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Pay to Play? ABSOLUTELY!

It's My Opinion & You're Entitled To It

By Dennis Pierce

Found in: | Inside | Politics | Jeeping |

In the mid-50's, it was generally acknowledged that population of the United States was about 150 million people. The 2000 census puts the population at 290 million and counting. Throw in the estimated 11 million illegal aliens and it's a given that the U.S. population has doubled in 50 years.

Unfortunately, our ability to care for public lands has not kept pace with the population explosion. Results of outsourcing have been mixed and budgets are being squeezed. In other words, there are too damn many people using our public lands and not enough money to maintain the infrastructure.

Fee Demo was an idea whose time had come. Unfortunately, like a lot of government projects, this one was poorly presented by the powers that be. And, the devil was in the details. Quite frankly, I was miffed when a group of my friends were charged five bucks a car to park at a campground so that they could hike a quarter of a mile to an in holding I own for a Labor Day picnic. To be fair, $4.25 of the parking fee went to maintain a nice vault toilet at that campground.

Not long after the Fee Demo was established, a group of hikers, bikers, horseback riders and off-roaders put together an organization to fight the Fee Demo process. There are now several organizations in the Southwest putting forth propaganda regarding the Fee Demo issue.

No Fee protests generally were based on the premise that public lands were paid for with tax money and additional fees amounted to double taxation. If one is to buy that argument, why would anyone put money in parking meters to use space on public streets that were built and maintained by tax payer dollars?

Several years ago, protests and civil disobedience at several Fee Demo sites resulted in citations that were later dropped by the Forest Service (USFS). As part of the settlement, one of the organizations referred to in an earlier paragraph consented to have volunteers monitor the area in question. I was in that area several times this past summer and it's a disaster. Excessive rains created puddles that drivers went around, thus making a two-track road three times wider than necessary. Where were the monitors advising people to follow Tread Lightly! principles?

When HR 3283 was passed in early 2005 as a rider on an omnibus bill making the Fee Demo program permanent, the people fighting fee demo went ballistic. Like most people and groups that are anti-something or another, nobody came forward to offer an alternative that would establish additional funding for the USFS and Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Those who complain that off-highway vehicles (OHV) are damaging the public lands might want to consider that Fee Demo funding could pay for additional enforcement officers to patrol sensitive areas.

What's wrong with a federal excise tax to be used exclusively for maintaining infrastructure on public lands applied to four-wheel-drive vehicles, ATV's, mountain bikes, tents, hiking boots and other products used in the pursuit of recreation on public lands?

The fact that many recreational users of public lands have been paying user fees for years is ignored by the anti-fee groups. The National Park Service charges entry fees at Mesa Verde, Yellowstone, etc. Remember that family sleigh ride through the National Forest last Christmas? Included in the price of the ride was the outfitter's fee to the USFS or BLM for the permit. The guide that puts together fly fishing trips on a river or lake on public lands took into consideration his or her federal outfitter fees when the price is set to the consumer.

The price of admission to use our public lands is a mere pittance when compared to the price of a couple of Happy Meals at McDonalds. Many of the people working against fees for using public lands, when pressed, generally admit that they pay little or no income taxes! By the way, I have no problem extending the Golden Age Passport issued to people 62 years or older from $10 to $20 to include admission to Fee Demo areas.

Finally, the hue and cry by the anti-fee groups that the USFS and BLM are selling out our public lands to corporate America is nothing more than a public relations' ploy to secure donations from environmentalists in my opinion.

Paying to play, or camp, or hike or 'wheel on public lands is something we need to do before we get further behind on maintaining public lands infrastructure. Otherwise we're going to leave our children and grandchildren our memories of recreation on public lands instead of them creating their own experiences in the future.

A 20-year resident of southwest Colorado, Dennis Pierce is a retired advertising and marketing guru, and a charter member and two-term board member of Tread Lightly!