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This year, June 15 has been declared a day of protest against the user fees that keep appearing on public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
The user fees -- collected from people who hike, park or
drive in certain areas -- were approved a limited trial
basis
a few years ago, and of course, they haven't gone
away.
Indeed, Congress is currently considering not just continuation, but expansion. After all, the argument goes, recreationists create demands for everything from toilet paper to road maintenance, so why shouldn't they pay?
But if our public lands start operating that way, with their income coming from admission fees, then their managers will be tempted to start competing for the entertainment dollar by building gaudy new facilities to attract more paying customers.
After that happens, there won't be much that's natural or wild on the public lands, and that prospect has many people concerned.
Among those concerned people is Scott Silver of Bend,
Ore. He's the main mover of an anti-user-fee group called
Wild Wilderness (wildwilderness.org), which believes
that America's public recreation lands are a national
treasure that must be financially supported by the American
people,
not a commodity to be repackaged, marketed
and sold in the form of value-added recreation
products.
To make this opposition to user fees more visible, Wild
Wilderness has declared this June 15 a national day of
action
-- the action being some widespread protests and
rallies against the fees.
The announced protests extend from New Hampshire, where
protesters plan to fill a coffin with fee material and nail
it shut at the Lincoln Woods Trailhead, to Union Square in
San Francisco, where a sidewalk demonstration fee
collection booth will be erected.
Protests and rallies are also planned at the state capitol in Salt Lake City, along the road up Mt. Evans in Colorado, at Lee's Ferry in Arizona and at least a dozen other places. The protesters will be mounted at Kalamoa Horse Camp near Cougar, Wash., and the most creative demonstration might be the one scheduled in Durango, Colo.
Its organizers have observed that Congress appropriates
millions to build fancy toilets
on public lands, but
only pennies to buy toilet paper and manage public
lands,
and user fees are supposed to make up the
difference. And so they're mailing rolls of toilet paper
to Rep. James Hansen of Utah, chairman of the House
Resources Committee.
Despite all this effort, it's entirely possible that Congress will expand the user-fee program. And in that case, perhaps the best way to fight it might be demand refunds on those occasions when you don't get your money's worth. Just imagine this future scene in a regional office of the not-yet-established Bureau of Interior Revenue:
We'd like a total refund of our 14-day Western
public-land recreation fees. Our vacation was a
disaster.
Could you explain your problems, so that I can get
you the proper forms for you to fill out?
When we first pulled into Denver, we paid the Scenic
View Fee, but the smog was so bad that we couldn't even see
Lookout Mountain, let alone Mount Evans or Pike's
Peak.
Sorry. We don't have any control over atmospheric
conditions, but we have to charge anyway, just in case
somebody gets a breath-taking glimpse of the Front
Range.
Okay. We went camping after that. First there were
fire restrictions, so we couldn't have a campfire. What's
a camp without a campfire?
I'm sorry, sir, but we do need to protect our
forests.
Maybe you do. But then it rained. When it wasn't
rain, it was mud. We didn't even take our mountain bikes
out, so why should we pay the trail fee?
But you could have used the trails, so we have to
charge. I'm sorry, but we just don't have enough personnel
to examine your tires on entry and exit and then calculate
an appropriate trail mileage charge based on wear.
Dad, tell 'em about the missing marmot.
Right. The campground brochure said we'd see these
furry creatures called marmots and not to feed them. Our
little Sally looked and looked, but she never saw even
one.
Wrong time of year. You can't expect a bunch of
trained woodchucks.
And on our way back, we drove 30 miles out of our way
to a scenic overlook, and for the life of me, I don't know
what there was to see there.
Sir, please. Now, if you'll just start filling out
this Form UFRR-2781 ...
As we all know, venturing into the great outdoors means taking some risks that things won't turn out as planned. And if we have to pay, then we ought to be able to demand refunds, and the resulting volume of paperwork just might convince the government to give up on user fees -- just in case those June 15 protests don't work.
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