Federal land management agencies have been collecting fees – on an experimental basis – for a long time. These “demo” fees cover only select areas, usually those that are highly popular with the public.
Critics of this program, authorized by Congress a decade ago, claim use of these areas should be free since we all already pay federal taxes to support our public lands. Apparently, none of these critics have ever had to clean out an outhouse. Or rebuild a trail worn down by motorized and non-motorized mountain trail vehicles. Or operated shuttle buses to get people up to see the Maroon Bells while trying to preserve high country air quality.
Take a drive down Rampart Range Road southwest of Denver in the height of summer. You’ll find hundreds of camper pickups, small house trailers and motor homes set up along both sides of a 20-mile stretch of the road. Armor-clad men, women and children hover around these campsites – all of them set up to provide support for two- and four-wheeled off-road vehicles (ORV) that tear through the forest from dawn until dusk, seven days a week. You can only imagine the maintenance costs involved for this area, which has been specially designated for ORV use.
For years, U.S. Forest Service personnel could be found at the head of Rampart Range Road with cans, essentially begging for money from anyone who drove through the area. To the credit of ORV enthusiasts, their groups work with the Forest Service in maintaining the trails and facilities in the area. And rightly so. It’s their playground. They put up their time and money to support the area.
Now multiply Rampart Range Road by thousands of times and you’ve got the picture of what our federal land-management agencies face: ever-increasing demand to use our public resources and ever-shrinking federal budgets to pay for their management and maintenance. Congress, cheapskate administrations, and taxpayers who think everything should be free have reduced the dedicated employees of these land-management agencies to beggars. The management agencies have to do something, and charging fees to those who use these public areas is the most logical approach.
The visitors themselves are chief among the problems challenging the people who manage our federal lands. Too many of these visitors are slobs. The next time you take a summer ride, drive up Mount Evans to Echo Lake. Walk the very easy trail that rings this pristine high country body of water. As you walk, peer into the water along the rocky shoreline. You’ll see the many bottles and cans left there by thoughtless people who not only visit our public treasures but also trash them, leaving the cleanup for someone else.
Be observant the next time you take a hike in the woods on some Forest Service trail. You’d think the beer industry was the prime sponsor of our national forests, based on the number of empty cans you find along the way. But the brewers did team up with other business interests in Colorado to defeat attempts at enacting mandatory deposit laws that help get those empties into the recycle stream rather than the trout stream. You think this notion is a stretch? Take a hike in a state with a deposit law. You’ll see far fewer empty beverage containers.
Are the special-use fees hard on people with low and fixed income? You bet. There are easy ways to help those who can least afford their visits to these public lands. Several reduced-fee programs already are in place. And consider the alternative advocated by some: privatizing our public resources. Imagine what those user fees would be then?
Denver writer Richard J. Schneider is a former Colorado journalist who covered natural resource issues.
