Why should we have to pay to use public land?"'
Lane said. "In most cases, I understand the argument, but when you
have 100,000 people using a fragile area, there are impacts."

Lane said that since the camping fee went into effect the number of
campers who visit Desolation has dropped about 10 percent.

The fee program is not as well received elsewhere. In Southern
California, the Forest Service charges $5 a day, $35 a year if you
decide to take a car to go use one of four forests. But objections to
the fee have not come from communities next to the forests. Those
residents generally think the fee has cleaned up the forests and made
them safer, said Tamara Wilton, who is in charge of the Forest
Service's fee demonstration program in California.

The agency is in the middle of designing a master plan for the fee
program that will make the fee structures consistent across the
country, Wilton said. The blueprint will include changes like making
access to forests free on certain days of the month and issuing passes
for free to people who volunteer time to maintain a forest.